Dell Outlet: Refurbished & New

[hhara]

I am looking to purchase a Dell 3008WFP. Buying it brand new from dell.com would cost me 1700$ and I dont have that kind of money to fork out. There is the option of buying it from the outlet store. I was wondering if someone could help me understand what is going on in the dell outlet store for new products.

Specifically, if you look here you will see a list of 'new' dell 3008 WFPs. You will also notice that all of the 3008s cost different prices, which makes sense because they have different part numbers which I am assuming means some type of small difference between them. I was wondering why do some of these cost more then the advertised version of 1700$ on dell.com (not the outlet store) even with the instant savings?


Lastly, what is your experience with "Certified Refurbished" items from the Dell Outlet store?

I just dont want to buy a monitor for 1200$ and find 20 dead pixels. Judging from their explanation of "Certified Refurbished" that should not happen, since they fix whatever problem caused the original buyer to return it.


Thanks,
Alex

 

[sodaburst]

I just talked to a rep at TigerDirect about refurbished items. He explained it to me this way. Let's say a company chooses to pull every 200th monitor from the assembly line for a quality assurance test. That monitor will then be quality tested. If any problems are identified, the company will pull the 20 monitors before and after the original monitor pull and test them for any problems. Any problems on any of these monitors will be fixed and then they will be tested again. After they are "ok'd" these monitors will be sold as refurbished. Because they have been triple tested different warranty rules apply, but you can warranty them further for less than you would a "New" monitor.

I don't know if this is how Dell qualifies it's "refurbished" models, but this is what the guy from TigerDirect told me. Hope it helps some.

 

[hhara]

I went ahead and bought the monitor. It comes with a 3 year warranty by default. I read on the hardforums that a member bought this monitor "Certified Refurbished" from dell outlet. He ended up getting one with like 1-2 dead pixels, so since he had a 3 year warranty he returned it for another one. He claims the one he got in return was "brand new" but there is no way of knowing that for sure. Since he used that term I can only assume the one he got back was of the best quality.

Anyways, the point is, even if you do get a defected one, you can just return it for another until you get one that is good. If you dont mind doing that, then it is worth the immediate 400$ difference between the brand new ones and the ones from the dell outlet.

I will be sure to come back and post my findings with the monitor I received. It should be here in a few days. Hopefully its not damaged so I dont have to waste a week replacing it!