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When will the new MacBook Pro be refurbished?
- bombcar 5y agoIf they went off "ship date" instead of "order date" they'd have more accurate info. Some Mac releases ship immediately upon announcement, others are announced well in advance of first shipments.
- simoelalj 5y agoGenerally it's around 2-weeks from the "announcement date" and "order date"?
- ravenstine 5y agoMy M1 Macbook Air was the first computer I've bought in a long time that was brand new instead of refurbished. The only reason I bought new this time was because the keyboard on my old laptop kept burning out and I didn't want to keep replacing it. Most of my electronics were bought as refurbished, and I've never regretted it. It's surprising just how "new' a refurbished item can be at a substantial discount. And not once have I had a issues with refurbished items. (the keyboard issue for my last laptop didn't manifest until after ~6 years of use).
- gambiting 5y agoI keep buying stuff from Amazon Warehouse based on the same principle....heavy discount for a "like new" or "very good condition" items, everything so far has been pretty much completely new, or maybe I'd guess someone opened the box once. Either way, Amazon still offers no questions asked 30 day return and 1 year warranty on everything, so it's a no brainer really.
- smoldesu 5y agoI'm fairly sure most of their "like new" products are just returned purchases that couldn't be repackaged for whatever reason. I bought a Samsung Galaxy phone off the site a few years back, and it came with 90% of the original packaging, and the handset itself had no visible blemishes. Pretty good for a 40% discount.
- LeifCarrotson 5y agoI suspect it's not "couldn't" but "wouldn't": It's easier to sell it at a 40% discount to customers with reduced expectations than to try to go off-script through the streamlined, automated, quality-controlled assembly/packaging process. Raw parts in, good parts out is easier and safer than usually putting in raw parts, but sometimes putting in refurbished parts. Imagine you need something as insignificant as a replacement SIM tray, a replacement for the bent SIM tray ejector pin, and the scratch protectors, stickers, and box labels that need replacement to get that in and out. The scratch protector plastic film might be automatically applied from a massive roll as the case is conveyed out of the coating machine; it's not made to be hand applied. How would a technician guarantee that it's just the SIM tray that broke due to contamination in the injection molding machine and not a problem with the spring contacts inside the phone? The SIM ejector pin probably costs less than a penny and is automatically inserted in every hardware pack that are stuffed and weighed automatically to a fraction of a gram; do you have a technician inspect each one or just throw the old parts away and replace the whole bag? As a controls engineer, I work hard to make sure that a knowledgeable operator can run my robotic manufacturing cells with minimal waste. The first 80% of a cell, the no-faults "happy path" takes not too much time, but I have spent hundreds - probably thousands - of hours of my life ensuring that my cells are as flexible and fault tolerant as practical. But it's really hard. Customers are always on-board when it makes financial sense, and often when it makes environmental or ethical sense, but sometimes the laws of physics and the Pandora's box of automation just require some waste and leave a particular process untenable.
- boplicity 5y agoI agree with this -- however, for bigger purchases, keep in mind that warranties are not always "transferable", and may not apply to used products.
- gambiting 5y agoAmazon gives 1 year of their own warranty on any warehouse item(at least here in UK). But yes, the manufacturer might or might not honour the original warranty separately to this.
- boplicity 5y agoHere in Canada, there's no 1 year warranty, though they do seem to allow you to buy extended warranties. > Used products generally do not come with a manufacturer's warranty but all of our items are backed by Amazon’s return policy. If you would like additional protection, you can purchase a warranty from Square Trade to cover certain items. Maybe there are better consumer protections in the UK?
- gambiting 5y agohttps://www.amazon.co.uk/Amazon-Warehouse-Deals/b?ie=UTF8&node=3581866031 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Amazon-Warehouse-Deals/b?ie=UTF8&no... "All Amazon Warehouse items are covered under legal warranty for 1 year. If your item becomes defective after the Amazon return period, Amazon will repair any defective item, and if a repair is not possible, we will refund the purchase price in accordance with Amazon's Returns Policy."
