refurbished cameras, to buy of not to buy......

Hi
would you buy a camera refurbished from the manufacturer and why?
something like some Nikon coolpix
the price is very advantageous, but the guaranty is a bit week...
are the refurbished cameras any less good?
anybody please....
TIA
stef.

 

The key to buying a good refurbished camera is that it's refurbished by the
manufacturer.

Chances are a store simply returned a perfectly good working camera in a
damaged box and the camera is fine.

And Nikon or whoever will check it out again.

Next you have to consider the savings compared to the shortened warranty
period.

Have fun, Dan Sullivan

 

My experience: On impulse I bought a refurbished camera (tiny APS) from
Nikon last year. The first one was defective. They replaced it immediately.
Realizing than many people who post on newsgroups have an axe to grind there
have been a number of complaints posted about Nikon repairs of digital
cameras. If Nion will allow a return/refund if you are not satisfied and the
price is right . . .

 

Keep in mind that nowdays a lot of so-called "refurbished" electronic
items are in fact new and untouched. It's often just a gimmick to
unload excess inventory while at the same time avoiding sales
agreements to distributers. A good thing to take advantage of, but
often can indicate that a product is at or near the end of production.

 

My first Nikon CP5700 was a Nikon-refurbished unit bought from B and H. Two
monstrously reliable entities.

Within minutes of unpacking, the twistable viewing screen became unreadable.
I called B and H to ask for a return-to-sender number and address. The
fellow in the refurb-used department was genuinely sorry, it seemed to me. I
sent it back and was very quickly credited with full price and shipping and
insurance both ways.

Over the ten-day period for that activity to take place, the retail price of
the camera came down to the point that I could trot over to my local
retailer and for just a few dollars more have a new one that I could throw
at his head if something went wrong. Nothing went wrong.

Just to say that even if Nikon refurbs reliably, they can make a mistake. B
and H may not review every refurbished item they sell, but they do not
hesitate to "make it right" if it's wrong.

I bought a used CP5000 from B and H, it had fewer than a thousand exposures
in its young life. I has performed faultlessly.

Sometimes it's worth it, sometimes there are misteaks. You have to be
willing to work on it before and after, research and adjustment, and be
convinced the other party is willing, too.. If either of you, or of those,
is weak, it might not be worth it.

 

What is the URL for B&H? Thanks.

 

www.bhphoto.com

Charlie Self
"Take care of the luxuries and the necessities will take care of themselves."
Dorothy Parker

http://hometown.aol.com/charliediy/myhomepage/business.html

 

I bought a "refurbished" Kodak digital. It was pristine and showed no
indication of ever being used or handled, such as micro-scratches in
the plastic parts. I'm convinced it was factory new and the
"refurbished" gimmick was a means of dumping excess inventory of a
discontinued model.

OTOH, I'd be wary of a genuinely refurbished unit. I've seen
altogether too many "intermittent" electronic problems. Here's the
scenario:

1) Customer's camera is defective, so it is exchanged and the
defective camera is returned to mfg. for refurbishing.
2) Not knowing the history of the camera, the repair facility
performs all tests on the camera and it works, flawlessly, and is put
up for sale. However, unbeknownst to everybody, the fault is
intermittent. Any number of things could cause this, such as a
defective solder joint, cracked resistor, bent or dirty contact, etc.
3) The next purchaser of the camera is screwed. The real problem was
never fixed.

My 2¢

BTW, I was very pleased with the Kodak. For a 2 M-pixel unit, it took
beautiful pictures. But, I've upgraded to a higher quality 4 M-pixel
that produces less vibrant colors.

Orrin

 

I bought my 995 from Nikon as a refurb. I could not tell that it had ever
been used. I have been perfectly happy with it for over a year now and
several thousand pictures.

I wasn't concerned about the warranty. It lasted long enough to get the
camera through the infant mortality period. That usually does it for
electronics that aren't abused.

John

 

Oh, yes, a refurbished piece of electronics can be a crap shoot.

A referbished digital camera is a whole different ball game from a refurbished
easy chair...

Dave Head

 

I've purchased refurbished gear numerous times and have had only one lemon.
It was a Fuji digicam which wouldn't work more than a few minutes on a fully
charged set of batteries. No problem returning it for full credit including
shipping. All my other purchases including a Nikon 995, Canon lenses, TiVo
unit, and others have performed as new.

I wouldn't call buying refurbished gear a crap shoot since I've had,
percentage wise, as many lemons buying new. A motherboard, memory chips and
studio lights come to mind.

 

I have bought a lot of refurbished electronic items, printer, scanner,
computer, but not a camera. No problems with any of them. In theory, every
item that is refurbished is individually tested, whereas new products
coming off of the assembly line are often sampled, so some of them are not
completely tested.

 

So what sites on the web are good places to buy refurbished items?

 

ebay has some.
so is this guy:
http://www.refurbdepot.com/category.cfm?PageID=202&refererid=google

stef.