Refurbished model ?

[Unregistered]

I'm planning to get a SJ30 but its hard to get a new one these days. Everywhere is out of stock!
Anyway, I'm looking for refurbished one. Is it alright to get a refurbished model? Are there any dents or srcatches? How's the condition?

[russr]

I would avoid refurbished models as a lot of them were returns because people had problems with them. Sometimes Sony doesn't find anything wrong with these and you might end up getting a not so great one.

Go to pricegrabber.com and search for sj30, you'll find a few places that have it in stock.

[Jake K]

Theres a good chance that there will be some dents and/or scratches. You will get a better price for a refurbished model, it just depends on what you can live with.

[madmaxmedia]

I've bought refurbs before (including a N760C), and they were in pristine shape.

Some refurbs come from customer returns and may obviously have scratches, etc. But other refurbs are rejects from the assembly line that are fixed and then sold as refurbs.

I would ask the seller about the condition of the item. There are a lot of refurb items on EBay, and you can then ask the seller, or check the item listing.

The only seller who sells basically only customer returns is ReturnBuy. But they do a very good job in their item descriptions, so you know exactly what you're getting.

[T1000X]

Like others have pointed out, I would find out what makes the unit "refurbished." I've had an associate at work who got a refurb'ed SJ30 for Christmas only to have the IR port not work on the unit. I managed to get my SJ30 for the $250 price right before the apparent surge in demand for the model. I love my SJ30, and when I get a high-end model (like the Garmin iQue 3600) I will probably keep it as a backup model or give it to my Mom who uses a Clie as well. Just be careful buying a refurbed or store return model and ask the Best Buy guy to let you try it out and look it over before buying it.