Refurbished "It's MAGIC!" on sale ($170 cheaper/33% off first gen iPads)

[strawman]

If you were holding off because the cheapest ipad was about $170 too expensive, then perhaps you might be interested in a $330 refurbished 16GB wi-fi ipad. $335 including shipping and handling:

http://sellout.woot.com/

It's the first version of the iPad, not the shiny new iPad 2. I'm torn as to whether I'm going to get the iPad 2. If I do it would be for the gyroscope and the dual core processor. The cameras aren't much to speak of. Further, lots of rumors suggest the iPad 3 is coming out in the fall when the iPod line is refreshed (and just in time for the holiday season), and some rumors suggest the differences between #2 and #3 are going to be substantial, so I may just skip the iPad 2 and go to the next one.

Given that these are being dumped on the market, and avid Apple users are trying to sell theirs to afford number 2, it also means that other ipads (such as used ones on ebay and craigs list) are going to go down a bit too. Now is a good time to get an old iPad. Once Apple stops dumping this old and refurbished stock then the prices on secondary markets will go up, because the iPad 2 is still $500 a pop, and for most people not a significant upgrade from the iPad 1.

 

[Jiarn]

It's already sold out....

 

[strawman]

Ayup. They only had 200 of them, and they sold out in 5 hours - about one sold every two minutes. I was actually working up a business case for getting one, too.

They'll probably have lots of these for sale intermittently over the next few months as they sell down the refurbished stock. Eventually we'll start seeing the higher memory options and the 3G versions on sale. Apple keeps the refurbished ones around as warranty replacements, so over the year as gen 1 ipads go out of warranty they'll get rid of the stock through small sales like this.

 

[Jiarn]

How did something less than 2yrs old already have refurbished product? Especially as reliable as Apple is supposed to be?

 

[Espy]

1st gen stuff always has tons of trouble, no matter a companies overall general reliability rating. That being said I have no idea what qualifies as a refurb with Apple.

 

[strawman]

Refurbished equipment is anything that came back to apple, including simple returns. Sometimes it merely needs to be cleaned, other times it has to have outer casing replaced due to scratches and blemished, and less often it comes back due to faulty components.

Keep in mind that some of the applecare plans include customer damage, so if you drop it they'll replace it, and fix up the old one.

It's cheaper than manufacturing a new unit, and so they keep a stock of them to act as warranty and applecare replacements for customers. They manage stock very carefully, though, so if it grows too much they sell it off via apple's refurbished store, or less often via outlets such as woot.

The upshot is that when you buy a "new" apple product, you know it's absolutely new - never been used, not returned merchandise, etc. When you get it repaired, they only guarantee "like new" which may mean new, remanufactured, or refurbished depending on what's in stock.