Are Dell "certified refurb's" a good deal or a headache?

I'm looking at either a new Vostro 1500 or a refurb XPS M1530. Of course with the refurb I'm getting more machine, but is it worth it?

Does anyone have any experience with Dell Outlet refurbs?

 

I have heard that they are good most of times.

 

Some can have scratches,but in terms of functionality,they work as new.

 

Some are probably in brand new condition.

At the beginning of 07 I had purchased a new 17" Dell Laptop. 7900 GT Video card, 2GB ram, the works.

But it had Vista, so it wouldn't play any of my games well or support any of my hardware. So I returned it after 3 days.

Now you can bet it ended up on the Refurb list, and was a steal to anyone else who had an XP cd or wanted vista.

 

I always guessed that you would stand a greater chance of getting a display with bad pixels when buying refurbished. After all, when someone returns one for that reason, and it wasn't bad enough to be considered "defective" by Lenovo's standards, that's where it's going to end up.

 

Well, from what I can see, you already have two strikes against you:

1) You're considering buying a Dell
2) It's a refurbished Dell notebook

While you may be getting more "machine" for your money, you can also expect a certain degree of more problems that come with a refurbished notebook. Odds are not in your favor. I mean hell, you're already buying a Dell, and that's punishment enough. No sense in committing suicide by buying a refurbished Dell for cripe's sake.

 

seemingly how you're generalizing overall quality of Dell. i can assure you, on average, that Dell is on par if not better in terms of overall quality relative to hp.

yes let's blame Dell even though they buy their parts from the same company as hp and have their parts assembled by the very same company that hp uses.

God bless America and their allegiance to brand name despite the fact that those companies can give two sh*ts about what consumers think.

 

It appears you don't like dell?


Anyway, I bought my referbished Dell and it was brand new. My only complaint was Dell doesn't list the color of the laptop so people notice it. It's pink

I just had my first problem with it - my HD failed a week ago. But I blame that on the toshiba drive.

 

buy the puter, send it back & get a full refund... check to see if they put it on the referb list ... if they did you just saved some monies @ the cost of waiting a couple weeks & chance & slyness >.<

 

nice...always up for some shananagans...

 

Having extensively used Dell machines in the past, I wouldn't consider myself "generalizing" anything. However, it's very nice to see that you think you know me better than I know myself. And besides, this discussion is not about a Dell vs. HP debate here; but thanks for noticing my sig and drawing erroneous conclusions from it anyway. And yes, I agree... the sig is pretty sweet!

In fact, HP wasn't even mentioned in this thread once until you brought it up. So really, do us a favor and stay on topic. I have my reasons for saying what I did, and my owning an HP is not one of them thus should not be used as a potential point in your (flawed, I might add) argument.

I'm curious though. Care to substantiate your claim that Dell uses the same company as HP to assemble their laptops?

 

anyways back to topic. Refurbished notebooks are usually the ones that were returned by customers for whatever reason and in most cases are in like-new condition. they go through the same quality assurance before being sent out and have no greater chance of being a "defect" unless it was a lemon to begin with.

 

I would like to draw your attention again to the possibility of cosmetic defects and blemishes.
But yes, a refurb is a fully functional laptop most of the time...

 

+1

Don't want to jinx myself, but I'm 2/2 for great performance/value with Dell refurbs (05 Inspiron 6000, 08 XPS 1530).

I needed/wanted to get a new laptop for my brother this week, and unless he had specified HP (his current one, which has lasted thru 4 years of his abuse), I would have bought from Dell Outlet again.

Just to give some perspective on pricing, a Dell Outlet XPS1530 with faster processor (C2D 2.2 vs 1.83), smaller HDD (160 vs 320gb) and better graphics (8600m GT vs 8400m GS) was about $50-$100 cheaper than the HP6700t series, despite the HP being bought 3-4 months later (which is a long time in PC pricing).

