Can’t beat the prices of the Toshiba Satellite series.
Nice machine too. I have an Acer Aspire and the Vaio and the Toshiba is a little simple but it keeps up. Windows seven has been wonderful after my little trip into Vista world.
I recently took my 3.5 year old (out of extended warranty) MacBook Pro in for service and learned how many Apple computers become “refurbs”.
I asked if a loaner was available and they said “no, but you can buy a new one and return it any time before two weeks are up.” I told them I didn’t think this was very good for them, I would be making a new computer into a used one, and they replied that this is how they get most of their refurbs.
So, I plunked down my credit card on a brand new 17” MacBook Pro, and returned it a week later. Full refund. I wiped the hard drive clean and reinstalled the system on it. And off it went to refurb land.
After this experience I would have no hesitation to buy a refurb laptop from Apple. You want the 3-year Applecare policy anyway — three years of warranty and free tech support by phone are very appealing. And the technician will be located in the US or Canada and will be a native english speaker. No tech support from lower Botswanaland here, like with a Dell. A friend bought a Dell and his required 3 or 4 home visits by a tech with very limited english. And the original support call was to someone in India, speaking very non-standard english which was very difficult to understand over the phone.
The only downside I can see is that the only ones Apple does this with are the “standard” ones on their website. As soon as you want to customize in any way, a refurb is going to be one returned for a defect.