Anyone bought anything from Apple Refurbished?

[youandiaredominoes]

Looking to buy a new 13" MacBook Air but baulking at paying at least ?1000. Anyone bought a laptop from Apple Refurbished? I had a friend who had a bad experience but wondered if this was a one off...

[Lowlander]

Bought an ipad last year...arrived the next day, came in a proper Apple box, looked absolutely brand new, still working, cheaper than new new.

[RosieH]

Boyfriend bought a top-end imac - works like a charm and looks brand new. Have a friend who gets all his apple stuff refurbed and loves it.

[david_carnell]

iphone 4. No problems at all. Looked like new.

[Lowlander]

Out of interest what was the bad experience?

[youandiaredominoes]

Thanks all

The bad experience was that the laptop started to slow down dramatically just after a year (and thus out of warranty). My friend just used it for a little bit of music and word files.

Perhaps this was a one-off. I am tempted because with a union membership benefit I could get up to about 15% off if I went with Apple Refurbished.

[EagleJon19]

13" MacBook purchased refurbished. No problems whatsoever (touch wood). Good luck!

[KidKruger]

Where can you buy the refurbished kit ?

[bigdavid]

http://store.apple.com/uk/browse/home/specialdeals/mac

Between myself and the the family we have 10ish devices (airs, MacBooks, minis, apple TVs) from the refurb store, all in great nick and some have even been delivered over spec (eg double ram).

There is some suggestion that apple use the refurb store for stock clearance as well as refurbs - who kows if this is true but obviously they can't do cut price kit "officially" because they don't want to damage the brand and price structure.

[youandiaredominoes]

Cheers bigdavid - that's reassuring you have bought many devices from refurbished.

It might seem silly but I enjoyed the experience of buying my first mac from the store and buying from refurbished takes the shine off parting with a chunk of money. However the stores are so full of teenagers playing on the devices that you can't actually get a good look at the devices or talk to an assistant. But I digress, refurbished sounds like the option ill go for - just hope that it doesn't pack in after a year! Did you take out apple care at all?

[FatherJack]

Just to let you know that both our Mac and Mac book had hard drive failures within two years, fortunately we purchased from John Lewis and they came with a 2 year guarantee unlike the 1 year offered at Apple. Because of this I would recommend AppleCare and I don't normally go for extended warranties.

And let's not talk about the problems I've had with my Mac Air, the hard drive is the only part that hasn't been replaced! But Apple have replaced all without charge.