If you don’t know what a refurbished item is, here’s a quick explaination: sometimes items are returned and the manufacturer or retailer re-inspects them and fixes them if need be. By the time, the item hits the shelves again it’s good as new but for legal reasons cannot be marketed as such hence the refurbished label.

I say better than new because the netbook in our case will have been examined that it’s guaranteed to be in mint conditions. I remember buying a new computer many years ago and the hard drive was defective. I fought with the retailer before he issued me with a new one.

That’s because not all brand new products are checked at the assembly chain as it would be too expensive. Manufacturers do random tests on every thousand netbook or so. If your netbook was the 90th and it’s broken, you’re in trouble if you cannot convincingly prove to the retailer that the mini-laptop was dead on arrival.

At least with refurbished netbooks, you know that they’re working fine and you still get a good guarantee that you won’t get if you buy a used netbook from an individual whose warranty has expired.

2 Comments

1. Jon says:

   November 27, 2009 at 1:19 am

   “If your netbook was the 90th and it’s broken, you’re in trouble if you cannot convincingly prove to the retailer that the mini-laptop was dead on arrival.”

   Surely the burden of proof is on the manufacturer? Generally the first 2 years the benefit of assumption is with the user (ie it’s assumed that the device was broken on arrival and the maufacturer has to prove it wasn’t)

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