When Should You Use the Apple Refurbished Store To Buy a Mac?

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Күн бұрын

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@GWillWin 4 ай бұрын

Every iMac and Macbook Air I have bought is from the refurb store. They come packed like new and have never had an issue with any of them.

@craigneidel 4 ай бұрын

@@GWillWin I never had single issue either. Thanks for watching.

@jamesmartin1895 4 ай бұрын

I'm not a power user & got my very first MacBook Air to try the line - Amazon/Renewed: Excellent Rated - M1 MacBook Air 8GB RAM/256GB Storage with 97% Battery Health & you need a magnifying glass to find the wear, for $533... I was happy. 😊

@craigneidel 4 ай бұрын

Thanks for sharing. I made a video on this. If you can try and always use the Amazon (Renewed Premium) and not just the renewed as most of the renewed Premium models actually come from Apple refurbished.

@LinwoodFredericksen 4 ай бұрын

I have purchased Apple refurbished and Amazon renewed Apple products and have been happy, still avoid impulse purchases, compare pricing for both new and refurbished, you will be happy you did.

@craigneidel 4 ай бұрын

Yes, for sure. The key is to avoid the impulse buy and get what makes sense. Thanks.

@jsjiang6120 4 ай бұрын

M1 has the best deal now. Three weeks ago I got the refurb Mackbook Pro M1 Max 10 CPU/ 32 GPU/ 64G RAM/ 4T SSD with the price of $2150. I checked the quality after received it. The battery has only 4 cycles and the SSD READ/WRITE is less than 500GB. No scratch at all. They are no different from a brand new one.

@craigneidel 3 ай бұрын

Yes, the M1s are still fast enough for most and you can get a great deal on them.

@rtcurtis5858 4 ай бұрын

Craig, I can use my Apple Vets discount on refurb purchases as well. Guessing student discount the same. Btw, bought the tier 3 off the shelf M3 Air for 1249 on Tuesday New. At Best Buy.

@craigneidel 4 ай бұрын

Thanks and nice to know. Good luck with everything.

@digitalmarketinghumans 4 ай бұрын

Sharing my personal experience from 2021. I bought an iMac 2020 5700XT. If anyone remembers around that time, the iMac 5700XT version would have a lot of graphical issues. Anyways, mine came with graphical issues lol. With that being said, I had over a year warranty so within a few months, I went to the Apple store and got my iMac fixed and felt brand new again. Everything right out of the box felt brand new. It felt brand new in the first place anyways. Despite having an issue with my 2020 iMac, I will still HIGHLY recommend the refurb site and to buy refurb if possible. If it's really a $100 difference, then go for new but other than that, the refurb does give you a longer warranty, which saved me lol. The service at Apple was beyond excellent considering I went to Microcenter's Apple department and they just couldn't fix the issue and recommended me to go to the official Apple store near by. I am skipping out on the 3rd party fixer upper places and will just go to Apple directly next time (assuming you have a warranty). If not, yeah it can get expensive for sure. Great video as always, Craig!

@craigneidel 4 ай бұрын

Thanks for sharing and I agree with the post. I only go to the third party places when I know who they are (research) and I'm buying a lower priced Mac or item that I take a chance on.

@brianmiller1077 4 ай бұрын

Sometimes you get above the spec you ordered from the Refurb store. Back in 2014 I bought a 8GB Ram i5 processor from the Refurb store and I ended up getting a 16 GB i7.

@craigneidel 4 ай бұрын

That would be nice for sure. But, with Apple Refurb they know have it down where you will get the exact item but from others I can see that happening.

@MrShalvayez 4 ай бұрын

Bought my iMac from refurb. Will likely do so again with a m3 iMac.

@craigneidel 4 ай бұрын

@@MrShalvayez yes they are actually new in many cases from apple refurbished.

@michaelbutler2312 4 ай бұрын

i'd like to see you check on the mac studio. i've bought 2 refurb ipads and they both have worked great!

@craigneidel 4 ай бұрын

Check out the site as I have a link in the video. They sometimes have some Mac Studios on there.

@WISEYOUN 3 ай бұрын

Two years ago, I bought an M2 MacBook Air 15” with 2 Tb of SSD for a list price of $2100 at an Apple Store. I will use this computer for the next 5 years. In addition, I bought AppleCare to cover maintainance of the computer. I plan to use the computer for 5 years and trade it in at the end of that period. At the end of the 5 years, it means that I would have paid less than $3000 with sales tax to use the M2 Air 15” for 5 years, about $700/year for 5 years. Today, even if I were willing to pay list price, I would not be able to find one.

@craigneidel 3 ай бұрын

Yes, that should last you at least 5 years. Thanks for watching.

@JeffreyForner 4 ай бұрын

Interesting advice. Last year, I bought a base model M2 Pro Mac mini from the Refurbished Store for $1,099 (list price is $1,299, so $200 off or about a 15% savings). At the time, I don’t think there were any good deals on that particular model at the various retailers. I had been going back and forth between the M2 model and M2 Pro. If the I went with the former, I would’ve wanted 16GB of unified memory and 512GB storage at a minimum. That would’ve pushed the price of a new M2 Mac mini to $999. For an extra $100, I could get a refurbished one with a much better chip and two extra Thunderbolt ports. It seemed like a pretty good deal to me. Best of all, the machine looked brand new when it arrived and has performed like a champ ever since I got it.

