(guitar music) - Apple doesn't really do sales and when they do, the savings
are kind of unappealing but where they do offer a discount is in the Apple certified refurbished store. And it seems like for the
most part, people swear by it. So I wanna buy a Mac and iOS device to see if these great deals come with any sort of refurbished risks. Uh! They did. - [Customer support] Yeah,
I haven't come across this before. (bright music) - If you are wondering where
to find the refurbished store, scroll all the way to the bottom of the Apple store website or the app. Not every region has a
refurbished store though. It's missing in Mexico, Mozambique, Moldova, Malaysia, along
with some larger nations that don't start with M like India. Apple claims that the
devices you get are like new. They undergo a full cleaning,
full functional testing and anything that's broken is replaced with Apple genuine parts. iOS devices, like the
iPhone and iPad undergo an even more thorough
refurbishment process, getting a brand new battery
and outer shell too. Then, they are all
re-packaged into white boxes with Apple certified
refurbished written on them to warn, remind you. In terms of the sale, that are treated just like any new devices with the same one year warranty, AppleCare plus option,
delivery and return policies. So by all accounts, these are
grade A fully backed products, maybe with some extra distance
between you and the factory. If you're okay with that,
here's how much you can save. With Macs, the discount is
15% off the retail price at the time they were last sold and with iOS devices,
the discounts are bigger. From my calculations
varying between 13 and 33%, depending on the model. It looks like some of these iPads have a little bit of depreciation
factored in, which is nice. What this ultimately may means though is that the best deals for max
are with the latest models. So that would probably be
something with Apple Silicon or an Intel model still in production. I suggest researching what
Mac you wanna buy first then stopping in at the refurbished store to see if it's available there. You might or might not find
what you're looking for but the research phase should keep you from ending up with a bad deal,
like I did in my last video. From my research, all I need
is a base M1 MacBook Air since I'm just writing
and surfing the web. I also wouldn't mind snagging an iPad mini if I can get one for a good price. I swear saw a gold
MacBook in here yesterday and now it doesn't look like there is any. Now there's some colored IMAX. Those are nice. There isn't ephemeral nature
to the refurbished store to be aware of. With something as in
demand, as the MacBook air it can be here one
minute and gone the next. It might not show up for a
day or a couple of weeks. It really depends. You'll have to weigh your patience and urgency with the savings. Urgency can be really expensive. If you wanna set up a notification, refurbtracker.com is a pretty great site. Now, one interesting
thing I've noticed is that when the listing shows the original price and how much you save,
that's a default base skew. If it just shows a price, that means it's been customized
with more Ram or storage. The discount is still the same though. So that MacBook Air I
want is $850 in here. Now, how does that compare
to the prices elsewhere? Rarely, some retail sales prices drop down to or below refurbished pricing, but the best deals are
fleeting so it's serendipity. On the used market, there are MacBooks at an equivalent price and
since it'd be a private sale, you save on sales tax. On the flip side, you
also will have to meet up with a stranger in a different town and the device condition
isn't fully guaranteed plus you can't return it. With the iPad, it's a little
bit of a different story because there are some older
models in the refurbished store at prices much higher than a used model. But then again, they have a new battery which costs minimum $100 to
replace if you're unlucky and don't forget the new chassis. Okay so the MacBook I want, isn't in here. So do I buy something
else or do I just wait? - [Emily] Why don't you
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20% off and free shipping. Oh, look. There are MacBook Airs in here. Ah, but only in silver and space gray. I really wanted a gold one. So I guess I'll just get a silver one. You can't always get what you want in the Apple refurbished store. All right. Let's find that iPad mini. Now a brand new one would set me back $500 but I don't need all that
technology and all those colors. So here's a last generation
model for only 340. Let's see. Okay, gold out of stock, silver like wise. More storage. Nope. All right. So space gray 64 gigabytes, it is. Okay, I guess we're done. You know what? Before I check out, I'm just gonna go back
and refresh the Mac page. Let's see what happens. It's here. There's a gold one. Yes. Okay, let's fix this up, then buy. See, it's a real gamble.
(chuckles) Perfect. (gentle music) - Well, it doesn't look
any different from anyone. There's like a tiny mark on
the keyboard of something. Wait, uh oh. What? That's interesting. You think it was a demo? Not a demo device, demo registration. I don't know what have I done. Let's unbox the iPad. Yeah, this looks great. It's pristine. This isn't
going into demo mode. Honestly, this and this are a good buy, though I had to really
figure out what's going on with that whole demo mode thing. So, let me use these for a couple of days and see how they fare. When a Mac is in demo
mode, it's in demo mode. You can't just format the
hard drive and reinstall macOS because if you do it just goes
back into demo mode again. So I had to call Apple customer support. - [Customer support] Thank you
for contacting Apple support. - Clearly, this is something
that doesn't happen that often. - [Customer support] Yeah I've
never come across this so... - I know it's really strange yeah. After an hour of re-reinstalling macOS, I was told to exchange
it for another unit. - [Customer support] Uh, let's get you up to a senior adviser, okay? I've not really seen too
much information on this. - On the other hand, the
iPad mini works great. It's frankly, impossible to tell that this is a refurbished model. It connects to the pencil flawlessly. It's portable, light,
fast, enjoyable to use. And according to my
reading on coconutBattery, this has a brand new battery
and was made in December. I wonder if Apple resets
the manufacture date on refurbished iOS devices because the new iPad mini
came out in September and this is the outgoing model, no matter. At $340, you can save 160 compared to a brand new generation model which if you're in a pinch is pretty good. Okay, so I guess I'm gonna
be running Mac-less for... - Hey, it's arrived. - We're in. It's the desktop. A success, that's great. - Like the iPad, I really
wouldn't be able to tell that this MacBook Air is
refurbished from using it. The panel is bright and clear. The SSD smart info shows
that it was virtually unused before I got it and likewise, the battery. Though, it appears that
it might have degraded ever so slightly. So for $850, this is a great new laptop. Still, I had to spend an hour
on the phone and wait a week for the replacement. So despite my hopes, there's a little risk to Apple certified refurbished store too. It's on a big risk like
your device falling apart or looking strangely off,
but it's there all right. That being said, the demo mode issue is
probably quite rare, considering I couldn't
find any information, forum posts, et cetera about it online. Maybe just don't tempt fate when the gold MacBook you
wanted appears out of thin air. So is the risk of having
to spend that time, worth the 15% savings or in my case $150. Hmm. For someone as cheap as me, yes. But for those of an instant
gratification disposition or running a business in need
of a Mac right now, maybe not. But as for asking a handful
of our Twitter followers, many replied saying that they exclusively buy
of the refurbish store. Most, all responded that they were happy with their purchase except for one. What I've discovered here is that the results vary by product. For instance, I wouldn't buy
an iPad pro from anywhere but the refurbish store. You can get an upgraded
iPad pro with the A12Z chip from 2020, for $690, $60 less than an equivalent iPad Air. That's pretty compelling. As for Macs, there's still good deals too. With this being only $850,
it's harder to resign yourself into buying a cheap Windows
laptop because trust me a couple of years with
one of those would be far more inconvenient
than an hour on the phone. Thanks for exchanging this Mac address for one that's not broken. If you wanna get a Mac on
sale, give this video a like and if you're fine paying full price, why not subscribe now? If you yourself have
bought a refurbished Mac, tell us how good a deal
you're able to snag or if it was just full of snacks.
