Nikon Coolscan V Refurbished

[Silicon Sam]

I have my mind set on a Nikon Coolscan V slide scanner, and used
they are around $450, new between $550 (Newegg) and $600. Adorama has
some refurbished by Nikon for $450 also.

Used, well, you never know how used it is unless the seller is
really truthful. With the refurbished unit, I'd be afraid to get a 2
year old unit that was only cleaned by Nikon. But then again it could
be a dead unit out of the box that was repaired by Nikon too. Adorama
states 90 day warranty, a new one has a 1 year warranty.

Having a hard time deciding to go with used, refurbished or new....
Ugh!

 

[Talker]

I have my mind set on a Nikon Coolscan V slide scanner, and used
they are around $450, new between $550 (Newegg) and $600. Adorama has
some refurbished by Nikon for $450 also.

Used, well, you never know how used it is unless the seller is
really truthful. With the refurbished unit, I'd be afraid to get a 2
year old unit that was only cleaned by Nikon. But then again it could
be a dead unit out of the box that was repaired by Nikon too. Adorama
states 90 day warranty, a new one has a 1 year warranty.

Having a hard time deciding to go with used, refurbished or new....
Ugh!

Never buy used. Well, that's my philosophy anyway. For the $100
difference, you're not saving much by buying used, and with a new
unit, you know that any problems will be fixed under warranty for at
least the first year. Go with new....you won't be buying someone
else's problems. <g>

Talker

 

[kunt]

Never buy used. Well, that's my philosophy anyway.

Mine is "Never buy refurbished"

I bought lots of refurbished stuff in the past and the likelihood of
defects with that stuff was unbelievably high.

Then I realized that, when a customer finds a defective object, it is
less bothersome for him/her to return it to the shop without mentioning
that it is defective than to send it to repair and wait. Or anyway this
information "it is defective" doesn't pass through. Or anyway even if it
passes through, the brand technicians (Nikon here) in most cases do not
have enough time test EVERY functionality to understand where the
problem exactly is, or IF there is a problem, and the item, still
defective, will be sold as refurbished.

So the statistics are IMHO:
- 90% of returned items is actually defective.
- 10% of those defects are properly detected and corrected by the
brand's technicians. Only very evident defects are noticed (like
"doesn't turn on").

By comparison, let's say that new objects are produced flawless by the
brand in 90% of cases.

so: if you buy new you are going to buy something that has 10%
likelyhood of being defective.

While if you buy refurbished you are going to buy something that has 81%
(!!) likelyhood of being DEFECTIVE!!
(And you will not notice the problem immediately, or the Nikon
technicians also would have noticed it. So... make sure you perform lots
of tests in that 1 month of warranty)

If you buy used... well, usually for stuff that doesn't degrade easily,
(as a scanner I would assume but I am not an expert here) the situation
would be mostly like buying new. If the seller is dishonest, things are
still not good.

But anyway I would still prefer buying a scanner used than refurbished:
if the scanner was defective from the start, the previous owner would
most likely have returned it (refurbished) instead of trying to sell it
to you. If it was not defective from the start, even if the seller is a
bad guy, it is not for that reason that a scanner becomes defective.

But for "used" I would expect the price is significantly lower than new,
like no more than 70% of the price of new.