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Comment by ksml | Hacker News Reader

This is my first time hearing Apple refurbished meaning old store display model. I always thought refurbished machines were products that other people bought new and returned, and then Apple restored them to like-new condition. There seem to be a lot more refurbs available than I would imagine there are old display models. Now I'm curious, though, does anyone know more about how (Apple official) refurbs are sourced?

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He wrote "second hand, refurbished" so it's not entirely clear that it was Apple refurbished.

I made the assumption that he meant refurbished by a third-party, not Apple, because it's pretty common for those sorts of secondhand machines to be refurbished with new screens. Figure they put in the cheapest screen they could source, and no wonder it's dying in 5 years. I doubt any OE screen from Apple would have the same problem he describes.

Hi, I'm the author. To be honest, I'm not sure how the refurbished thing works. That's why the whole paragraph is full of "I think" and "perhaps" and "my theory is". It's all just speculation. The shop where I bought it had it marked as refurbished, that's what I'm sure about, but I don't know what's the exact history of the machine. I've heard rumors those are computers from Apple Store etc., hence the speculation about worn out display, but I've never really investigated it further. Doesn't matter much now, whatever the reason, the display is dead.

I have bought Apple refurbished machines. I always understood them to be more-or-less unused returns. IIRC Apple cannot legally advertise returned machines as "new", hence the "refurbished" designation.

Moreover Apple has an essentially unlimited supply of machines. I can't imagine it would be worth it to actually take in machines and repair them (not least because it would undermine confidence in the refurb store if it was a gamble about whether you'd get a basically-new machine or beat-up machine.)

It is also my understanding that Apple refurbs are returned devices.

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