Podcast: Play in new window | Embed
Steve asked: “I was checking my e-mail and Groupon sent me a deal for an Apple iPad 2 Wifi 9.7 display for $139. But it’s refurbished. Didn’t know what your feelings were about it being refurbished. If you could speak to that, that’d be great.”
Steve, refurbished doesn’t actually mean anything, it’s like saying “cable TV”… sure, that’s a thing, but you can have a cheap package with 6 local channels and little else, or you can have the deluxe 1000 channels and on demand, and DVR, and 4k…and so on.
Refurbished just means someone sent it somewhere, then it got fixed, then it was put on sale at a discount for being somewhere in between used and new.
Now, Apple itself refurbishes its products and they’re pretty indistinguishable from new when you buy them, and more importantly, they ship with the same warranty as a regular brand new product, but that’s when you buy an Apple refurbished product from Apple.
If you’re buying from GroupOn, you’re probably really buying from a third party advertising on GroupOn, so find out what their warranty policy is and you’ll know what kind of risk you’re taking.
We should probably mention that if this is an iPad 2, not an iPad Air 2, or Mini 2, it’s pretty ancient. You can probably find a more recent refurbished iPad for $140.