ebay vs IBM Certified

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mattbiernat · #1 Post by **mattbiernat** » Tue Aug 21, 2007 7:51 pm

so i am on the look out for a refub. I found ebay which is nice and cheap and IBM certified. Ebay is cheap but risky while IBM certified is more reliable. But these are general differences. Can someone tell me what is so great about IBM Certified Refubs and why would I want to spend extra bucks to get used computer from them?

wearetheborg · #2 Post by **wearetheborg** » Tue Aug 21, 2007 8:10 pm

mattbiernat wrote:so i am on the look out for a refub. I found ebay which is nice and cheap and IBM certified. Ebay is cheap but risky while IBM certified is more reliable. But these are general differences. Can someone tell me what is so great about IBM Certified Refubs and why would I want to spend extra bucks to get used computer from them?

Why not just get something from ebay that still has part of the original IBM warranty remaining ?

#3 Post by **rkawakami** » Tue Aug 21, 2007 8:20 pm

Warranty and a known vendor would be the obvious reasons. Most eBay sellers don't offer any kind of warranty on what they're selling (as-is, no refunds, no returns, etc.) and even with a 100% feedback rating, unless you go back and check to see what/when they've been selling, it really doesn't mean much.

And even if the eBay seller does offer a 30-day warranty (the most I've ever seen), if issues do pop up with the system in the alloted time of the warranty, would you rather deal with a private seller (who may or may not know what a MiniPCI card is) or an established corporation?

eBay can be a good deal if you know what can go wrong with a system and you are prepared to deal with it (i.e., repair it) yourself.

mattbiernat · #4 Post by **mattbiernat** » Tue Aug 21, 2007 8:26 pm

okay let me make things clear. I am going out of this country to europe. I don't think that the kind of warranty I will get from IBM or buy from ebay will be transferable.
so I am strictly concerned with the quality of the product i get and not the warranty.

Eric Giles · #5 Post by **Eric Giles** » Tue Aug 21, 2007 8:32 pm

EDIT: This was posted after I saw your post about going to Europe, so it won't apply to your needs. But I will leave it up here so that someone else might benefit.

Although the majority of people here would not do this, my company recently was in dire need of some replacement laptops. In the end, I made the decision to buy a quantity of T42's from ebay seller ibmfactoryoutlet. Not the best price for the configuration that you can find, but they do come with a three year Mack warranty.

Now I know, I know-this Mack warranty may very well be worthless-but then again, maybe it isn't. At least there is some type of coverage on these units for the next three years. But on the plus side, every one of the T42's we got still had a few months of the original 3 year IBM depot warranty.

The machines themselves were in really nice overall shape-not perfect, but pretty clean with little overall wear. However, one had a bad mouse button on the keyboard and another had a failed CD-RW drive. Two separate calls to technical support got me the replacement parts the very next day under the exisiting warranty.

As I said, this might not be the best avenue for everyone-but overall I am pretty pleased with the outcome. Sometimes paying a bit more is worth the piece of mind.

wearetheborg · #6 Post by **wearetheborg** » Tue Aug 21, 2007 9:41 pm

mattbiernat wrote:okay let me make things clear. I am going out of this country to europe. I don't think that the kind of warranty I will get from IBM or buy from ebay will be transferable.
so I am strictly concerned with the quality of the product i get and not the warranty.

Well you should be, seeing as IBM warranties are international for many models.
Which models are you considering ?

mattbiernat · #7 Post by **mattbiernat** » Tue Aug 21, 2007 9:48 pm

wearetheborg wrote: Which models are you considering ?

not sure. perhaps this will be another topic. I am thinking anything like T4x or R5x.
3 month warranty doesn't seem like much anyways. and the price difference between ebay and IBM refubs could be substantial.

wearetheborg · #8 Post by **wearetheborg** » Tue Aug 21, 2007 11:55 pm

mattbiernat wrote: not sure. perhaps this will be another topic. I am thinking anything like T4x or R5x.
3 month warranty doesn't seem like much anyways. and the price difference between ebay and IBM refubs could be substantial.

Matt, YGPM

#9 Post by **RealBlackStuff** » Wed Aug 22, 2007 2:53 am

Why not buy a laptop locally in Europe? Worst case scenario you may have to install a US keyboard.

mattbiernat · #10 Post by **mattbiernat** » Wed Aug 22, 2007 11:00 am

RealBlackStuff wrote:Why not buy a laptop locally in Europe? Worst case scenario you may have to install a US keyboard.

because most likely I will have to pay VAT on it. the prices might be higher? is there IBM certified in Poland?

mattbiernat · #11 Post by **mattbiernat** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 10:11 pm

bump.

ebay vs IBM Certified

ebay vs IBM Certified

Re: ebay vs IBM Certified

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