- dealforager 5y agoSame! So much so that I built a website specifically for this: https://www.dealforager.com https://www.dealforager.com It's pretty bare bones, but the problem I was trying to fix was that it took me a long time to browse the Amazon Warehouse offers trying to find the best deals. Amazon doesn't make it easy since they don't show the new and used prices side by side if you search directly under the Amazon Warehouse category. There is also no way to sort by discount. I wasted many hours until one day I decided it was faster to spend a few weeks automating this process.
- Jleagle 5y ago"This site can’t be reached"
- dealforager 5y agoSorry, for some reason I have to put the "www." before the URL and forgot to do that. I edited the comment and I'll look into fixing that. Edit: saw replies, I'll just say it's Monday morning and leave it at that.
- boplicity 5y agohttps://dealforager.com https://dealforager.com
- rhacker 5y agodealfor-A-ger, like your username?
- LeoPanthera 5y ago
- buildbot 5y agoThis is no longer true about the returns - I may have to go to court with amazon over a warehouse item that was empty, and then they stuck me with the non-returned item when I returned the empty box, wiped my review of the 3rd party seller (fulfilled by amazon). They are currently lying to my credit card company about the chargeback. Not fun...
- akouri 5y agoAmazon support 10 years ago used to be amazing. They were truly a customer-first company. Today, Amazon support is probably worse than Comcast. They've been winning too long. I have starting curtailing purchases from Amazon, and ordering from any alternatives whenever possible.
- ziml77 5y agoThe impression I'm getting here is that he didn't even talk to their support. You can do returns without ever talking to a CSR. But in this case that's a stupid move because when you do a return, you're saying that you'll return the actual item. So when they get it back and the box is empty, they're going to think you're scamming them. It sounds like his very next move was to do a chargeback, which again is a dumb thing to do if he hasn't even spoken to Amazon support.
- buildbot 5y agoI did 3 times actually, at first there was no movement on it. I opened the return with support stating that I got an empty box, which they asked me to send back to them.
- joshmanders 5y agoAs someone who had Comcast and has dealt with Amazon support I cannot disagree with this statement anymore. My only experience with Amazon support was a failure to deliver a $600 item, Amazon not only refunded the price right away after we figured out what was going on, but also credited me $100 for my trouble. Comcast? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHA.
- NikolaNovak 5y agoI've been buying Refurbished Thinkpads for 15 years. I still have two 10-year-old T420s in active use around the household. There are things I will NOT buy used/refurbished, such as hard drives (I always replace the drive in refurbished laptops and put the refurbished drive into secondary capacity).
- ramraj07 5y agoI still have fond memories of my 1000 dollar refurbished original Vaio Z. The one with a carbon fiber magnesium chassis and a Raid 0 SSD drive. Worked like a horse for years before going out. They don’t make laptops like that anymore!
- nfoz 5y agoI'd love to try one of the new VAIOs to find out if the quality is the same. https://us.vaio.com/collections/vaio-sx https://us.vaio.com/collections/vaio-sx
- jcadam 5y agoIf a large number of the new MBPs start showing up in the refurb store in the very near future... that's probably not a good sign.
- outside1234 5y agoThese are "cold feet" returns usually - its a expensive machine and people have second thoughts.
- Jasper_ 5y agoYou know, I wonder if you could buy a new computer, return it for a refund, and then buy the same configuration back from the refurbished store a month later at a discount.
- bombcar 5y agoUsually the first batch are all returns of custom configurations which can't be sold as new - and sometimes there are good deals.
- simoelalj 5y agoThat was the case of the the first Macbook Air M1 (which was super popular): https://www.refurb.me/stats/macbook-air/macbook-air-13.3-inch-m1-late-2020?merchantSlug=apple-store https://www.refurb.me/stats/macbook-air/macbook-air-13.3-inc... 106 days exactly since its first release. The first batch would be more for people who bought it to review it and return it.
- outside1234 5y agoContext: Refurbished Apple machines are essentially new -- but significantly cheaper. Apple runs them through the manufacturing process again -- including testing and repackaging.
