Anybody have any experience with "refurbished" Thinkpads bought from
the ibm.com website? Just what does "refurbished" mean? Are these
machines indistnguishable from new?

Thanks

On 24 May 2007 11:07:17 -0700, Dejola <johnandjanet******.com> wrote:

>Anybody have any experience with "refurbished" Thinkpads bought from
>the ibm.com website? Just what does "refurbished" mean? Are these
>machines indistnguishable from new?
>
>Thanks

It varies a lot.... some have nothing done to them, others may have
had extensive repairs. Although the machine is supposed to have been
checked out and is in "like new" operability, there may be quirks that
have been missed on inspection. Also note that the warranty is MUCH
less than for a new machine, so I'd say it certainly isn't really in
"like new" condition. finally, you can be fairly certain that the
battery is NOT "like new".

But, considering all that, some of the prices look like very good
deals.

I almost bought a refurbished T30 recently, because I had a T30 that I
really liked a lot until it developed a problem that couldn't be
fixed. But then, I fugured that since T30 motherboards were basically
unavailable, I figure that the problem is probably with all the T30s,
so I opted to pass it up.

Charlie Hoffpauir
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~charlieh/

On May 24, 11:07 am, Dejola <johnandja...******.com> wrote:
> Anybody have any experience with "refurbished" Thinkpads bought from
> the ibm.com website? Just what does "refurbished" mean? Are these
> machines indistnguishable from new?
>
> Thanks

refurbished=repaired or reconditioned.

Many of them are new units that were returned by wholesalers or overage when
new models come out.

"Charlie Hoffpauir" <invalid@invalid.com> wrote in message
news:9qtb53lj9jo5h6aun3ie2131urormre5a5@4ax.com...
> On 24 May 2007 11:07:17 -0700, Dejola <johnandjanet******.com> wrote:
>
>>Anybody have any experience with "refurbished" Thinkpads bought from
>>the ibm.com website? Just what does "refurbished" mean? Are these
>>machines indistnguishable from new?
>>
>>Thanks
>
> It varies a lot.... some have nothing done to them, others may have
> had extensive repairs. Although the machine is supposed to have been
> checked out and is in "like new" operability, there may be quirks that
> have been missed on inspection. Also note that the warranty is MUCH
> less than for a new machine, so I'd say it certainly isn't really in
> "like new" condition. finally, you can be fairly certain that the
> battery is NOT "like new".
>
> But, considering all that, some of the prices look like very good
> deals.
>
> I almost bought a refurbished T30 recently, because I had a T30 that I
> really liked a lot until it developed a problem that couldn't be
> fixed. But then, I fugured that since T30 motherboards were basically
> unavailable, I figure that the problem is probably with all the T30s,
> so I opted to pass it up.
>
> Charlie Hoffpauir
> http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~charlieh/

On May 24, 11:07 am, Dejola <johnandja...******.com> wrote:
> Anybody have any experience with "refurbished" Thinkpads bought from
> the ibm.com website? Just what does "refurbished" mean? Are these
> machines indistnguishable from new?
>
> Thanks

I don't have any experience with that particular website, but I have
several refurbished (as well as some used and not refurbished)
Thinkpads I've bought on ebay. I believe a properly refurbished unit
comes with an IBM warantee (although a shorter one than a new unit
does). I guess these days that would be a Lenovo warantee. My
experience is that any thinkpad is unlikely to fail in the warantee
period, but the units do often fail within a few of years of that
warantee expiring. thus, with a refurbished unit, you are buying an
item with a shorter life expectancy. In exchange, you get a sharply
reduced price. You have to determine whether the extra life is worth
the extra money or whether you are likely to replace it before it dies
anyway (or have some other reason to buy the refurbished unit). In my
case, I had a particular attachment to the a30p and a31p units and
they were discontinued at the time. My current primary machine is a
refurbished t42p.