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are refurbished droids risky??

From someone who just got 2 refurbs....no.

First refurb was fedexed to me. Had a non-functioning proximity sensor. As soon as a call was placed the screen would go black and could only be activated by opening the slider (and sometimes not at all without a battery pull).

Had to take that one to the store....when the tech swapped in another refurb and activated it, he found out it had a busted speaker.

#3 SEEMED to be ok. Just noticed that there are 3 chips in the case, and the trim ring around the phone is loose. Argh.

I'll let you know about #4.
So, no, refurbs aren't that closely inspected and are just as likely to be bad as new ones.
 
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I also think refurbs are generally fine. My wife bought a refurbed Mac PowerBook directly from Apple in 2006 and has had zero issues with the machine.

I think Motorola has some serious quality control issues.

My first droid had frequent random reboots and shutdowns. It also had the issue of a line of bright light appearing on the screen directly above the capacitive buttons. This could be seen at *normal* viewing angles.

My second droid came in a white refurb box without battery or battery cover. The screen on this Droid is perfect and the phone itself functions perfectly. However, the keyboard part of the phone is very slightly warped and will wobble back and forth if touched while on a desk. I considered taking it back to appease my extreme phone OCD, but didn't want to risk getting an inferior screen or dealing with other issues.

The first Droid my wife had started shutting down and rebooting on the second day she had it. She had it replaced and the new one seems fine. The first one also had capacitive button light that could be seen at normal viewing angles. The new one is much better, but not as good as mine.
 
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While in my usual experience there is nothing wrong with refurbs, clearly whoever is certifying Motorola Droids is not doing a good job. Perhaps the problem is that Verizon doesn't provide much guidance as to what was wrong with the original? They just stick it in a box and send it back as far as I can tell. Unless maybe there is something in the system??? Though I doubt that info is provided to whoever is doing the refurbs and being matched with the units.
 
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My first Droid was perfect for a month, but then the headphone jack got loose. I got a "refurbished" unit in December, and it's been flawless since (even a strong overclocker, heh).

Anyways, if it's been 30 days, you've got no choice but a refurb. Not so sure if they are actually refurb units yet, or if they're still new. Mine was new. If you have a sticker in your battery compartment, then it's a refurb.

Either way, there'll be bad ones and good ones. Just gotta keep your fingers crossed, I guess.
 
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I am on my 4th phone. first one was fine, nothing wrong with it, except for the loose 3.5mm headjack, then second one, the speaker when talking was dead, so I had to have it on speakerphone, then the third one was crackling, and paint was chipped off it when I got it, and speaker grill was dented in.

Finally got this one, which is okay, back to like the first one, so. Eh, I will live with the phone now.
 
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so verizon is sending me a refurbished droid. should I keep it or send it back. do you think since it went through there '100' poitn check test thing its safe or do you think it will crfap out again ha. thanks in advance

Keep the refurb. I recently exchanged my Droid for a refurb'd one because my brand new one had a problem reading files of the SDcard. And the SDcard wasn't the problem. Got the refurb'd one and it works perfect.
 
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Unless anyone has any scientific proof to prove that a new phone is any better than a refurb then how would you or anyone else know the difference. In the case of the Droid, it seems like people have better luck with refurbs, but I am guessing that if you looked at statistics you would find that there is a pretty even number of refurbs versus new phones that have issues.
 
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My first droid went lame after about a week, it would get really weird after plugging it in my PC. The replacement was a brand new unit, it has worked great. Although the few times I have connected it to my PC it has acted different. So I just don't connect it to my PC. I think there might be issues with the phone when connecting it to a PC.
 
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