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I'm looking to upgrade to a faster computer. I'm checking out these Sonys on ebay, and the price seems too good to be true. Then I notice the "factory refurbished" disclaimer. Does anyone have any idea what that could mean? Would I be buying junk? They come with a 90 day warranty-I don't even have any idea if that is a good warranty or not.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...5216387851&rd=1

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Just a suggestion:

You can get a brand new Mac mini for $500-600

and more than likely use the same

keyboard and mouse you have now.

Don't have to worry about viruses, spyware or

having it crash all the time.

Mac mini

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Now playing: Alban Berg - Drei Orchesterstücke op 6 Reigen

Edited by rostasi
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There was an article in the NYT on this recently.

http://tech2.nytimes.com/2005/06/30/techno...y8Jw&oref=login

June 30, 2005

A Used Printer? No, It's a Refurb

By MARCIA BIEDERMAN

If renovated movie palaces are considered cool these days, why not a factory-reconditioned home theater?

A refurbished Pioneer 50-inch plasma television with some previous history fetched $3,300 on eBay over Memorial Day weekend, after an auction that opened with a 99-cent bid. Even Pioneer Electronics, which arranged the auction as an experiment, wondered if the frenzied bidding that quadrupled the price in the last hours was just holiday madness, said Russ Johnston, senior vice president for marketing in Pioneer's home entertainment division.

"We're in a test mode," Mr. Johnston said.

Pioneer asked ChannelAdvisor, the intermediary that operates the Pioneer store on eBay, to repeat the experiment. Three days into another recent seven-day auction, bids for a reconditioned high-definition 50-inch plasma TV had topped $2,000.

Once hidden in the back of electronics stores, "refurbs," as refurbished products are sometimes called, are everywhere on the Web. Eager to recoup their losses on returned goods, manufacturers like Dell, Apple, Hewlett-Packard and Kodak sell refurbs on sections of their Web sites or through online factory outlets.

And refurbs are proliferating on eBay.

"Laptops are probably the king of them," said Karl Wiley, the company's director of computers and consumer electronics, followed by audio receivers, laser printers, car electronics and MP3 players. Most sellers of refurbs on eBay are independent dealers, but big names like the Sharper Image and Harman Kardon also offer them at their eBay stores, either through auctions or at a "buy it now" fixed price.

Because sellers use various terms, like "factory reconditioned" or "remanufactured," to describe such goods, Mr. Wiley recommends searching for a product by price. Refurbs typically fall in a price tier just below those described as new.

The Pioneer auction may also be the ultimate test for retreads. Some consumers are willing to risk thousands on a reconditioned TV, which, for repairs not covered by the 90-day warranty for labor, cannot simply be boxed and mailed back.

The core refurb customer is someone who wants plasma living on a cathode-ray-tube budget. "They're people who have a price they can't exceed," said Liem Nguyen, a spokesman for Dell. Earlier this week, the Dell Outlet Web site offered a reconditioned Dell 1700n laser printer for $124, compared with the $299 Dell price for a new one for home use.

Many consumers remain wary of refurbs, despite manufacturers' assurances that they have been carefully repaired and rigorously tested, or better yet, that they are "open box" items, returned by people who unsealed the package but never used the product. In offering refurbs to resellers, manufacturers typically describe them as "NTF," for no trouble found, and "B stock," for those requiring repair.

There are no federal laws about the labeling of refurbished electronic goods other than general rules prohibiting false or deceptive claims, said Janice Podoll Frankle, a lawyer for the Bureau of Consumer Protection in the Federal Trade Commission.

Internet chat boards abound with complaints about refurbs, but, according to Randy Guttery of Meridian, Miss., this is "whining by people who haven't done their homework." Mr. Guttery said he was satisfied with the refurbished computers he bought from Hewlett-Packard and Dell. For the software company he owns with his wife, he has bought a number of heavy-duty Epson printers from an online reseller, the RefurbDepot (www.refurbdepot.com), at a savings of about $1,000 each on items typically costing $2,500 and he has encouraged others to do the same.

