Refurbished XPS 15 L502X Questions

Has anyone here purchased a certified refurbished XPS 15 L502X from the online outlet store? I would like to know how your experience has been with the refurbished laptop and how long you have had it so far. Any information would be greatly appreciated.

 

may some unit has 'unknown problems'. when you buy the computer, most found some problems can't fix then do refund. if ok why refund ? waste the time ?

 

Bought mine from the outlet and the only thing differentiating it from new is the green refurb sticker. Only problem was a stuck pixel but it was an easy fix. I've had it since May of this year. It's my 4th Outlet laptop and they've all been good experiences.





...and the claim that "most found some problems can't fix then do refund" is, as usual, complete and utter nonsense.

 

I recieved a refurbished L702X the L502X big brother and it was in better working order than my brand new L502X was.

The systems they refurbish usually go through pretty good checks for quality and parts and other than not being quite as shiny as a brand new model I have found no big differences.

These systems do have parts that have sometimes been used or returned so the chance of a lemon is always there but you do get limited warranty to replace items you do find are not working. Those situations are also fairly rare since the returned systems are checked very well from what I have read.

Based off reading others experiences and my own with a refurbished machine I think I will be buying my next laptop in a year or 2 from the outlet site to save money.

 

Thanks for the responses guys.

grimreefer1967 I noticed in your sig you had the L502x. I have been looking for similar specs as the one you have. Do you do any gaming at all on your setup? If so, what type of games have you tried? How is the fan noise on the system and how is the cooling? Also, may I ask how you fixed the stuck pixel?

 

My friend has had great experience with refurb dell systems as well. That's where my search started and then he had to mention the Sager/Clevo laptops and I've been going back on forth with the two brands for a couple of days now.

 

It depends what you really like on which one to buy, I found the L502X with the 540M graphics card could play nearly any game although since the native screen was at 1080P I did have to lower my standards and settings to medium on some of the more demanding games but was still very playable.

Old games like WOW got easy 80-90FPS on high settings, newer games like MW3 I was closer to 30-40 FPS with medium settings, and I never bench marked higher demanding games than those but I have read it is playable if you lower your settings properly.

The main differences between the Dell systems and the Sager/Clevo I have found was construction materials. If you want pure performance you can sometimes squeeze out a better video card and other perks with Sager/Clevo but I find alot of the plastics they use have to much flex for my taste. I like the L502X and L702X have the alluminum lid and harder plastics in the construction this does not help the performance but I personally like those differences.

 

Good point on the construction. Does anyone know if a Slim blu-ray drive will work the the L502X if I opt to go with a non blu-ray drive now and I decide to upgrade it later?

 

As far as the stuck pixel goes, The first few days it would show up as a red dot when the computer started and I'd "massage" it for a few seconds until it disappeared. I haven't seen it return in months now.

Games - Not really any of the latest games, but theses are the one's I've played the most on it: Crysis2, The Witcher, Mass Effect 1&2, Mafia II, Dragon Age Origins, Fallout: New Vegas and COD MW2. The only problem I've run into was Crysis2 froze on me once after playing it for about 3 hours and I had to reboot.

I haven't had any of the fan issues I've read about on here. Either that or my fans are extremely quiet. When surfing the net, watching movies or other low load activities I don't notice any noise from them. The most I've stressed the system is when playing games and/or converting BD vids to mkv files with Handbrake. When doing that there's a ton of heat being pumped out of the exhaust vent and the temps are well within reason (usually upper 80°C under constant load and an ambient temp of 24° C +/- a few degrees. The L502x has a well designed cooling system in my experience.

 

I'm having mine for 4 months now, it's refurbished.

One day I woke up and I saw a stuck pixel on my 1080p display, I just pressed it and it was gone.
I have the gt540m and i freezes sometimes during gaming (This seems to be a known problem with the GT540m's)
When gaming on battery for too long it sort of overheats, I can't charge it until it cools down, the battery icon starts flashing orange and white when plugged in.

That's all I can say about my laptop, the GPU is the only main problem or me.

 

That defect is the exact reason I got my L502X bran new laptop replaced for the L702X refurbished model. Its a construction/battery/AC adapter issue that even replacing all those parts will not fix. They tried replacing motherboard, hard drive, and gpu/cpu heating paste and nothing fixed the GPU lock ups.

It took a while like 4-5 diff tech reps, lots of phone calls, diagnosis, and technician visits to get them to admit that the construction of the unit was defective and not fixable so they eventually replaced it with the L702X.

So that goes to show that even when you pay the extra for a brand new system defects can happen but with patience as long as your are inside your warranty you can get it resolved it will only cost you your time making all the calls.