Is eBay Refurbished a SCAM?
- When you think eBay, you think about great deals on slightly scuffed tech, right? What if I told you that there is a dedicated refurbished section on eBay that offers one or even two year warranties on items that have been professionally refurbished? Well if your answer to that is, hmm, then I couldn't agree more. So let's take a closer look, shall we? As always, the details in the fine print are important. So all eBay refurbished products are 100% functional and I have four tiers here. So there's certified refurbished, which is pristine condition direct from the brand or an authorized seller with a two year warranty.
So that seems like the gold standard. Excellent which is like new with a one year warranty. Very good which is minimal wear in the one year warranty or good, which is moderate wear and a one year warranty. Okay, so here's one, a bilingual laptop with an i5-8250U, oh it's out of stock. (taps) Well why. Why would you advertise that to me, eBay? How about these Skullcandy GRIND FUEL Wireless Earbuds? They're originally $80 and these are $14.89.
I'm typically not a huge fan of Skullcandy but for $14, I'm curious to see what a premium refurbished set of ultra cheap earbuds looks like. PS5 Digital Edition, very good condition for $394, which is only $5 less than the console by itself, but also it shows a photo of the disc. (tongue clicks) No. Do I need a excellent refurbished PSP GO?
Oh, and this one's actually properly refurbished. New shell, new buttons and the charger's included for $200. ROG GL10DH gaming PC. We bought one of these from VIP Outlet or well, okay, maybe not the exact same one but very, very similar. (laughs) Whoa! $499 for Leo's Loo Too by Casa Leo? Man, nah, no, no, no, no. Alright, let's start out with our gaming PC direct from eBay.
Now this one is a certified refurbished device, which means that I should enjoy a beautiful two year warranty. Okay, so we have the system (paper rustling) which is just held in place (paper rustling) with a lot of paper. (paper rustling) Oh hey, shout out. (paper rustling) It actually comes with a glass side panel. Nice. That's mildly concerning, this side panel has been like, it's not broken (paper rustling) 'cause it's like, it's screwed on the bottom but it's like, (computer clanking) so we have, I'm assuming a generic town keyboard. (box clanking) We do.
I also see a mouse down here, eh, and we've got our PC, so yeah, that side panel is not, what the hell. So I guess they just slapped the side panel on it without like getting it in the groove, which is fine, but it's like a little bent, probably I would say one of like the lower end ROG systems. It actually did get a little bit of damage on the back as well.
So you can see here that actually the paint has been like kind of rubbed off a little bit. It looked like it was maybe like dropped or something. But again, this is just the side panel which we actually should be able to remove pretty easily. Take this off, (side panel clanking) and hmm, what now? Hold on a second. This is refurbished. It is real dusty. In fact, look at the fan blades.
The dust is like sort of caked on the edges. So we do have our RTX 2070, which is certainly a little bit of an older GPU but I'm gonna assume it's still fine for most games. We also have our Ryzen 7 3700X, 16 gigs of RAM and somewhere in here we should have a SSD as well as a hard drive, which I, it's right down here. I will actually give them one thing. They actually are using a modular power supply (taps) so you can see it on here. It's actually a fully modular, or sorry, semi-modular power supply and it is 80 Plus Gold rated.
So even though it's from Great Wall, that's just, that's fine, I guess. (taps) Ah, you know what? (taps) Acrylic not glass. I actually don't think anyone ever used the side panel 'cause it still has the original plastic on it. Out of the box, I have no way of putting the side panel on. Can I make one of these screws work? I guess I can try.
Well (taps) that's about as on as that side panel can be, before I go and get myself some extra screws. Let's plug this in and make sure it is fully functional. But first impressions, pretty positive. (laughs) So, this is not good.
All right, we're having all kinds of weird problems, so we get actual internet so clearly we're getting you know, full gigabit speeds. That's all fine. Watch what happens when I try to open up Steam.
