kasey

i have been thinking about buying a portable dvd player (toshiba sd-p2500 or 2000). i have found both of these products online that have been refurbished. should i trust the reburbished products or should i bite the bullet and pay more for the new. of course, i know the new product would be better but i'm trying to save a little cash. any opinions?

Sdallnct

Depends on the Warranty. If there is at least a 90 day warranty, then I go for it. I figure any problems would show up pretty quickly.

Who knows why something is marked "refurbished". On a portable DVD player it could have been a bad battery or power cord. Could have been the latch on the cover would not stay shut. Could have been returned for not working, but the original owner really didn't know how to use it. Could be they replaced the entire main board. Could be anything.

But IMHO, there are almost no true repairs any more. It is just simply cheaper and easier to replace the effected item then trying to spend time repairing it. For example, if this portable DVD player had a bad battery, you can be assured they did not break into the battery and try to fix it. They simply replaced the battery. Of course you have no idea what really was wrong.

Personally I think in most cases refurbished are just as good as new. Simply because they are not repairing anything, they are just replacing the bad part.

renaldow

Do a search in this forum on 'refurb' going back a few months and you'll find lots of varying opinions. Here's the previous one that's still on the main page for more input:

http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showthr...hreadid=381139

OldDude

If it is "purely" electronic, the bad part is replaced, and electronics tends to stay repaired. There have even been arguments that it is "better than new" because it has had some extra burn-in, and is less likely to have another failure. I think there is little risk

If it has an important mechanical element (like a DVD player), you don't really know what was repaired, whether it is really "good as new" or they just "got it working" again. Depending on what failed, it might be the first case, if something mechanical failed, there may be a greater risk, and the mechanical parts have a more "finite" life.

Movie_Man

From a major manufacturer, I have no problem with buying refurbished products. You know that someone has individually tested your product, and chances are very good that everything will work fine. I've bought a couple things over the years, and never had a single problem.
As Sdallnct said, most refurbs had extremely minor flaws, if any at all, but they cannot be legally sold as new.

richard98

I purchased a refurbished SD-P2500 from onecall yesterday for $300 which is the cheapest price I could find. Also purchased their 3 year extended DVD portable warranty which was ~$70. The cheap extended warranty pushed me over the edge on the refurbished player. My total, including shipping, was about $375.

Kumar J

Phillips Online store sometimes has great deals on DVD recorders.I would buy them if only they would ship overseas!

atlantamoi

I buy refurbished when there is a substantial price diff. I helped a friend last weekend who was looking for a receiver. Went to a Kenwood outlet and paid $169 compared to Fry's and BestBuy at $399. No question to me what to do in a situation like that.

Slowpc

I work at a local video game store and sell refurb xboxes from microsoft. They dont carry a huge price difference but we sell them by the boat load all the time. The funny thing is, we see less of those come back with problems than the new ones do. Hey, i own one and now 2+ years later... still no problems at all.

Sometimes the refurb product will be hit or miss, just make sure you can get the same warrenty on the product as the new one.