Buying the refurb

In the techno world, there are (i) the early adopters, who buy the new, expensive stuff first, (ii) the mainstream, that buys it when it has largely been proven and has come down in price and (iii) the laggards, who grab at the previous generation of technology, when it has been cheap or even discarded.

Where am I, in this admittedly crude scale? I'm half mainstream and half laggard. Why? Because I'm frugal. Namely if something will get 25% cheaper in a year, I figure I can usually wait.

And there's one pretty good way to save money on good products. Buy a manufacturer refurbished unit. I've done this many a time and in every case it has worked out wonderfully.
However, I will not buy used stuff, as I have no idea how the previous owner treated it.

I treat things gently. Too gently my wife might say. But I've never had anything break on me during its first 2 years, including laptops, except for Dell LCD monitor. So refurbished goods are pretty solid.

Let me do a reverse chronological summary of my refurb purchases.

Apple

I've become an Apple convert, mostly due to the OS X and the great Intel based Macs. And of course there is no way I'm going to pay $2000 for a Mac, so what's a person to do? Buy a refurb MacBook (13" laptop) and Mac Minis. I've now bought 2 MacBooks and 3 MacMinis. All refurb.

For the laptops, I've spent $849 each time, separated by 9 months, and hence I never get the DVD burner. Once home, it is an easy memory upgrade to 2G for $50. Since I'm upgrading, I almost wish they would give me 512M, since I hate to waste the RAM I'm replacing.

The Mac Mini was my attempt to get the cheapest possible Mac. I think I got two at $429 and one at $499. And two came with a the Leopard upgrade DVD. I got these over the past 18 months and yet, now I don't own any. They make great gifts when someone you know needs a computer. I also pried these guys open (get a super wide metal spatula and it's a piece of cake) and upgraded each of these to 2G of RAM. But I've given them all away. Perhaps I'll get another $429 jobber if the opportunity arises.

Bottom line: an Apple refurb works great and saves you 20-30%. But you have to check the Apple site (bookmark it) somewhat regularly. The hot deals (15" MacBookPros for $1500 or less, or Mini's for under $599) go pretty quickly. Also watch the specs carefully, as some of the older models aren't worth it even if they do look relatively cheap. E.g. a Mini with a single Core, not the Core Duo, isn't worth it, IMHO, when you can get a Core Duo pretty cheaply if you are patient.

Printers

Of the last 4 printers I've bought, 3 were refurbs.

• HP Color Laser Multifunction - $399 refurb. Heck the ink alone costs this much. So far so good. It's a noisy sucker but all color lasers seem have this problem.
• Dell 2100 (?) B/W Laser Multifunction - $199 refurb (?). Had this for the past 3 years and while it's not great, it gets the job done.
• NEC SuperScript 1800 $800. (New) Bought this way back when it was really hard to get a duplex printer for under $1000. Works well but the aging toner cartridge is getting uneven.
• NEC SuperScript 860 $200 refurb. This was the deal, as I saved 50% and this printer was a champ in its day.

iPod

When I finally bought one of these, I wanted a real screen to watch video. I also wanted the cheapest option I could find. The 30G iPod Classic to the rescue. Refurbished. Saved 33%. (Stupid Apple discontinued the 30G and introduced the 160G shortly after I did this, no wonder this promo lasted so long). Of course, I haven't tried to watch a video yet. Once I got over the initial "do I really want to rip all my CD's to the iPod decision?", I love this thing. And I wish I had more space as I'm rapidly filling up the thing. I see a 160G refurb in the my future...

I won't get the following things refurb

• Cameras - I don't know why but this just seems wrong.
  
• TVs - I don't want a refurbished display, as this is largely what you're paying for.
• Stereo equipment - receivers are cheap, so buy new. So are DVD players.