It's not, it's not gonna work though, is it? Is it gonna start working because we hit record on the camera and it wasn't working the 10 times we tried this right before we picked up the camera. Oh my god, it's starting to load. (Austin laughing) - [Alex] Yay. - We've spent so much time trying to fix this. The second we pick up the camera, it magically works again.
Bro, oh my God, it's launching. It's working. (laughs) Ugh, okay, so I don't even know how to handle this. I guess the PC is working now. I still kind of would want to reinstall Windows, if I'm being honest with you.
Even assuming that you buy the system and it's all fine, right? We'll just ignore all the issues that we spent the last couple hours trying to work on. I still do have some concerns, largely the fact, that these fans are like ridiculously loud, like obviously you know we got a game on the side panels but like this rear fan is so loud, I would absolutely wanna swap that out, like no doubt even turning the fan curves down, it's just still a very small, very loud fan. Oh, you know what I actually forgot. Did I mention that this keyboard is really gross and disgusting? - [Joanna] Yes.
- Oh did I? - [Joanna] Yes. - Well lucky for us (keyboard thudding) (chuckles) it isn't necessary anymore (cable thudding) because we got ourselves a different keyboard (box thudding) and yes it did come (box rustling) in a box exactly like this. So (laughs) ignoring the scuffed box, we have our Razer gaming keyboard, although it's technically not really a gaming keyboard 'cause this one is specifically meant more so for fancy productivity, Razer Pro Type Full Sized and does say re-certified. So because it's an original Razer packaging, I actually wonder if Razer themselves refurbished it or re-certified it or whatever. Whoo. It looks nice though. It looks nice if I wanna buy a new version of the keyboard, it's $160.
We paid 110. So assuming that it's all fine and you know it's obviously been like properly refurbished and stuff, what you save yourself some 50 bucks. First of all, big fan of the look.
I like that white and the gray. And you know what I feel pretty good about this one especially 'cause if it was dirty you would quickly notice with those very, very white key caps. Same thing goes for the wrist rest. They'll plug it in.
So we can have, we have this little switch on the back where you can switch between USB, 2.4 or Bluetooth. So I'm just gonna plug in the USB to start out with. This feels so wrong to use like a nice RGB Razer, like super premium keyboard and the world's cheapest mouse. But sure. First impression of the keyboard. (keyboard clanking) You know what? That's really nice.
I'm gonna use word that I never use for keyboards. This is creamy. It's very not like gross, like gritty, like slimy creamy but no like, yeah they're just, it's such a nice smooth creamy feel. So this is using the Razer yellow linear switches.
Man, I've never tried these before. They are just so nice. Obviously you know we're not talking about like, you know $500 super expensive keyboards but like the sound is decent, (keyboard clanking) the feel though, they, (keyboard clanking) the way they pop up, (keyboard clanking) so like smoothly like oh (keyboard clanking) this is really nice. (keyboard clanking) I can say with a completely straight face, look at my face. This is a good deal.
See straight face. - [Joanna] You look like you're about to beat someone up. - I'm about to beat up whoever sold me this thing with the broken Windows. (grunts) (screen whooshing) Okay, let's keep the good vibes rolling my friends, by vibes, I meant waves. (gibbers) Look what I've got, another item.
These are a pair of headphones (box rustling) that I've wanted to try for a very long time. These are the Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro. Basically we got these headphones for half off. Now a lot of people rightfully point out the buying used or you know, refurbished headphones is not always a great idea. But to that I would say that if it's done right, it's fine, especially if they're over-ear.
I understand a lot of people don't wanna buy like used earbuds. I do it, I don't love it but it's okay sometimes. But over-ear headphones, if they've been like properly cleaned and stuff, I feel pretty good about, (taps) especially 'cause these for 155 bucks should be really nice.
Okay, let's take a closer look at the headphones. Yeah, the headband is used. If you look at these little snaps, see there's like some wear on that snap as well as, not that one, but this one. So I do believe that unless that comes off, no, yeah, I do think that these have been slightly worn. There's a little bit of scuffing there. If I'm looking at a little bit of scuffing on one of the snaps that you're never gonna look at, that's pretty solid.
