Refurbished LCD (1 Viewer)

[Michael Fennessy]

Would you buy a refurbished LCD? Not sure about risk vs reward...

 

[Jim Mcc]

It all depends on the warranty. Some refurb products only give you 90 days. That sucks.

 

[tjohnusa]

In the past I worked at a shop that refurbished tv's. I would say at least 30% had no problems and maybe another 20% had cosmetic issues. The actual repairs were alot of loose connections or bad solder joints. We did have a small percentage of head scratchers that had to replace mother boards. People return things for a variety of reasons...any thing from just didn't want it to couldn't figure out the controls. Knowing this I don't hesitate to purchase refurbs. I recently picked up a refurbed Samsung bluray player on woot for $85 shipped and have had zero problems with it. I agree with looking for the longest warranty length you can get. If buying this from a store that offers extended warranties ask if they will give you a break on the price for one....can't hurt to ask.

 

[Adam Gregorich]

I picked up a refurbed Westinghouse LCD/DVD combo from CompUSA. It had a buzz in the speakers that I found annoying. Westinghouse offered to repair it or replace it with another refurb which was a fairly painless process. I've been very happy with the second set. The $$ I saved made it more than worth it. Both sets were in very good cosmetic shape.

 

[MarkMel]

My theory with refurbs is that they fix manufacturing problems that might've shown up in the brand new product. So in a sense, any problem that you might have encountered with a new product has potentially been fixed in the refurb.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

In the past I worked at a shop that refurbished tv's. I would say at least 30% had no problems and maybe another 20% had cosmetic issues.

That sounds about right, and tracks with my experience in the computer biz. A surprisingly high percentage of all consumer electronics product returns are of items that "don't work" because of user error, not defects. People don't connect things correctly, they fool with settings they don't understand and screw something up, they can't figure out the remote. So they get frustrated and bring or ship the "broken" or "defective" product back to the seller. By law these items can't be resold as new, so these perfectly good, barely tested devices get sold as "refurbished", even though in many cases the cover has never been popped and nothing has been fixed or replaced.

I wouldn't get too hung up on the warranty. With electronics you tend to either get a failure within the first 50 to 100 hours of use (which will generally fall within the first 30 to 90 days) or after years of service. There isn't a lot in between.

As for cost benefit. I try to think in terms of product life. I figure a TV should last about 10 years before it either needs to be replaced (or retired to another room) or technology is going to tempt me to replace it. So I would look at the price of a new set and divide by 10. With a refurb I'll pick an arbitrary "estimated lifespan" - maybe half that of a new TV maybe less if I want to be real conservative.

So, let's say (purely for the sake of argument and to save me from having to actually have to calculate any of this stuff) that a new 46" LCD goes for $1000 and they're selling a refurb for $600. The new TV has a cost per year of $100 over 10 years. If the refurb lasts 5 years it has a cost per year of $120. If it lasts 6 years I break even, and if it goes past 7 I'm saving money. If the refurb is going for $500 or $400, I'm immediately in the black.

Of course, if I need a new TV right now and $600 is all the budget will bear, I'd probably go for that 46" refurb regardless, rather than save $1000 for a new set or buy whatever screen size $600 will get me on the new market.

Another factor is whether we're talking about a main home theater TV or one for a bedroom ro rec room. I might be a little more cautious about going refurb for a main TV unless it was an economic necessity, whereas I wouldn't be concerned about a secondary set.


Regards,


Joe