Here is the tech tip of the year: BUY REFURBISHED
Most people don’t like the sound of the word refurbished. To them that simply means that something was broken and had to be fixed, and they don’t want to buy something that was broken. What that also means though is that it went back to the factory, got fixed and it was gone over with a fine-tooth comb to make sure that it doesn’t have any more problems. You can get your shiny new (refurbished) technology covered with the same extended warranty options as a brand new item for substantially less money.
Here’s an example. We had to get my wife a new laptop. Her almost five-year old HP laptop finally crashed. I couldn’t figure out if it was the video card, mother board, or some kind of problem with the power supply. It didn’t really matter which, it probably wasn’t worth fixing. Since she uses her laptop extensively for graphic work, we couldn’t just go buy the cheapest thing we could find even though we were on an extremely tight budget. Fortunately since I’ve spent a lot of time selling technology solutions, I knew of a few good outlets but here is the real find:
HP Small & Medium Business Store – Refurbished business products
The stock here changes daily so you have to call in but if you have some patience, you can get a phenomenal deal. My wife’s new laptop cost us $769.44. Original retail would have been $1867.15.
Don’t be afraid to buy refurbished!
