Save money on Apple equipment

For a long, long time there has been an little secret that savvy Mac buyers have known about; the "refurb." Refurbs are computers that have been returned to Apple for a number of reasons, which are checked, repackaged and sold on at reduced cost to the consumer. Frequently they are items that have been used for demonstration purposes, or they have been returned as faulty and fixed, or simply a customer ordered the wrong item and wanted to change it. They probably will have opened packaging, or may have cosmetic damage to the packaging, or very minor cosmetic damage to the item itself.

Full warranty included:

All refurbished items are fully checked by Apple and come with the standard Apple 12 months warranty. You can extend the standard warranty to 3 years by purchasing an AppleCare Extended Warranty for added piece of mind.

How much can I save?

It all depends on how much Apple are discounting the particular machine you want. Typically you can save between 15-20% on the standard retail price, but for some big ticket items like XServes and XRAIDs the saving can be as much as 40-50%. iPods are frequently 25% reduced in price. But remember, its first come, first served, so you can't be guaranteed to be able to buy the particular model you want. You'll just have to keep coming back here and keep checking!

Does Sweet-Apple buy refurbs?

As it happens, I do. My current work machine is a MacBook Pro that I bought from the refurb store as a Christmas present for myself and saved 40% off the full retail price. My previous work machine was a positively antiquarian Powerbook Titanium 1Ghz. This was the height of sophistication nearly 4 years ago and my dream Mac. But it was slightly too much for me to cough-up. I waited until I could get it as a refurb, saved 25%, and over 3 years later was still using it day in, day out as my main business computer. Now its been replaced I'll probably just have to pass it down the family food chain...