Why New Isn't Always Better

Refurbished - it's a term that most wrinkle their noses up at, thinking, "Yuck, that's second hand stuff," when in reality its not, and in fact it's a pretty good deal and here's why. Totally new systems have been jolt tested at the manufacturer, sometimes, having let some juice flow through them to make sure they will fly, but, in many instances, this step is skipped, modern computerized manufacturing being as exact as it is, they know that a television constructing robot won't slip up and not plug a base units electrical connections in. "Uh huh, and life is perfect, and, I've got some land to sell ya if you believe that..." Beyond this, when you get the unit to your house, and you hit it with whatever source electricity you have, there is just no telling how well that will work out. Most times, its fine, many times you smell something that smells electrically wrong, and you wonder, "Is something in there burning?" However, you see no smoke, and so you believe, "well shoot, it must be all right." Hopefully your right, hopefully its just the new getting burnt away...but my preference, silly as it might seem, is refurbished - because these units have set out on a floor display, and, been hammered. Then they have been gone over to make sure that they are up to spec, because their warranty is going to be good for quite some time, and then they are sold as refurbished. Now you tell me, if that unit took it on the floor, has been cleaned and reset to spec., is it likely to go "kaput" when you plug it in? New, on the other hand, we don't know, it has no track record for us to look at. Yes, I realize it sounds like a flaky concept, but think on it...

Now let's talk the item that many of us have to consider - price. Refurbished merchandise is normally sold at somewhere discounted against the retail price. In plain English that means that markup for profit is reduced if not eliminated as a carry over off the floor item. Ubid.com a popular online bidding site advertises items that are refurbished, and sells them below bid price - resulting in savings that can be significant, into a hundred or more dollars less than wholesale.

There is an interesting category of equipment that Tigerdirect.com has made popular, they call it "recertified", it doesn't seem that they came up with this term, but it means that the unit has been brought back up to factory specs. The components for a home theater system can be achieved at nearly 50% (or greater) savings. This makes the consideration of the "recertified" product worth it - and the quality is not missing, these are units that would sell regularly that have been treated back up to factory specs. Next time you are online - give it look...or, next time you stop bye an "Office Depot" type of retail outlet, check out what they have to offer in the section marked, refurbished.