well, i got my FRU. can't tell if it's a refurb or not. no blue sticker. though i don't recall ever seeing a blue sticker on phones i know were refurbs before. but those were dumbphones. not sure if smartphones are different. all the paperwork alluded to it being a like-new device. but maybe they send the same paperwork with both new and refurbished phones. the phone had some protective blue sticker stuff all along the fake chrome accents, cut perfectly for the accents. i suppose they might stick a new housing on previously used hardware.
at any rate, it looked pretty much brand new. and best of all it seems to be more reponsive and the call quality seems much better. my wife says it sounds better and doesn't break up in the same spots like the old one. she had tons of trouble hearing me on the old phone, even in areas of very strong signal, because of cutting out and poor audio quality. i also had the issue where i would receive calls and there was no audio coming in or sometimes going out. and the phone would often not ring and would restart regularly when adjusting the volume. i haven't made enough calls yet to see if that audio problem is entirely fixed but so far so good.
lastly, and surprisingly, the touch-sensitive buttons along the bottom are much more sensitive and responsive. i had two Eris before and it seemed like the phone decided when it wanted to respond when you touched those buttons. i barely have to tap these things (and it doesn't matter exactly where) and they respond, much like the touch screen.
hopefully things stay this way.