@craigneidel 3 ай бұрын

Yes, they are sometimes new when you buy them from Apple Refurbished in my opinion. Thanks for the post and for watching the channel. Good luck with the system and I love my M2.

@davidtindell950 4 ай бұрын

thank you ! looking for a mac mini M4 ...

@craigneidel 4 ай бұрын

We hope that comes out soon but it looks like 2025 now.

@bryans8656 4 ай бұрын

Thanks Craig, this is really good information. I bought a refurb'd iPad 10 as a birthday gift for my son two months ago, and it's already less expensive on Amazon for a new model. Oh well, live and learn.

@craigneidel 4 ай бұрын

Thanks Bryan. Yeah, the pricing has been crazy. At the end of the day though I bet the refurb (if from Apple refurb) is basically new but I get it. Things are changing so much every week now.

@bryans8656 4 ай бұрын

@@craigneidel True, and birthdays can't wait for "possible" price reductions 😉

@craigneidel 3 ай бұрын

Yeah, that is true too.

@asan1050 4 ай бұрын

Great points Craig! , Thank you very much!

@craigneidel 4 ай бұрын

@@asan1050 thanks again for supporting the channel.

@dirtyharry53-vo4id 4 ай бұрын

When M1 chip was new I bought an MacBook air base model refurbished for 950 € when the new price was > 1.200 €. There hasn´t been any special offers for that model in the web. After some testing I found out that there was I brand new chip put to the Computer. The entire disk showed 0% usage. Because the storage is part of the chip they must have put a new chip to the computer. So I think even the base model buying refurbished has been a good deal for me.

@craigneidel 4 ай бұрын

Yes, but you can normally get them new (base models) on sale from other stores cheaper because the stores take a loss to sell you the Macs (and use it as a loss leader to get you in the stores or to their sites). But, for the non-standard configurations I think Apple refurbished is great. It does appear you did get a good deal and if you are happy that is what matters. Thanks for sharing and that's good info.

@dirtyharry53-vo4id 4 ай бұрын

@@craigneidel You are right so far. But I think the situation in the US is different from ours here in Germany. We only have 3 major sources besides Apple store to buy macs. One of them broke the other day. So it is harder here getting good offers. And by the way compared to the US Apple products in € are more expensive anyhow.

@TechnoThornYT 4 ай бұрын

Amazing video! By the way, this methodology works for MacBook Pro as well - I got the base model 14” M1 Pro MBP for $1300 last November from Amazon, and it was actually an Apple Refurbished item!

@craigneidel 4 ай бұрын

Thanks for watching and the nice words. Yes, I had a video on Amazon (the premium refurbished) and sometimes they come basically directly from Apple. The only issue is that is't not a guarantee but you can alway try and return it.

@markniu2900 3 ай бұрын

when? every single time!

@craigneidel 3 ай бұрын

@@markniu2900 not sure what you are saying

@choi_minwoo 4 ай бұрын

most of the time I look at the apple refurbished store... it's actually more $$ than what the sales are for best buy and amazon... so if ppl can wait.. and be a bit more savvy of a consumer.. you just buy them on sale at those retailers. i think the worst example is that the ipad mini 6 from apple refurb is like $20 more than what it is BRAND NEW at best buy and amazon when on sale... and they go on sale A LOT.. like every 2-3 weeks like clockwork. and this isn't just for "base level" stuff.. everything on apple refurb is more expensive than what one could find on sale at other retailers for NEW if one can wait for the sales that always happen.

@craigneidel 4 ай бұрын

Yes, but in my video I had mentioned many times those big box stores won't carry the specific configs like an Air with 16 or 24 GB of ram. So that is where the Apple refurb store comes in. It's is good for those types of purchases.

@teddy0139 4 ай бұрын

Apple refurbished is still too expensive. My way is to buy a last gen model open box in excellent condition. This way I recently bought M1 Macbook Pro 16 for $960 after tax. Looks like new and battery only have 26 cycles.

@goobfilmcast4239 4 ай бұрын

That's true but Apple Refurbs are treated as brand new...with the same warranty and return policy.

@digitalmarketinghumans 4 ай бұрын

@@goobfilmcast4239 I agree, I would always go this route. Now there is a low percentage of the mac product one would buy to have issues but for me, having that warranty is everything, especially for one year. Anything goes wrong in one year, Apple usually will fix it. If I am spending lots of money, even if it's $960, I want to make sure that I have a peace of mind. I am sure open box works out with many, especially through best buy, but I just don't like the risk, especially for an expensive product.

@choi_minwoo 4 ай бұрын

YEP. ipad mini 6 goes on sale like every month at best buy and amazon for 399 BRAND NEW.... apple refurb direct from apple costs $420... lmao...

@unknownKnownunknowns 4 ай бұрын

The Apple refurbished will have a new battery with no cycles

@craigneidel 4 ай бұрын

You need to find the right deal on Apple refurbished. Open box can work but that could also mean a bunch of people fooled around with it so it can have issues I think more than Apple refurbished where the systems are fully tested by engineers again.

@tomdfrog 3 ай бұрын

You should never by the basic models....period! Better to buy last years model with better features for around the same price as this years basic model.

@craigneidel 3 ай бұрын

@@tomdfrog I'm not sure that is correct. Base models are fine for my wife or my mom who use email and browse the Internet. For them the updates might mean more than 16 gb. But I do get your jist to look for better deals. Thanks for watching.