BenQ Shopper - Are refurbs worth it?

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boltz man

Weaksauce
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Jun 22, 2008
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http://www.benqshopper.com/rlcdmo.html

V2400W for $235
G2400WD for $215

Seems to be directly connected to the main BenQ site.

I've never purchased a refurbished monitor, but the price certainly is right. Mighty tempting.

Anyone have horror stories or praise for purchasing "factory restored" hardware?
 
I was looking at that too. The big downsides I see is that they only have a 90 day warranty (regular benq warranty is 3 years, right?), you can't return it, and its possible you may have a few dead pixels.
 
i was wondering the same thing in terms of buying a refurb. i am just worried about dead pixels.
 
I bought an FP241WZ off there about a year ago. Worked well, except there was a black dot under the panel. It looked like someone had tapped the tip of a sharpie against the reflective sheet behind the panel. More than a few feet away and you couldn't tell, but if you're worried about even a single dead pixel a defect like that would probably make you very unhappy.

Last week, the it stopped working - the monitor started to show strange bands of patterns on the screen even on the "No signal" screen. If you hooked up a signal, there would be really strong ghosting, like I was looking at a passive-matrix TFT from back in the day. (My theory is that I basically was because the LCD driver board stopped working correctly to refresh the pixels...)

Anyway, I called up BenQ and once I got through they were as helpful as they could be, but the super short warranty really limits what they can do. I ended up spending $30 to ship it to them and they charge $65 to look at it, though if I have it fixed that fee is waived. The support guy actually suggested that I just buy a new refurb rather than send it in, because it might be cheaper...

From what he said, it was rare that they had problems. But I just want to let you know that they can occur, and when they do it gets expensive and kind of heartbreaking to see your beloved display bite the dust so soon :( Refurbs can be a good deal, but there's a good chance that you'll get what you pay for. Don't expect to get lucky and receive a perfect panel, I would say be willing to lower your standards a bit and accept a few flaws and be happy if things turn out well.


As far as the actual shopping experience with BenQ Shopper, I have no complaints. The monitor came in its original box packed inside another box so the monitor you get is shipped very securely I think. Other than that nothing sticks out in my mind about the experience.
 
Their prices make it pretty tempting, but I was reading about this place last night, lots of negative reviews of their customer service have made me think twice.
 
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