Anyone ever bought a refurbished Dell?

That's funny I just read this..

LINK

 

I'm interested too... I'm sure I'll be in need of a "new" computer soon (my current Dell was purchased in 1999/2000). I don't mind buying a brand new one, but if the consensus is good on refurbished, I'd like to save the money!

 

yes i have, and it was fine. it was back in 2003/4 i think.

 

I worked at Dell for almost 5 years after college as a Reliability Engineer, and can tell you that their notebooks are absolute garbage mechanically. The keyboard, buttons, and hinges are terrible. Not to mention the cheap plastic finish.

Go to Lenovo. I bought a really sweet notebook from there a couple of weeks ago, the Ideapad Y450 for like $609 + shipping. My system was configured with a Core 2 Duo 6400, 4GB DDR3, 250GB HDD.

 

and yet i have a dell notebook that i love!

 

Hey, even a blind squirrel finds a nut... : )

 

I just thought of the "Dude, you're getting a Dell" kid because of this.

Man I hope he grew up and got punched in the face.

 

ur taking a bigger risk with scratch and dent. it might be jacked up all over the place or just a tiny scratch.

i just bought a dell latitude laptop for my friend through dell business outlet..got an awesome price and laptop.

i dont deal with home outlet though.

business side has a standard 3 year warranty etc.

 

I take my laptops like I take my women, refurbished and full of piracy.

 

Yep. I have two in my house. One is old, one is newer. No significant problems.

 

How cheap is refurbished? Like 200-300 bucks? Because you can buy a new desktop for about 350 bucks these days and a new laptop for 500 or less as well.

 

The only thing I've bought refurbished so far (in a while) was a Samsung Eternity phone off of ATT's site because it was going to be $60 versus $180 (w/o rebate) in store and waiting 8 years on a $50 rebate.

It's not on topic, but that's my positive experience with refurbished stuff. Damn good phone, I don't know what they did, but the reviews on the site for the refurb were positive so I went with it.

 

Microcenter is having a sale at the moment with 300 dollar Emachine Laptops.

If I was going to go cheapo laptop though I'd rather get a Lenovo or an Acer.

 

No so sure about Dell, but I bought a Compaq refub back in 03 and it was one of the best PC's I have ever owned.

So buying refub can be a good thing.

Also, on the Dell laptop, I have known several Dell laps that have been great and took some good abuse over the years... hmm

 

I bought a refurb Dell laptop, works fine. I even put Win7 on it.

 

That may be true with their consumer lines (home-office/student) but not their professional workstations. I bought a Precision M4400 notebook a couple weeks back refurbished for a steal and it is hands down built a like a tank and performs exceptionally well. $1200 for T9550/4GB/64 GB SSD/LED HD screen/Blu Ray/nvidia FX 1700M 512mb video card. Noromally this would have been a $3k+ notebook but since it's not as popular as your Lenovo it slips under the radar for discounts.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Dell-Precision-M4400-Notebook.11959.0.html

 

exactly.

the consumer side of all the big companies are crap. they are driven by price only..not quality.

but it's the opposite on the business side.

 

Make no mistake, the Precision line is a terrific portable workstation. Those are much higher quality, but represent only a fraction of Dell's total notebook sales. the rest of it is Insprion (home) and Latitude (office). That whole Studio line, meanwhile, is nothing more than a polished turd.