Mr. Guttery advises checking the manufacturer's warranty for reconditioned items in advance, even when buying through a reseller. A reseller "is nothing but an agent," said Mr. Guttery, adding that he once received a defective printer from RefurbDepot, but that Epson resolved the problem.

Judy Silver, a supervisor for RefurbDepot, confirmed that the responsibility for the goods lies with the manufacturers.

"The company takes it through a special examination," Ms. Silver said. "Most of it comes to us in a package. We are just resellers." She said her company refers customer complaints to the manufacturer, applying its 30-day return policy at its discretion if a manufacturer fails to resolve a problem. The policy is described on the section of the RefurbDepot site detailing terms and conditions.

A number of manufacturers, including Olympus and Pioneer, make their warranties for reconditioned products available on the Web. In many cases, the warranty applies only to goods sold through authorized resellers. Refurb customers can often buy extended warranties.

Consumers who swear they would never buy a refurb may already own one. Warranties on consumer electronics often allow companies to replace a product with a comparable one - often a refurb - rather than repair it. This is true whether the item has been purchased new or refurbished. Cellphone insurance policies typically contain similar language.

"People should understand this is part of the program," said Michael Powers, vice president for product marketing at Asurion, a leading cellphone insurer. Mr. Powers estimated that nearly half the cellphone replacements provided by Asurion, which provides insurance for many of the leading wireless companies, are refurbs.

Apple Computer's battery replacement program for out-of-warranty iPods costs $99 plus shipping charges and replaces the iPod along with the battery, as described at www.apple.com. Critics have asserted that the replacement iPods are refurbs. Apple declined to comment.

Loved or spurned, refurbishment is proliferating and becoming more automated. Asurion's refurbishing plant in Smyrna, Tenn., puts cellphones through a reskinning process that gives them new plastic coats and a new screen. And at Costco Wholesale's Electronic Hardware Services plant in Auburn, Wash., carts of computers roll past stations that wipe their hard drives and reimage them, often 20 at a time. Costco offers the refurbished products at its online store, www.costco.com, but sells most to dealers, said Mike Parrott, vice president for corporate purchasing and strategic businesses.

"There are environmental advantages" to Asurion's replacement practices, Mr. Powers said. But environmental laws do not always afford special consideration to refurbs. Under the Electronic Waste Recycling Act in California, consumers who buy refurbished computers and televisions must pay a fee to cover the state's cost of electronic waste management, just as purchasers of new products do.

==========

Mike

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Some factory refurbished equipment comes with the same warranty that it carried as new. As Rostasi suggests, the $495 mini Mac is a good solution and a great, painless way to upgrade to a Mac. You could even install Virtual PC and run Windows on it, but it's hard to figure out why anyone would want to do that! :rolleyes:

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Just a suggestion:

You can get a brand new Mac mini for $500-600

and more than likely use the same

keyboard and mouse you have now.

Don't have to worry about viruses, spyware or

having it crash all the time.

Mac mini

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Now playing: Alban Berg - Drei Orchesterstücke op 6 Reigen

Or you can get a Compaq Presario for $549 at Best Buy, and 80G(Twice what the Mini Mac has) and a DVD burner. XP doesn't crash like 95/98. In fact, I bet in the 2/3 Years I have had my Compaq, it has truly crashed only twice.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?sk...d=1112808685886

Edited by BERIGAN
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Or you can get a Compaq Presario for $549 at Best Buy, and 80G(Twice what the Mini Mac has)
Eh, hem...the mini Mac comes with 80 GB too.

Yes, it's $50 more than the Compaq, but it's a Mac and it doesn't suck...

and you don't have to go mixing and matching your software for the rest of whenever...

---

Now playing: Andrew Hill - Bellezza

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Or you can get a Compaq Presario for $549 at Best Buy, and 80G(Twice what the Mini Mac has)
Eh, hem...the mini Mac comes with 80 GB too.

Yes, it's $50 more than the Compaq, but it's a Mac and it doesn't suck...

and you don't have to go mixing and matching your software for the rest of whenever...