- simoelalj 5y agoNot All Apple refurbished products are created equal though. Apple have literally the BEST condition you can expect on any refurbished product on the market. But all other refurbishers (Gazelle, Mac of All trades, Amazon Warehouse, Decluttr...) grade them in a scale (A, B, C) based on their cosmetic condition and add a year warranty as well.
- chrisBob 5y agoI love getting Apple products refurbished, but I wish people on the internet wouldn't talk about it so much. I just bought a refurbished M1 Macbook Air, and had to settle for less RAM than I would have liked because my preferred configuration went out of stock while I was debating the purchase. The experience is even better now than It used to be. I remember buying an iMac a long time ago and it came in an ugly brown box that screamed "you bought this at a discount". My recent Macbook Air just has a tiny "refurbished by Apple" note on what is otherwise normal retail packaging.
- spicybright 5y agoI know it shouldn't matter on a practical level, but I love apple product boxes. For smaller devices I'll even use them as drawer organizers. They're so rugged!
- mehrdada 5y agoApple's own refurbs usually come with a box identical to the retail one except they don't have the graphics and they are just white and just have a wordmark, e.g. "MacBook Pro", in the center, so you can still use them for storage.
- simoelalj 5y agoThat was exactly my pain point back in 2007 when I wanted to get a specific configuration for the retina Macbook Pro. That's why I built RefurbMe as a comparison and monitoring service :)
- floatingatoll 5y agoYou may wish to prefix "Show HN: " to your title.
- simoelalj 5y agoJust updated that. Thanks!
- 5y ago
- christiangenco 5y agoIt's interesting to me to see that the outlier in time to become refurbished is the Late 2016 MBP (the first version with the Touch Bar). I would've thought the new design would've meant more broken laptops sooner which (I would think) would mean quicker refurbished laptops.
- andrei_says_ 5y agoLouis Rossman has two videos discussing (and showing the boards of) refurbished Apple laptops. I imagine the quality varies depending on the third party who does the refurbishing. The videos contain some colorful language. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XaGHcBZjmWA https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XaGHcBZjmWA https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YhpDs3AJOyI https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YhpDs3AJOyI
- robertoandred 5y agoRefurbished by Apple or by Best Buy etc?
- smoldesu 5y agoThe refurbishes he's looking at are all Apple-authorized or first party.
- robertoandred 5y agoAny proof those are laptops Apple sold as refurbished? Rossman has been caught lying about a bunch of stuff in the past.
- Toutouxc 5y ago> has been caught lying about a bunch of stuff Would you mind linking to some of those? He's not my cup of coffee, but I always saw him as a fair guy.
- robertoandred 5y agoHe got caught using counterfeit parts.
- smoldesu 5y agoHe's openly admitted to that, since for the most part Apple will not sell him the official OEM components.
- mcintyre1994 5y agoThis website looks awesome, will definitely use it next time I buy! Super small feedback thing, on your support page (https://www.refurb.me/support https://www.refurb.me/support) you have some HTML sneaking in: Refurbished Products <p>Covering answers and tips about refurbished Apple products in general. We break down the answers into sub-categories.</p>
- simoelalj 5y agoThanks! I just pushed an update to fix that :)
- hedgehog 5y agoFor a while my yearly OS upgrade strategy was to wait for the XX.2 release, buy a recent model refurb, and then sell the old one once my workflow was migrated. In that situation saving a few hundred dollars on a refurb makes a relatively large difference in net cost. Never had a problem I could attribute to buying refurbs (just some replacements due to the butterfly keyboard problems).
- itake 5y agoI'm skeptical this timeline reflects the current supply chain issues that Apple (and the world) is experiencing. Apple has delayed the friends and family discount on the iPhone 13 and does not allow in-store pick up for the macbook pros (Due to limited supply and in-store staffing).
- simoelalj 5y agoI think there would still be a supply for refurbished products (maybe a bit less this time with the shortages) – as Apple cannot sell open-boxes or returned products as new.
- jmole 5y agoBingo - I’m likely planning on returning my 16” for a 14”. After using the M1 air for the past year, the 16” just feels too big. But even with a 14 day return policy, Apple cant just turn around and sell this as new. I have seen a few open box items at Best Buy though, usually discounted ~$100 or so.