I would check the inventory from time to time to get a sense for what's there and at what price, and then wait for a 15% coupon and then pounce quickly. Once a coupon comes out, the inventory will disappear quickly (and the 500-use limit coupons will expire too).

And to respond to the post about color: when I was checking the inventory, the Outlet would show the case/lid color (at least it did for the XPS machines I was looking at). So I knew exactly what color I was getting

 

Just for the record, most laptops are made at one of a few manufacturing plants in the Far East (China and/or Taiwan). It is highly likely Dell and HP and everyone else's parts share some common origins.

 

That's true. I've been to 3 different plants in China.
They all made the same components for major brands.

There's no money in it for them to maintain only one customer.

 

Right. But Null is maintaining that HP and Dell laptops are assembled at the same company, not neccessarily the parts that go in said laptops. I was simply asked him for proof of his claim is all.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quanta_Computer

about 90% of all the laptops sold in the world by brands are all made by Quanta, Compal, Wistron, Inventec, Asustek, and other ODM's in their factories around Shenzen in China. they are then assembled in company plants w/ different configurations (rams, hds processors etc). i'm assuming assembly lines are important to you? please go do some research.

 

Ho hum. Wikipedia to the rescue. Anyway, you just proved my point: we're talking about assembling the notebooks, not manufacturing the notebooks. There is a distinct difference. And from what you just said, it appears that each company has their own plant in which they assemble their laptops in. Thus, no one company assembles laptops for both Dell and HP; it just manufactures the laptops for them.

Please go do some more research, and do try to stay away from Wikipedia next time.

 

Hmm...

This is like a political debate. People are saying a lot of things, yet saying nothing. Now we'll see an argument about the definitions of "assemble" and "manufacture."

To add to the actual topic, I have a friend with refurb'd Dell, and he's had no problems with it, AFAIK. No blemishes to speak of, everything works well. I just bought a refurb'd XPS M1530, so I'll let you know how that goes.

 

Thanks to most of you for sharing your experience with Dell refurbs. I finally settled on a new Vosto 1000. I am not trying to get an AMD vs Intel debate going now, but I decided to go with the Turion based on other peolple's positive experiences with them and I saved around 200 bucks!

Here are my specs:

Vostro 1000, AMD Turion 64 X2 Dual-Core Mobile Processor TL-60 (2.00GHz/512K)
15.4 inch Wide Screen XGA Display with TrueLife, for Dell Vostro 1000 Notebook
2GB, DDR2, 533MHZ 2 Dimm
Integrated ATI Radeon X1150 Graphics, for Vostro 1000
120G 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
Vista Business,Service Pack 1 w/Media,32 Edition,Notebook English,Vostro
Image Restore,Vista,Dell OptiPlex,Precision and Latitude
8X DVD+/-RW with double-layer DVD+R write capability Cyberlink Power DVD and Roxio
Integrated Audio 2.0
Dell Wireless 1505 Wireless-N Internal Card
53 WHr 6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery, for Vostro 1000
You have chosen a Windows Vista Premium System

The longer I looked around and the more that I learned (mostly from you guys), the more I became a little more particular about what I wanted in each category that makes up the system. Thanks to everyone that has helped me and I am trying to give rep points to as many people as possible.

 

actually, that info was not from Wikipedia _at all_ thank you very much. i only linked to that particular ODM so that you may easily understand wth i'm talking about. yes i incorrectly got mixed up with assembly/manufacturing but i don't think technicalities are the main point here. the point is manufacturing is important and assembly is not. it doesn't matter which random chinese/american worker inserts rams and hd's into your notebook. and also Wikipedia is excellent source for info if you're able to filter out good info but bad but once again you seem to have already formed a generalized bias against Wikipedia as illegitimate. anyways i'm sure you'll have something smart to say again but i'm done w/ this thread as arguing with you is waste of my time

 

Then where, pray tell, did you get your information from?

That's good enough for me. =)

 

ignorance is bliss and you're a living proof of that.

he already exposed you on your flawed argument, how many lessons you need to learn son.