---

Now playing: Andrew Hill - Bellezza

Yes, Mac's are wonderful....my best friend has one, and swears they are the best...I have used his special mac.....Give me a PC any ol' day..... :cool:

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Being "not of the faith", I also have a PC, and I've got to say, XP is nothing like the previous versions. I had ME on my prior machine, and it sucked big time. With XP, I haven't had a crash yet.

And if I were a Mac lover like some here, I wouldn't be pushing them so hard. The main reason you guys don't get viruses that PCs get is because Apple has such a small percentage of the market...

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I'm always amazed about these "buy a Mac" people here. Without a second thought, invariably, we read: "Buy a Mac".

Sure, cool machine.

But if you need to do serious work with the machine you need SOFTWARE. Has anyone looked lately what that costs? Yeah, let's see. I've got a PC running with Office, the full Adobe Suite plus video editing software, multimedia production, etc. bla, bla, bla.

Hm, I've also got my CD collection filed which is a bitch to export properly, I've got a library program running which I've been keeping for almost 20 years so I would need a decent database program which can handle more than 100.000 entries with custom-designed fields etc.

I've got a ton of small helper progs I've amassed over the years which would probably take me a while to replace on the MAC, etc.

And, and, and.

So, how about I buy/find all that again in Mac versions?

And yes, I know that there are some cheaper alternatives, PD Office suites etc., but they're just not going to cut it with me.

So, if you type a couple of mails, file your CDs with a small DB program and do everyday stuff, sure, get a Mac. Otherwise consider the extra investment for new software ... and weep.

[end of rant]

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I'm looking to upgrade to a faster computer. I'm checking out these Sonys on ebay, and the price seems too good to be true. Then I notice the "factory refurbished" disclaimer. Does anyone have any idea what that could mean? Would I be buying junk? They come with a 90 day warranty-I don't even have any idea if that is a good warranty or not.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...5216387851&rd=1

It's a pretty well-stacked computer (no Firewire port, which seems kind of odd, but you might not need it with USB 2.0, depending on what you have planned -- easy enough to add one or two, though). I think you could build an equivalent box for maybe a tad cheaper (not much cheaper, but some), possibly including a low-end LCD monitor or largeish CRT. Essentially, even with a 90 day warranty, I think you'd be missing out on one of the main reasons people buy a "name" computer, which is tech support. And I don't know if Sony's support is all that great to begin with -- it could well be fantastic, for all I know, however. If you need that sort of thing, you might consider asking if you could purchase an extended warranty. I wouldn't hesitate to buy this reconditioned model -- especially since it's likely to be quite easy to repair yourself or replace components if anything should flake out. Think about it -- even if the worst-case scenario happens and the motherboard fails, you've still got the case, fan, power supply, hard drive, disk drives, RAM -- and it's probably just as likely that the motherboard would fail on a "legit" computer.

You guys have to be joking, that a Mac Mini is even close to the power of this machine. I don't care one way or the other on the "great debate," but the machines are hugely dissimilar, different categories, really.

Edited by j lee
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Look, all I did was offer an alternate idea.

Someone says that they're considering a pair of shoes:

I offer that they try on some Merrells because they feel like

a pair of comfy gloves around your feet.

It's also the equivalent of people who share ideas on this forum about turntables

that they've grown to love. Same thing.

N.O.F.: nobody said that you had to do anything. So you have a lot of archival stuff

that'll be too time consuming for you to transfer over

or you think that there's no software that matches your archival software,

then that's your call. Fine. Nobody's asking you to change anything.

(tho', I will say, there's easy ways of addressing those needs:

software's no prob - not sure who said that you can't use this software of yours on a Mac:

Office, Adobe, most video editing...multimedia, etc. free or real inexpensive library programs, etc).

To use the "shoe" analogy again:

this reminds me a bit of the guy who won't buy a new pair because he likes his shoelaces so much.

