But buying from someone other than Apple can be risky.įor example, you can get refurbished Macs on Amazon US and on Amazon UK, but these tend to be really old Macs and not ones we would recommend buying. Since the stock depends the number of returns made or traded in, Apple may have more of one item than another, which is when you may need to turn to other retailers.Īnother disadvantage is that the discounts you get from buying on the Apple Refurbished Store aren’t always as good as you would get if you bought the same model from somewhere else. The other downside to buying from Apple’s Refurbished Store is it may not always have the model you’re after. This could prove to be a problem in the long term because the Intel-powered Mac will not be as future-proofed as an M1 or M2-powered Mac. One disadvantage is that buying an older Mac will likely mean that you aren’t buying a Mac with one of the M1-series or M2-series of chips. Reasons not to buy refurbished MacsĪs you can see there are plenty of good reasons to buy a refurbished Mac from Apple. All Macs bought from the Apple Refurbished Store are cleaned, checked, tested, and visually indistinguishable from brand-new models. The important thing to note is that Macs bought from the Apple Refurbished Store are not discernibly different from new ones bought directly from the Apple Store.

Is dispatched with free shipping and returns.

Comes with all accessories, cables, and operating systems.

And up to 90 days of complimentary technical support.

Includes Apple’s standard one-year limited warranty.

Will be thoroughly cleaned and inspected.Your refurbished device is truly ‘like new'”. In fact, Apple states that: “Every Apple Certified Refurbished product completes a rigorous refurbishment process that includes full testing that meets the same functional standards as new Apple products. It’s also possible that a customer returned the Mac due to a fault, but that fault would have been rectified by Apple before the Mac could be resold. (Apple allows any customer to return a Mac bought from the Apple Store within 14 days for a refund – see Apple’s Standard Returns Policy US and Standard Returns Policy UK).

A reconditioned Mac could be an ex-demonstration model used during Apple teaching programs, or it could be a unit sold to a customer who decided to return it under the standard sale-and-returns procedure. These refurbished Macs could be models from a previous year, or they could be current models. The Refurbished Store is a section on Apple’s website where you can buy refurbished Macs and MacBooks, as well as other Apple products including the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, HomePod and Apple TV. Why you should buy a refurbished Mac. But to summarise, there are lots of reasons why buying a Mac from the We have an article dedicated to this question here:

Best place to buy used imacs