Question about refurbished quality

Hi everyone I just bought a refurbished m11x with 250gb hdd and 4gb ram. How is the quality with the refurbished units? Does dell do a good job at making it look same as new or do they just give you the returned products?Im totoally new to Dell products so any suggestion is welcome, thx

 

There have been lots of people here reporting that their refurbs are in great condition. There have been a few exceptions (htwingnut, wasn't that the case for your first refurb?), but for the most part people have been pretty happy with them.

 

I have a refurbished M11x R1 and I think it looks great. I don't have a new one to compare it to but there are no scuff marks or build problems. Like Slickie88 mentioned above I believe there one was horror story about a refurbed unit but you should not expect that.

A close friend of mine watches the Outlet store for Scratch & Dent units because you get fantastic prices for those. These are the extreme examples and this is specifically called out on the Dell website and even those tend to have barely noticeable nicks and scratches.

The one final thing I will say is that you should expect your new computer to come well packaged, in cardboard, and held down by a thick layer of plastic. You will not get the nice new Alienware box with a personalized nameplate like those people that bought new. You did save a good chunk of change though!

 

Just got an m11x R2 refurb a few weeks ago. Came in great condition. Mine came with a nameplate that has (m11x) on it. While I wish I got the fancy Alienware packaging it came well presented with everything in a plain brown box.

 

thx guys, feel more confident with my purchase now. If this works out, im gonna try get m17x r3 with some coupon when available to save some cash

 

I got a refurb m11x R2 a about 2 weeks ago from the dell outlet. Other than the plain brown packaging you would think it was brand new. Not a scratch on it anywhere and runs great. Once thing I do notice is that they seem to have reloaded windows and there is not restore partition on it. Not a big deal to me but it might be an issue for others.

 

Mine is refurbished, I can't find a single thing wrong with it.

 

I recently bought an i7 refurb and it came in extremely poor condition. (fingerprints, hinge chassis cracked, and no OEM packaging)

After speaking with a customer rep they sent me a brand new replacement and now i cant complain.

 

Buying a refurbished product is like buying a dealer-certified used car. It has been used by someone else first, and then later cleaned up and re-tested before being sold as a used / recertified product. There really is no difference between a new laptop and a refurbished laptop, except for the packaging and the cost savings.

If I were to sit you down in front of two laptops, and told you that one was new and one was refurbished, you would not be able to tell me which one was the refurb.

 

I just received mine yesterday and it looks good except few scratches which I'm okay with but while I was running 3Dmark06 I noticed that there's something on my screen that appeared to be a tiny little dust about size of eye lash so I tried to wipe it down with soft cloth and no matter what I do I can not get it off. Now I don't know what I should, do I return it back to Dell and ask for new one (is this even possible?) or do I just suck it up and keep it? It kinda bothers me that it's there tho.

 

Never suck it up if its bothers you. Have them replace it.

 

It's approximately equivalent to the re-certification that some auto makers put their pre-owned cars through, but I wouldn't be willing to say it Mercedes, BMW or Lexus caliber by any means. Frankly there's no way for Dell to test certain sub-systems in order to verify they're "good-as-new".

Previous owner stress their GPU with Furmark to the point where its performance has degraded? No way they'd detect that.

Hinges starting to weaken? No way they'd detect that unless it had gotten an obvious point in that degradation process.

Any of the intermittent problems that could happen with any of the major components? As long as it passed their round of tests, that gets missed too.

I handle support for a thousands of systems and Dell, HP, Apple and Lenovo frequently send out refurbished parts or complete systems when something fails. It's not uncommon for those refurbished parts to end up needing to be replaced again or those refurbished systems to need service very soon after the client has taken delivery of them. And I'm talking about business/enterprise support channels, with the exception of Apple of course. The point is, is that yes refurbished parts or systems can often be just as good as new. But it's in no way an assured thing simply because they've "tested" them.

 

I think that the important point is that the build quality and reliability of a refurbished product is generally no better or worse than a brand new product. A refurbished laptop isn't a consumable item whose performance degrades over time.

Any laptop you get has a chance of being a DOA lemon, or has a chance of lasting longer than you will ever use it. There is absolutely no way to tell, regardless of whether you buy refurbished or brand new.

And in the end, whether you get a DOA lemon or a perfectly reliable unit is irrelevant, because you have absolutely zero control over it. What you CAN control is the warranty you get on the unit. If you are unfortunate enough to ever have a problem with your laptop, it is the warranty, and not the build quality, that will save your bacon.