How to buy a refurbished Mac, MacBook, iPhone, or iPad directly from Apple
How to buy a refurbished Mac, MacBook, iPhone, or iPad from Apple
If you hear “refurbished product” and immediately think of buying some piece of junk that is dented, scratched and otherwise really “USED” with a capital U, think again as far as Refurbished products that Apple sells. What Apple calls “refurbished” is quite different.
These are not “scratch and dent” units, but seemingly new or almost new products that Apple sells at a discount. Sometimes they are one season’s previous version that Apple has leftover stock after they say update the model line. Sometimes someone has say, taken home an new iMac and and when they were setting it up, simply found it could not fit the desk where they intended, so they returned it to the Apple store — which has to sell it as a “used” iMac, by law.
In my lifetime, I’ve bought about 3 over the years (an iMac, a Macbook Pro, and an iPad) all for less that Apple was selling the unit, normally. Each one to my eyes looked and appeared “brand new” for all intents and purposes and worked perfectly as advertised. I find Apple’s refurbished product list to be excellent value, where you can save money, sometimes a few hundred bucks. The stock changes constantly so you have to check if what you are looking for is actually available. If it is, it’s best to act fast before someone else buys it. These are usually “one off” things. You can check the list daily and see what Apple has on it, at that time….
Macworld had a good piece about buying a refurbished Mac, iPhone or iPad. Check it out.
