Bad idea to buy refurbished L.E.D, L.C.D, HDTV?

[LogisticsMan]

My wife and I are looking at buying an L.E.D 50'' HDTV for Christmas. We are both fresh out of college so money is really tight. That's why I'm considering buying a refurbished t.v from the manufacturers website with only a 50$ discount.

If the T.V is likely to be an overstock, or something fixable, even if the savings are small isn't this just a no-brainer purchase?

 

[getochkn]

for $50 off, I wouldn't bother. Should have tried to buy one last week on black friday. Was some amazing deals. I got a 50" TV for $388 and thats in canada where our TV's are usually 25-50% more than the US.

 

[LogisticsMan]

for $50 off, I wouldn't bother. Should have tried to buy one last week on black friday. Was some amazing deals. I got a 50" TV for $388 and thats in canada where our TV's are usually 25-50% more than the US.

Well the tv I want never really went on sale and the discount is more like 70$. But even if its only 5$ it's supposed to be like new right?

 

[getochkn]

guess it depends on what went wrong and how much they went through to fix it.

Could have a customer returned it saying it has no sound, i've tried everything, etc and it turns out they didn't have hdmi passthrough on

or

Could have a customer that dumped pop in the back of the tv, shorted some stuff, they replace the PSU and it worked but never did much to clean the pop from the screen or mainboard and that may be an issue 6 months down the road.

or

Could be a problem where a lot of the TV's die in 6 months from crappy caps on the board and they replace it with the same board, same caps and you might get another 6 months of out it before the same problem happens again, except this time you only have like a 90 warranty cause it's refurb instead of the standard 1 or 2 or 4 years warranty the person had that returned it.


Comes down to you never know what the exact issue is that brought the tv back for repair. Customer error, bad design flaw that they repeat cause that's cheaper than fixing, or bad damage that get's minimally fixed to get it working again.


For a TV, I'd go new. We just bought a 70", 50", and 5 32"'s on black friday, and got extended warranties on all of them. For the money we paid for the 70" and the 50", I want new, I want it fully replaceable, etc. The 70" was like 2500. I wouldn't have taken a refurb for 2430. Now the 32"s, they were $170. A refurb for $100, maybe.

 

[ssddx]

if you are both fresh out of college and on a budget i dont think you can be too picky in terms of what tv to buy.

what is your budget?

50" sony bravias are $599.99 kdl50r450a. nothing fancy but it works and its sony so not some cheap crap brand.

whats your budget?

while refurbished could mean a good deal... only saving $50-70 isnt worth it. you dont know whats wrong with it. if you saved $200-300 then maybe..

 

[chibisa]

good, save is good. I am difficulties financial. I want buy 1 TV new, too. But i need it cheap. You and me too. Now, i want buy it but i dont know buy where? who can help? Thanks.

 

[ssddx]

@chibisa you need to provide details....

 

[MorkS]

It depends on what warranty there is. Often, if you are getting it from the manufacturer it will have a decent warranty attached.

I've owned a refurb LED TV for a couple of years now without a single problem. It had a decent warranty so I went for it and wasn't let down.

 

[americanaudiophile]

There is no problem buying a refurb if it has been done properly. The most important thing is the warranty. Also be aware that if you don't save the box you will not only have to pay to ship it to service but buy new packing material unless they have local carry in service. This would cost way more than $70.