On this subject of refurbished bits...

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Dan

I recently saw an ad for a retailer w/a local store (no shipping) for a
Refurbished 21" IBM P260 Flat Trinitron Monitor for $149 after $50
rebate. Seems like a pretty good deal to replace my ~10 yo 17" NEC
Multisync XE17. Thoughts?

Dan
 
Dan said:
I recently saw an ad for a retailer w/a local store (no shipping) for
a Refurbished 21" IBM P260 Flat Trinitron Monitor for $149 after $50
rebate. Seems like a pretty good deal to replace my ~10 yo 17" NEC
Multisync XE17. Thoughts?

Dan
Click to expand...

I have 2 refurbished monitors and 1 used monitor. I have 1 refurbished DTS
Home Theater receiver. I'm a refurb fan :-)
 
I recently saw an ad for a retailer w/a local store (no shipping) for a
Refurbished 21" IBM P260 Flat Trinitron Monitor for $149 after $50
rebate. Seems like a pretty good deal to replace my ~10 yo 17" NEC
Multisync XE17. Thoughts?

Dan
Click to expand...

Insufficient info.
For example, what does refurbished mean?
Could've been used in an office all day, every day, maybe
not even turned off at night for several years. Do they
classify it's condition, use a uniform rating scale so you
know if it's all sun-bleached or has carvings in it or
markered-on passwords, etc, etc? People do horrible things
to office equipment that they'd probably not do to their own
stuff.

Could've been 2 1/2 year old with 3 year warranty then
RMA'd, with half it's life gone and half price, it's not a
deal just a pro-rated cost, except for that rebate.

Frankly today I'd not spend that much on a used (umm,
refurbished) CRT, though if that's what you really want does
it at least have a 1 yr. warranty? j If it's not too old, if
they can guarantee a certain date or newer, might be a
reasonable deal.
 
Kony-Agreed. I think I'll go take a look, but I'm guessing they have a
bunch of them all boxed up & will be loathe to pull one after another &
power it up so I can check it out. Thing's a monster & weighs a ton
too, would be a PITA to schlep home only to find out it's a POS.

On the other hand, $149....

Dan
 
Dan said:
I recently saw an ad for a retailer w/a local store (no
shipping) for a Refurbished 21" IBM P260 Flat Trinitron
Monitor for $149 after $50 rebate. Seems like a pretty
good deal to replace my ~10 yo 17" NEC Multisync XE17.
Click to expand...

Don't risk it unless the retailer offers a full money-back guarantee
and you can pay by credit card and because the term "refurbished" means
almost anything, from "barely repaired" to "thoroughly reconditioned,"
with the latter being far more rare.

The chief engineer of Viewsonic's Optiquest division admitted that
refurbished monitors sold by his company were merely repaired because
it was uneconomical to routinely recondition monitors. They weren't
even checked for every operating parameter, something easy for a
manufacturer to perform with an automated testing machine that presses
a bed of needles into the circuit boards.

I've seen good refurbished CRT monitors sold under the Dell and NEC
brands, but people have complained of the poor quality of factory
refurbished Hitachi monitors, and my own experience with 2 factory
refurbished Panasonic monitors in a row was horrendous. The first had
been dropped hard by Panasonic, and they forgot to reconnect 2 safety
grounds cables inside. With the second monitor the picture would
randomly and suddenly change brightness and tilt because a capacitor
was bad or had an unsoldered lead, the front bezel was gouged, and a
large metal shield was left out and caused interference on TV.
Panasonic sent me a new bezel but refused to supply the metal shield,
and they eventually had their legal department harass me. Nonetheless
I recommend Panasonic highly to everyone, just as Sigmund Freud had
recommended the Gestapho.
 
IN GENERAL.... "refurbished" indicates a unit which was purchased and then
returned to the place of purchase during whatever period the merchant
allows. (Example: 30-day no questions asked return policy.) Consumers return
stuff for any number of reasons, from obvious defects to no reason at all.
(My wife recently bought two different "boomboxes" and brought them home to
try out. The loser is going back to the store - at least she had better get
it back within Best-Buy's 30-day policy!)

Under federal statute, it is illegal to resell a returned product as "new."
Hence the volume of refurb units in the market place. Manufacturers have to
take these back from retailers. The units are (usually) tested, repaired if
necessary, and sold as refurbished. My guess is that a high percentage of
the units require no repair or adjustment at all, and will function the same
as new. (Take a look at newegg.com and notice how many products do not allow
you to return them to newegg: for any problems, you must deal with the
manufacturer and you will only get actual repairs to a malfunctioning unit.
Eliminating returns saves manufacturers a huge amount of money - one reason
newegg can sell at relatively low prices.)

My biggest concern with refurbished products is that, in most instances,
they carry a much shorter warranty and, frequently, are not returnable
except for DOA. (My personal experience is that the refurbished power tools
and kitchen small appliances we purchased performed and lasted the same as
new. An e-Machines refurb came with only a 90-day warranty and the DVD/CD-RW
and speakers both crapped out soon thereafter.)

If one estimates the cost savings to a manufacturer of providing a 90-day
warranty instead of a one or three year warranty, plus subtracting the
manufacturers cost of handling the return of a product (no return for the
refurb), we would arrive at an amount close to the price difference between
"new" and "refurbished." In other words, the manufacturer probably is making
nearly the same profit on a refurb as it would on a new unit. That all works
out fine for the manufacturer averaging all this over thousands or millions
of units; but you are buying just one, so it's a crap shoot on whether the
greatly shortened warranty will "bite you."

btw - the advice I have always seen is that when purchasing a monitor, one
should ALWAYS check the performance of the specific unit you will take home
with you. (Apparently there are adjustments necessary to each unit before it
is shipped and on some units it's just not done as well.)

Bill

Mind you, refurb could mean anything at a particular retailer. You can
usually check the manufacture date on a monitor. You can also look at online
reviews and see when the monitor was originally on the market.
 
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