Mark, I understand what you say, but suggestions are only that and I don't think that I'm "pushing hard." Also on viruses: there are plenty of good, solid, technical reasons having to do with Unix-based machines and one of the facts that before any new software is installed, permissions have to be granted and about a half-dozen other reasons that Macs don't get viruses. I know that there are plenty of other guys like N.O.F. who get wigged out when Macs are mentioned. Don't you think that as angry as these guys get, that there isn't at least one software weenie out there who'll "show those Mac a**holes about viruses" and come up with one that can penetrate? I got an email from a friend about one Mac-based virus and we were saying, "OK, here it comes...", but then it turned out to be a hoax.

Anyway, if you've got a turntable that you think is great...a pair of shoes that fits like a comfy glove...a stunning performance by someone that you want all to hear/buy, then I don't see

how suggesting a Mac should create rants. If Greg goes with the refurb Sony, then fine - I was just saying that a new machine at a cheaper price with Consumer Report's backing on customer satisfaction might be another consideration. Call me WaCkY! :wacko:

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Now playing: Ana-Maria Avram - Assonant III

Edited by rostasi
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I know that there are plenty of other guys like N.O.F. who get wigged out when Macs are mentioned. Don't you think that as angry as these guys get, ...

---

Now playing: Ana-Maria Avram - Assonant III

You managed to completely misread my post.

I'm just tired of those blanket "buy a Mac and you'll be happy" statements and I put the software cost into the equation. That was all.

Nobody is getting angry at all, besides, perhaps, the MAC crowd ...

BTW: I work on two Power Macs regularly.

Edited by neveronfriday
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You managed to completely misread my post.

I'm just tired of those blanket "buy a Mac and you'll be happy" statements and I put the software cost into the equation. That was all.

Nobody is getting angry at all, besides, perhaps, the MAC crowd ...

BTW: I work on two Power Macs regularly.

OK, well, I apologize if I misread it.

You even seemed to think your post was a "rant", so I was assuming that you were angry.

Actually, I think it's more like: "buy a Mac and you'll be happier" - in the way that I've seen countless people switch over to an easier system and still use the same software they've always used.

A, then, PC friend who does planning and layout work for the YUM corporation

(Pizza Hut, KFC, Taco Bell, Long John Silver's, and others) had some of the same worries,

but found she could get her work done much faster and a lot more efficiently after she got an iMac.

No more screwing around with trying to match new beta tested software, having her computer crash...a bunch of other things that she was relieved not to have to do anymore. Her husband now has found new glory in his saving and accessing of music files on his new toy. So, yes, I *would* say that it makes one "happier" - I can't see that I've seen many "angry" Mac folks as you say, but this is classic defense. It's just like when the word "vegetarian" comes up in conversation - immediate defense comes up ("ranting," etc...)

So, I'm sorry if I misread your post. I was just making a suggestion for "new...cheaper...satisfaction."

best to all,

Rod

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Now playing: Kid Ory - Down Hearted Blues

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You managed to completely misread my post.

I'm just tired of those blanket "buy a Mac and you'll be happy" statements and I put the software cost into the equation. That was all.

Nobody is getting angry at all, besides, perhaps, the MAC crowd ...

BTW: I work on two Power Macs regularly.

OK, well, I apologize if I misread it.

You even seemed to think your post was a "rant", so I was assuming that you were angry.

Actually, I think it's more like: "buy a Mac and you'll be happier" - in the way that I've seen countless people switch over to an easier system and still use the same software they've always used.

A, then, PC friend who does planning and layout work for the YUM corporation

(Pizza Hut, KFC, Taco Bell, Long John Silver's, and others) had some of the same worries,

but found she could get her work done much faster and a lot more efficiently after she got an iMac.

No more screwing around with trying to match new beta tested software, having her computer crash...a bunch of other things that she was relieved not to have to do anymore. Her husband now has found new glory in his saving and accessing of music files on his new toy. So, yes, I *would* say that it makes one "happier" - I can't see that I've seen many "angry" Mac folks as you say, but this is classic defense. It's just like when the word "vegetarian" comes up in conversation - immediate defense comes up ("ranting," etc...)