- gnicholas 5y agoThey may not allow in-store pickup of online orders, but they did have plenty of stock of the new MBPs when I checked last week. Also, for anyone considering an MBP, it appears Apple will again offer 6% back on Apple Store purchases over Black Friday/Cyber Monday. They had this deal last year, and it was offered to some folks (seemingly accidentally) last week. It was quickly removed, but they're apparently honoring it for anyone who got in under the wire.
- pembrook 5y agoRegarding refurbs, I’ve been buying refurbished gear for years without issue, however recently have had 2 bad experiences that make me question whether it’s worth it. The first was a an official refurb 2018 MacBook Pro which ended up having a burnt out touchbar and battery issues a year later. The second was an official Amazon refurb kindle, which never reached even half the battery life of a new model. This is of course anecdata (these issues could have occurred with brand new items as well), but I would love to see blackblaze style reliability data from companies who buy large numbers of refurb laptops vs new stock. I’m curious if there’s a correlation.
- tarellel 5y agoI've bought several MBP's over the years. The 2018 MPB is one of their worst models I've had ever had and still have. I've had the keyboard in-operable and repaired twice. The battery has been services twice and won't keep a charge again. I'm honestly blown away by the latest version, but what to wait to for the hype to die down and ensure there's no Quality issues with this years model as well. But it appears they may have taken a step back and instead of pushing aesthetics this year, they looked at what its users "want/need".
- mehrdada 5y agoThose issues would have likely occurred even on new MBP 2016-19 models, esp. on 2016.
- singhrac 5y agoI buy refurbished too pretty much every time, and I've had no real problems. Keyboard in 2014 MBP gave out because I dropped a Clorox wipe on it, and they replaced the whole motherboard for free (in warranty). Typing this on a refurbished 2019 16" MBP with no problems yet, though I swear typing lags every so often which I attribute to the Intel processor and some throttling.
- fouc 5y ago> The first was a an official refurb 2018 MacBook Pro which ended up having a burnt out touchbar and battery issues a year later. Why do you consider this to be a bad experience when it was clearly still under warranty and they replaced your topcase for free - brand new touchbar & battery & keyboard?
- gnicholas 5y agoJust a nit: > It should be noted that Apple itself is unlikely to sell the new MacBook Pro as refurbished. As soon as it’s released. This should be one sentence, at least to my ear.
- simoelalj 5y agoThanks for the feedback! I rephrased the conclusion :)
- adolph 5y agoOn average, the discount you can expect is 15% from the Apple store. So expect to see the refurb price for a refurbished 14-inch starting from $1,699 and the 16-inch from $2,125. I'm a refurb-first shopper/buyer and something I've noticed about Apple's refurbs is that they often maintain their from-new discount as if products released later (sometimes with lower price tags than the returb) don't exist. Reviewing the store today, it looks like they are doing a somewhat better job of price models for refurbs but maintain a silly discount for things. Example: refurb XS at $550, "save $340." Claiming $340 is fictitious--a new 11 is $500. Maybe XS to 11 is not an apple-orange comparison but the price competitiveness of a new older model phone speaks to refurbs as not always being bargains.
- samstave 5y agoI had a macbook pro which was under the recall for the 15" recall... This fucking machine caught FIRE while in my bed as I fell asleep. Apple had the machine for TWO MONTHS in the flagship San Francisco Store. After TWO MONTHS they told me that I could not have the machine replaced (it was under RECALL for battery incinerations) -- IT INCINERATED and caught fire. IN MY BED. After spending TWO MONTHS at the flagship apple store they said they couldnt replace the machine because at "some point" the liquid sensors were set off... and they wouldnt replace it. So a machine that was under recall for specifically a battery explosion/fire incident, which actually caught fire was denied the recall because a liquid trigger had been set off was denied. it took Apple, TWO FUCKING MONTHS to come to this conclusion. Fuck you Tim Apple
- mixmastamyk 5y agoSmall claims court might be a help.