Refurbished vs New Laptop - Which Should You Get in 2023?

You are planning to buy a laptop and you ask around your friends for some advice. They suggest all sorts of different laptops and someone just tells you to buy a refurbished laptop. But are refurbished laptops good?

You look it up and the price for a refurbished laptop is significantly low than a brand new one.

Now you have tons of questions like what are refurbished products? are refurbished laptops good compared to new ones? Are they real? Etc.

Well, today you are going to get some answers. In this article, we'll take a look at the pros and cons of buying a refurbished vs a new laptop, so that you can make the best decision for your needs. Stay tuned!

What Are Refurbished Products?

Before we go on our quest to understand more about refurbished laptops, we must know what are refurbished products.

You will find refurbished products generally associated with electronics. To understand this, let’s take an example.

Let’s say that you ordered a laptop online. When you received the laptop, you didn’t really like using it or it had some manufacturing defect. So you immediately returned the laptop.

If you look at it from the manufacturer’s perspective, the device is hardly used and is almost new. If it has some manufacturing defect, the manufacturer can easily fix it.

Just by fixing a small mistake, the product is again new and it can be sold at a lower price as nothing in it has been touched by the previous owner.

So refurbished products are the products that are returned to the vendors by the customers for various reasons.

The vendors then renew these products following all the protocols and guidelines. All the refurbished products are tested for any defects and sold to the market only after extensive inspection.

Why Are Refurbished Products So Cheap?

We searched for a refurbished Microsoft Surface Laptop 2 and as you can see, the price difference between a brand new Microsoft Surface Laptop 2 and a refurbished Microsoft Surface Laptop 2 is around US$ 150. Now that is a significant price difference considering that both have the exact same specifications. So why are refurbished products so cheap?

Let’s understand this by example again. So let’s say that you ordered a laptop and it won’t boot up because of some software issue. Because of this, you return it to the vendor. If the vendor could just fix this problem with the software, the laptop will be as good as new. That is what they do, they fix the tiny defects and make the product as good as new.

But since the laptop is now out of the box, it can’t be sold as brand new. As a result, refurbished products are sold at lower prices.

This is good for both the vendor and the customer. As the vendor just has to fix a little issue instead of discarding a complete product and sell it at a cheaper price. As for the customer, they can get a completely new and checked smartphone. It is not obviously brand new but it is cheaper.

Refurbished Laptops vs New Laptop: Everything Answered!

Reasons for Buying a Refurbished Vs New Laptop

There are two main reasons why people buy refurbished laptops: it’s money-saving and environment friendly.

Refurbished laptops can save you a significant amount of money. You see, a good performance laptop will cost around US$ 1000. On the other hand, you can save up to 40% on a refurbished laptop in the same performance segment. Ultimately you can get that US$ 1000 laptop for around US$ 600 to 700.  So you can invest your saved money into other accessories that can come in pretty handy with a laptop.

The second reason is that refurbished laptops are environmentally friendly. See whenever you buy a new laptop, it comes with a lot of plastic and packaging. Also, you add more to the e-waste by buying a new laptop. On the other hand, if you buy a refurbished laptop, you save the environment from extra plastic in brand new packaging. Also, you reduce e-waste.

Knowing More About Refurbished vs New Laptop

Now that we know what refurbished products are, you can have a pretty good idea of what refurbished laptops are. They are the laptops that are returned by the customers to the vendors because of various reasons including manufacturing defects, software problems, etc.

The vendors take these laptops and fix all of the reported issues and sell them as refurbished laptops. Since they are not seal-packed from the manufacturer now, they sell at cheaper prices.

Not only that, many refurbished laptops are showroom models which are no longer in use. Some are open box laptops, then there are some laptops that didn’t meet the standard tests by the manufacturer. All of such laptops can be sold as refurbished laptops.

There are a lot of other scenarios too for refurbished laptops. For example, you might have noticed many vendors offering trade-in offers when you buy a new gadget from them.

They take your old laptop and give you some trade-in discount on the new one. If the laptop that you trade-in is in good condition, the vendor refurbishes it and sells it as a refurbished laptop.

Is It Safe to Buy a Refurbished Laptop?

If you mention that you are planning to buy a refurbished product in front of your friends, chances are you will hear negative things about refurbished products. They will say that refurbished products are defective and slower in terms of performance.

Just so you know, a manufacturer will never release a substandard laptop as refurbished.

Some refurbished laptops might have little scratches on the screen but that has nothing to do with performance.

All the laptops are thoroughly checked for defects and the manufacturers ensure that their performance is on par with the specifications and standards.

Refurbished products are completely safe to buy but only if you buy them through trusted vendors.

If you buy a refurbished product from any random shop, chances are you will get a bad product and this is what has caused a bad image for refurbished products.

So always buy refurbished laptops or any refurbished product from a legitimate and trusted vendor. You can find a lot of them in both offline and online markets.

Things to Consider Before Buying a Refurbished vs New Laptop

• First of all, make sure that you are buying a refurbished laptop from a trusted vendor.
• Most importantly, do note that refurbished laptops do come with a warranty. So just ensure that you get a warranty on your laptop.
• The battery is very important in a laptop. Before buying, ensure that the battery doesn’t have any issues.
• Check the body and the screen and make sure that there are no cracks or big scratches on the body or the screen. It is okay to have some minor scratches on a refurbished laptop. A trusted vendor will ensure that the body and the screen are in good condition.
• Just make a proper assessment for the usage of the laptop. Why do you want it? What tasks will you do with it? Only then select a model that can match the tasks you want to do.
• If you are buying a refurbished laptop online, check for the seller rating and if it is low, avoid buying a laptop from that seller.
• Having a laptop with a running OS is a good sign so only buy a refurbished laptop that comes with the pre-installed OS.

When Should You Consider Buying a Refurbished Laptop?

There are many scenarios in which you might want to consider buying a refurbished laptop. For instance, if you have an old computer that is barely working or not working at all, getting a refurbished laptop isn’t a bad idea.

If you are about to start college and you are on a really tight budget, you can get some great refurbished laptops at an affordable price.

In case you just need a laptop to browse the internet, watch movies, do low-performance tasks, then it won’t really make sense to invest in a brand new laptop, a refurbished one would do the job just fine.

Things You Need to Know About Refurbished Products

• Refurbished or Open Box

  
  Sometimes a customer opens a box and then just returns it. There could be many reasons for it like faulty packaging, or the customer changed their minds. So you now have a product that has not really been used by anyone.
  On the other hand, a refurbished product is something that needs a little bit of repair to remove a manufacturing fault.

• Who Did The Refurbishment
  

  Manufacturers do not always refurbish products. Sometimes it is a third party doing the refurbishment and selling the product. Ideally, you should buy products that are refurbished by the manufacturer as they provide a warranty and use original parts.

• In-Box Accessories?

  

  Many refurbished products come with all of the accessories and that is what you should look for. If your laptop is older, chances are you won’t find its in-box accessories in the market.

Should You Buy a Refurbished Laptop?: Refurbished vs New Laptop

So it comes down to this: Should you buy a brand new laptop or a refurbished one. So here is the bottom line: if you want a laptop for high performance and money isn’t a constraint for you then it’s just better to get a brand new one.

Buying a new laptop is a unique experience on its own and some people do not want to miss it.

On the other hand, if you are on a tight budget and need a good laptop, buying a refurbished laptop is good compared to newer ones. Overall, buying refurbished laptops is good.

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