re: Buying Refurbished Electronics: Yay or Nay?

You have to consider that a lot of "manufacturer refurbs" are nothing more than customer returns who either had buyer's remorse or user error. Some could simply be damaged packaging, or a fault/defect that the manufacturer can easily fix and has no bearing on the lifespan/reliability of the product (stuck power button, chipped/scratched/broken screen, loose wifi cable, etc). And regardless of what was wrong with it, they undergo very thorough QA and testing before being resold.

What's the warranty on a new one? A year? If it's a well-reviewed tablet, the odds of a legitimate hardware failure (through no fault of your own) within 90 days vs a failure within 1 year are pretty much equal. And people with serious problems with their tablets who need to get warranty replacements usually end up getting a factory refurb as their replacement whether they realize it or not. The only variable here is battery life (which can be shortened depending on what the tablet was used for and how long it was used prior to going to refurb land) -- a good manufacturer refurb won't have any issue with this because the battery should have been tested and replaced as necessary, but given the 90-day warranty, you'll know pretty quickly and can raise all sorts of hell if the battery life is not up to par.

I'd say you are g2g

I have a factory refurb Velodyne sub that I use in my bedroom that works like new. I think I got 30% off or something like that on ebay. Well worth it.

Bought a refurbished Macbook Pro two years ago and it's run like a boss.

I have bought several refurb electronics items with no problems.

Another good deal is buying used stuff from Amazon Warehouse. I have bought a bunch of used auto parts like spark plugs, belts, pulleys and even brake pads. Every item received was a new item that someone else returned because they ordered or were sent the wrong part. They ship same as prime shipping. When you search for an item on amazon look under the item description to see if there is a used one listed. If I ever receive a used item from Amazon that is not in an acceptable condition I'm sure they will accept the return no questions asked.

So far I've bought a pair of Nikon D5100 bodies (from Cameta) and a Nikkor 70-300VR lens (from Adorama), each of which were factory refurbed and pristine.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 10.1 inch

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I will if it's from amazon or newegg cause they'll bend over backwards for me if there's a problem.

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Bought a refurbished desktop from Newegg last fall. It booted up once and then promptly died. I had to pay shipping to get it back to them and then wait 3 weeks for the replacement. I know Newegg has a good reputation and I've never had a problem before this but no more refurbs for me. And I've had a couple of problems with other vendors as well, this one's the last straw.