Do you buy new or refurbished Computer/Hardware
 

hello

When you buy a PC/laptop/mobile device or computer peripheral what condition do you always buy?

For me, I always buy in new condition. In my lifetime of using computers, I think I bought five refurbished items mainly from retailers because they're inspected, fixed and cleaned up.

Should I put votes in for both "New" and "Refurbished"? I can go either way, it just depends. I could put a vote in for "other", too, because sometimes I've bought computers that were used, but not refurbished.

It's multiple choice and you can vote for one or all three. I did forget to put Used. That's what happens when you rush in creating a poll. So, other can be Used, I guess. It's a matter of what high percentage is your purchasing of these items.

I could've also selected refurbished but I rarely buy refurbished items. I mostly buy new.

I've bought both and to be honest, I've been bitten more times from new hardware than refurbished; just luck of the draw I guess.

bought second hand from auction for ages as is what we could afford at the time
bought some new eepc machines a few years back but weren't that impressive
now have some new HP machines, one did have vid card issues

Both :)

First desktop, bought before I became really interested, was refurbished. Second one, better specs, refurbished. Present one, new, OS free.
Laptop, slightly used.
Netbook, new.

I always buy new hardware of any kind. It's too much of a gamble to buy used/refurbished, and I don't think that it pays off in the end.

However, I always buy wisely. I don't get the latest and greatest that they advertise. I study the specs of the options available that I am willing to consider and buy the best product for what I need.

The refurbished/slightly-used and new (desktop, not netbook) stuff weren't bought from private sellers, but from here:

https://www.pcassist.co.uk/default.aspx

I always buy new, but I have several PCs and I used to move parts from here to there (therefore my own used hardware will be reused as long as I can spare some money).

I generally buy new components for my PCs, but do occasionally buy refurbished components if the refurbishing was done by the factory that made them.

thank you all :)

Im posting from a refurb Pentium D. I also have an emachine that is mostly used parts except for the case and the motherboard. I havent bought a new computer since 96 or so. I prefer to buy parts and if i find a nice big case that i can get both hands into if need be im a happy camper.
The sound card in my pentium D computer is, i bet over a decade old, a turtle beach santa cruz that beats the socks off the onboard sound.
The only computer part, other than drives failing, that i ever saw wear out was a motherboard for a 2.8 ghz celeron where the chip socket actually got hot enough to seperate slightly from the motherboard. For performance/$$$ i think its hard to beat used/refurbed.

Where is the both button.

Just depends on price/need/use and source. One of my oldest computers was a portable IBM with a plasma display that worked and worked forever and was refurbished. Original price was like $5000 and I paid maybe $400.

A big name company got caught selling used/off lease stuff as refurbished. (and they still owe me $60) (starts with d and ends with ell)

Where I used to live, there was an extremely reliable and honest second-hand computer shop that I patronized for years. I got to know the owner and learned he ran a trustworthy business.

I bought several desktops and a laptop for my younger son there. It was also the only place that I would trust to repair an out-of-warranty computer if I couldn't fix it myself. (My own laptop and netbook I got new from Dell; another laptop is a legacy from project I worked on a several years ago. Laptop technology was changing so fast when I got them that used put you severely behind the curve, but I don't think that's the case so much now.)

I'm still using one of the desktops as my file server--I must have had it for, oh, five years now. All I've done to it is max out the RAMs and buy some external HDDs for it.

My girlfriend has had very good experiencees with refurbished stuff from Tiger Direct, good enough that that's the first place she looks if she wants to get computer. Note that most of what she does it edit documents and email for work, as well as play word games--she's magazine editor, but she does not do any photo or multimedia editing or other graphically intensive stuff.

I think the key, once you find someone reputable, is knowing what performance you need and what specs will provide that performance so you don't get something underpowered.