So, I'm sorry if I misread your post. I was just making a suggestion for "new...cheaper...satisfaction."

best to all,

Rod

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Now playing: Kid Ory - Down Hearted Blues

Just out of curiosity, what Mac would be comparable to this PC GregK looked at (P4 3.6 Ghz 800 Mhz front-side bus speed 1 GB RAM 250 GB hard drive 2 DVD drives)? I know that processor speed doesn't translate equally across platforms, but I assume a comparable machine with the Macintosh brand name would be pretty pricey? Or are they cheaper now?

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OK, well, I apologize if I misread it.

[...]

A, then, PC friend who does planning and layout work for the YUM corporation

(Pizza Hut, KFC, Taco Bell, Long John Silver's, and others) had some of the same worries,

but found she could get her work done much faster and a lot more efficiently after she got an iMac.

---

Now playing: Kid Ory - Down Hearted Blues

No problem about the misreading ... I did put that [rant] word in there.

My bad.

Re your friend getting her work done faster:

That's another thing that bugs me (sorry ;) ): it's simply not true. I've worked on just about every computer under the sun; several times a year I do wild design and engineering sessions on Sun Workstations, multi-processor Mac grids, beefed-up PC networks, ... hell, I've even got an old Atari floating around with some project group that we regularly return to. The point is this: If you know what you're doing, any system can be fast (know your interface). I've always opted out of Apple PCs in the last second because I have worked with them and they can be just as quirky as PCs. Hell, those ever-changing Apple Tigers and whatnot are not the best thing since sliced bread. Neither are PCs, or Sun Workstations ...

Once in a while I work very intensively with a group of cutting-edge designers who, for example, work on new interface models, try to make sense of MS's Net-technology (great idea, still a flop as of yet) and put together fascinating code snippets for reuse (last year we duplicated Amazon's entire e-commerce module with Net technology (well, we got paid for just jerking around, so ...), etc. Every one of those people has his/her own fave computer, tweaked to suit their needs and quirks.

So, it really depends on what you grew up with and how much time you invested into getting the software plus hardware to do what YOU want it to do. To throw that out of the window to go with a supposedly better and cooler system is not very economical.

As a last point, try this. Give your dad (mine is over 70) a PC and let him work with it for a year. Then buy him a MAC for his next birthday (we bought my dad one of those mini Macs). Result: after a week of trying it, he went back to his old trusty PC (I'm glad he didn't go back to his typewriter :g ). Why? I asked him and he said that he had just gotten used to doing things his way. Enough proof for me.

Besides hardware malfunctions, the last time my 24/7 online PC was infected with a virus, crashed or else was, err, ... let me check my logs ... err ... hm, they don't go back further than 1999. Sorry. ;)

Edited by neveronfriday
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As a last point, try this. Give your dad (mine is over 70) a PC and let him work with it for a year. Then buy him a MAC for his next birthday (we bought my dad one of those mini Macs). Result: after a week of trying it, he went back to his old trusty PC (I'm glad he didn't go back to his typewriter  :g ). Why? I asked him and he said that he had just gotten used to doing things his way. Enough proof for me.

Besides hardware malfunctions, the last time my 24/7 online PC was infected with a virus, crashed or else was, err, ... let me check my logs ... err ... hm, they don't go back further than 1999. Sorry.  ;)

Point taken - I understand completely. Of course, folks, especially older ones, often get set in their ways and don't want to change, but yes!, I agree that some folks are comfortable with whatever they're using. I have a composer friend who's still using some version of OS 9 because all of his work is done in it and he's comfortable with it. His friends kid him about this. He is a modern, experimental music guy when it comes to the latest musical tech, but he stays in an old OS to do it! :D

"Mark, you're missing out on some great new software {free/cheap} that'll do that in quarter the time."

"Yeah, I know, but I'm so used to this."

Besides hardware malfunctions...
Well, you more than likely wouldn't have...(never mind...) :P

After starting on an Amiga 4000 (less problems than any other PC I've owned), then other PCs,

I'm loving the ease, quickness, and reliability of this G4.

OK. It's Greg's decision anyway. I think he got more info here than what he bargained for :D

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