Question from Milton: I’ve been looking for a really wide monitor for my desktop computer, but they’re really expensive.
I can’t afford to spend several hundred dollars for a monitor so I started looking at some refurbished monitors (Amazon calls them “renewed).
I found a really nice 34 inch LG widescreen that caught my attention. It looks like just what I’ve been looking for.
My question is do you recommend buying refurbished monitors? And if not, why not?
Rick’s answer: I do recommend buying refurbished monitors Milton, but only under the following conditions:
- The monitor is one year old or less.
- The model you’re looking at has a good reliability record with past users. You can research this by checking the user reviews on online shopping sites.
- You can purchase the monitor for about half what you’d have to pay for a new monitor with similar specs (or even less if possible).
The above being said, there are a couple of caveats you need to be aware of:
1 – You won’t know how much use the actual monitor you’ll get has received in the past so there’s no way to predict just how much “life” is left in it.
2 – You won’t know whether the monitor you receive has been banged around, hit with a damaging, but non-fatal power surge or abused in some way by the previous owner.
Those caveats taken together make it impossible to predict how long a refurnished monitor will last after you receive it.
You can always mitigate those caveats somewhat. But as always when buying a refurb, it’s really a crap shoot.
Bottom line: I do believe the monitor you found is worth taking a chance on IF you’ll be saving half or more of what you’d have to pay for a new monitor with similar specs.
Bonus tip: This post gives 10 reasons why I recommend buying tech gear from Amazon.