Thread: Refurbished Netbooks?

Have anyone here have experience on buying refurbished netbooks because I know refurbished means that the first owner returned it and then they are reselling it for a lower price. I just want to know if it is reliable to purchase a netbook 'second hand'
Thanks for all your comments!

Why would you bother? You can buy a *NEW* netbook from most of the big box retailers for under $300. Although I still have never really understood the point of a netbook when you can get a significantly less crippled PC around ~$150 more.

I like it because it's compact and for the most part faster than a cheap, crippled laptop for $150. I'm on the go a lot for my job so it's much more convenient to carry a light weight netbook than a laptop. Even including my 9 cell battery it's much lighter and the battery life is almost 3 times longer than a laptop's.

Anyways, back to the OP, I don't think it's the best thing to get a netbook refurbished. Why? Because you don't know why it was returned in the first place. If you're able to get some info on that, great. If not, assume the worst. Although, if you're able to get it for really cheap compared to the original price then why not. I love my netbook and I think every business person/student should have one. I bought three this christmas for my sisters and my girlfriend. I'm sure they'll love it.

Originally Posted by alarson13

Why would you bother? You can buy a *NEW* netbook from most of the big box retailers for under $300. Although I still have never really understood the point of a netbook when you can get a significantly less crippled PC around ~$150 more.

Are you kidding? The point of a netbook is that is extremely portable, yet you compare it to a PC.
Although those must just be used for those of us who get out of the house.

@ Paragon, while I personally have not purchased a refurbished netbook I have in the past purchased refurbished laptops and PC's. Refurbished in general means that there was something defective with the initial product and the product was returned to the manufacturer to be properly fixed and tested. In my personal expierience I have been very satisfied buying refurbished, I've never had a serious issue, while I have had some while buying new or second hand. So I'd recommend it.

Thanks for the advise guys. The store that I wish to purchase from, one of the netbooks have a quantity of 8. (Greater than the other refurbished netbooks) Does that correlate to the fact that that type of netbooks people tend to return and have problems?

you might google it, but as i have watched our market the trends are that most faulty brand shows up most often on refurbished/second hand stalls, but you know i have used almost 4 used pcs yet no one ever failed me :)

I guess I never took the portability into account. I guess I'm also partially biased against them as a retail employee...those things are a bitch to attach stuff too, and I hate wasting my time on no attach netbook sales (avg pc/netbook sale 4-10m) when I could have sold a printer attached to the gills in 30 seconds (avg printer sale 30s-3m)

Another question, are there any consequences dual booting on a netbook because I know that netbook are not 'high performance' computers and might not be able to handle such tasks.

I have Mac OSX, Win XP, and Windows 7 on my Acer Aspire One D250. Works fine.