Refurbished Electronics

With a little knowledge and care, refurbished electronics can be an excellent way to save money while building an excellent home theater. Obviously some electronic components are better candidates to purchase as refurbished then others, we will review them and share some pointers on what to look for and what to avoid when purchasing refurb electronics.

Modern day electronic equipment is different from other items one might consider purchasing refurbished, such as woodworking equipment, because electronic items have limited moving parts, therefore do not wear out as easily. Therefore a working electronics item should continue to work for a long period of time. There are some exceptions which we will discuss in a minute, but for the most part if your items works for the first year you can be fairly confident it will continue to work unless there is a voltage spike, such as during a lightning storm, or some other external source of damage. Improper cooling is another major source of damage to electronics.

Factory Refurbished Electronics Whenever Possible
Factory refurbished electronics are an excellent way to go, you can find good deals while having piece of mind that your item will work. Look for items that come with a factory warranty of at least a year, as mentioned above, this should be enough to ensure the item is going to work. You also can have confidence that the item has been tested before being sent to you. In some cases the refurbished items get more testing than the new items. New items are built with quality controls in place that limit failures therefore extensive testing is not always done. With refurbished items, problems are known to exist, therefore the items are almost always tested well. So you can save money and have an excellent chance of getting a working item.

A quick warning. I do not want to go as far as saying you should only purchase factory refurbished items, because there are some companies that do a good job with refurbishing that are not the factory. But there are also many non factory companies doing refurbish work that are not good or will go bankrupt and leave you with a useless warranty. Therefore think twice when purchasing items that are not factory refurbished by the manufacturer. And if you choose to do so make sure you pay a decent amount less than a new or factory refurbished item since there is increased risk with this purchase.

Popular Refurbished Electronic Equipment
TVs are a very popular refurbished item for the home theater. There are a few things to keep in mind when purchasing TVs. As mentioned above for the most part modern day electronic equipment does not wear out, however Plasma and LCD TVs are one of the exceptions. Generally Plasma TVs will start to fade around 30K hours of use and be unwatchable around 60K hours of use. LCDs will last longer, but also have a limited lifespan. Normally you will see certain colors become less noticeable with LCDs, they typically last over 60K hours however. Note in both these cases, that is a lot of hours of television. Therefore if the model is only a year or so old, there is little concern about previous use since there is still plenty of TV lifespan left, however if you are considering a model that has been on the market for awhile, keep these limitations in mind. With DLP TVs and projectors this is less of an issue since the DLP lamp can simply be replaced. If you are looking for a TV, Samsung refurbished TVs are probably the most popular followed closely by refurbished Philips Plasma Televisions.

One last comment, keep in mind that refurbished and reconditioned are not one and the same. See Refurbished Home Theaters for additional details on the differences.

For information on other popular refurbished electronic equipment, the following links may be of interest:

Refurbished LCD TV
Refurbished Home Theater Receivers
Refurbished Bose Home Theater
Refurbished Home Theater Systems
Refurbished Home Theater Projectors

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