 

It's easy to label someone when you've never met them. Regardless, I gave reasons for my arguments, yet on the other hand, you didn't give any reasons at all for calling me ignorant. That strange sensation you're feeling right now is your foot in your mouth. Feel free to remove it at any time.

Ah, no he didn't. But thanks for thinking so.

 

I don't think "I mean hell, you're already buying a Dell, and that's punishment enough. No sense in committing suicide by buying a refurbished Dell for cripe's sake." really substantiates your claim that the OP shouldn't buy a refurb dell

 

No?

That was posted on page two. Try reading a thread in its entirety before commenting on one.

 

No actually I did read that, but it was really insignificant statement. Big deal, you've used dell systems in the past. Still didn't give convincing evidence why Dell refurbs are bad. Didn't know talking about yourself was a replacement for evidence.

What you said has the same convincing power as this.

I use iPods a lot. Never buy an ipod because they suck.

See how stupid that sounds? You really can't tell how wrong you are because you have that smug I am always right attitude. Simply dismissing claims doesn't mean you are right, and thats what you've been doing the whole time.

Bottom line your opinion doesn't count, just by observing your style of argument

 

Sorry. I guess I should have included an extensive laundry list of reasons then. You know, a blow-by-blow account of all the misfortunes, headaches, problems, disasters, etc. etc. I have had when using Dell systems over the years. That way, I would appear to be more "convincing", like I give a crap what you think.

Waa~! You sound like NULL now. If you don't like it, feel free to remove yourself from the discussion then. See? Easy as pie.

 

Maybe you should've given just one reason, which you failed to give, while many other people have positive opinions about Dell systems. Once again, you can't convince anyone just buy crying about something and not telling why. Your nonexistant reputation here doens't allow that, Your comments don't mean crap since you don't support them. Bottom line, you lose.

 

You know who should buy a Dell Refurb? Chuck Norris.

I am not sure if I can suggest buying a Dell anything other then something from the XPS Line. The XPS service (it is the exact same for a refurb), is above and beyond anything out there.

 

Yea, well, worst case, send it back and get it replaced

 

That was posted on page two. Try reading a thread in its entirety before commenting on one. This is the second time I've said this. I hope there isn't a third.

Mmm yes, because your reputation is on such a grander scale than mine.

This conversation is not about winning or losing. It's about voicing your opinion.

 

Once again, what you've said doesn't mean crap. You don't inform the OP about why he shouldn't get a Dell, just that he shouldn't, I know many people that have had positive experiences with a Dell refurb for long past the warranty period, but of course your extensive experiences trups that. Your comments are a waste of space, and didn't help the OP make an informed decision at all. Maybe commenting on the quality by giving examples would've helped. No one cares about your opinion if you don't back it up, look at my previous posts for more elaboration. Bottom line I just didn't want you to feel good about yourself with the crap you've spit out backed up by nothing but your e-ego.

 

The feeling is mutual, to be sure.

You probably meant trump. But yes, you are correct.

Hello kettle, meet black.

Too late for that. I'm invincible!

 

Sadly while FearTheTerp's comments are spot on, your responses are evidence that you are not ready to see or hear that.

Some day perhaps you'll learn how much your tone turns people off to whatever message it is that you may want to convey (assuming there is a message and you are more than some child wanting to prove how much smarter you are than everyone else).

Today does not appear to be that day.

 

Wow. You join NBR today, and the first post you make is to defend Terp. Are you sure Terp didn't put you up to this? I mean seriously, how transparent can one get?

Someday you'll learn that my "tone" isn't what's at issue here. Generally speaking, I'm a pretty humble guy. I made a comment, it was to be taken as tongue-in-cheek, and now people such as you and Terp want to debate ad nauseam about it.

 

Thread is now closed before it futher gets out of hand. If the OP and any more questions about refurbs, he can make a new thread.

-Kdawgca
NBR Mod