refurbished products
 

From stores such as Futureshop or Bestbuy they usually have some kind of refurbished computers on sale, so i'm just wondering if they're good or bad?

Also i'm considering buying an mp3 player off Amazon thats refurbished. Although its alot cheaper than a new one, i just want to know if its a 'safe' choice to make, such as life expectancy, performance, and such... like its not going to break down on me in a year, even though there is 1 year warranty... but y'know

I've bought tons of refurbished stuff, and usually it's pretty good. Well worth the money. Though, I have also run into products that are just... really broken. So it's a gamble sometimes. If you can, check out other products they sell, talk to people who've bought refurb stuff from them and see what they say. Most of the time it's a pretty good deal.

Isn't 'reburished' the fancy term for 'used?' I wouldn't recommend getting anything used in regards to electronics. You have no idea what state the item was in when it came to the store, so the chances of it breaking in several months or sooner could be high. Why take the risk?

Eh, sort of. Sometimes it means products that were opened, defective, returned, and fixed. Sometimes they were just returned and the box was all opened and messed. Sometimes they were used, but a place isn't going to allow a return if it is anything but used lightly. It's not like you can use it for a year and return it to a place that will sell it refurbished (I don't think so, at least).

Yeah, when it comes to electronics it came mean anything from "opened" to "completely revamped". Computers though are generally the latter, MP3s would most likely be the former. You might also want to check for a guarantee of some sort.

Sometimes you're actually better off with a refurbished item, since it should have gone through more extensive testing than the general off-the-line item.

alright thx, i guess for my mp3 purchase i shall stick to buying a new one.