Look, the sniff test makes sense for this one, okay. Now I'm gonna try a couple of things here. So I'm gonna just plug this into the headphone jack on the computer just to see if it can drive it at all and I'm gonna plug it into an actual DAC.
Oh no this is fine. Okay, so just as a quick test, they actually can be driven with a normal headphone jack. So I'm gonna plug these into a DAC now and see how it sounds. Just with a quick test. Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo, these are really nice. They sound very, very pleasant.
So good sound stage for sure, especially for closed back headphones. And the clarity, especially like the highs, like I will say they're not super bass-y but the problem is they're like almost at all like sort of normal headphones, especially Bluetooth headphones tend to be quite exaggerated on the bass. These are a little bit more neutral, which to me feels fresh.
It feels a little less grating. So if you wanna like kind of crank the volume up a little bit. That being said, even using my DAC, I've got them, I was listening to 'em at like 80% volume, which is way louder than I normally would. But yeah, I mean 155 bucks, like that's a no-brainer. - [Alex] Well is it still a no-brainer? - Oh no, don't, don't, don't, don't. Okay, what, what happened? Why? - [Alex] So these particular headphones, they're not like the newest so they actually go on sale pretty frequently.
- Oh no. - So right now you can buy it directly from Beyer. - New, new, new? - Brand new for $170 and they also have (Austin blowing) a two year warranty on their stuff. - Damn it, why you have to tell me that man? I was all excited about it.
(screen whooshing) Let's put the dream team to the test. Got my headphones, got my crappy mouse, my beautiful Razer keyboard. The only friend I have on this account is Ken. Ken's playing a game right now. What is Ken playing? We're at work. It's 2:35 on a Thursday. Oh wow. Okay.
Well I will say one thing, this mouse sucks. Dude that is terrible. I mean the system's running fine but that is so that mouse is garbage. I appreciate the good sound stage when I'm walking around on CS 2.
Ooh, can we not show the part where I lost the level one bot? (screen whooshing) Why don't we move on (packet thudding) to greener pastures, my friends? So do keep in mind that this is the first gen Osmo Pocket. So there's actually a DJI Pocket number three now. So this is a little bit on the older side but what you get here is just a little guy with a gimbal.
So I know that people complained about the image quality on the first one, like I know it's not like anything crazy but if you want a little pocket little stabilized camera, this could be cool. How much did I pay for this Pocket 1 that's not a Pocket 2 or Pocket 3? - [Alex] You paid $138. - So what you got here is just a little gimbal so you can move it around and you can see it.
We'll do a lot to stabilize. Okay, so it is gonna do the gimbal calibration to make sure that it's nice and smooth and not wibbly-wobbly. Okay, I'm not gonna deal with connecting it to my phone actually, I'm just gonna use it by itself. So this is an example of vlogging using the Pocket 1. So I'm gonna actually specifically walk through the office to give a little bit more of a realistic scenario because obviously we have wonderful lights here and we'll say that the video quality doesn't look great on the little screen but let's actually walk through some different environments, shall we? So I'm gonna hold it all the way out here. It does feel like the lens is a little bit tight.
So like I gotta really stretch my arm out. It's got face tracking on, hold on a second. Wait, if I walk is it gonna follow me? Oh it is. Alright. So if I'm just pacing back and forth contemplating my life decisions, then it actually does work.
You know something else I'm realizing. So when we bought this, it said it was a complete kit. So it is, got the USB-C and the Lightning adapter did not come with the USB-C. So technically we did not get everything that we were supposed to get with this. Let's take a look at the footage shall we? I am sure it's gonna look great.
You know that image quality's not that bad. It's not good but it's actually not that bad. This is a few years old.
- This is 2018. - Yeah. Oh wow. It's 2018, okay, you know what the fact that this is from 2018, I'll actually excuse a little bit of image quality. That being said though, if you have a somewhat recent smartphone, I actually would say that while this gimbal is good, the stabilization, especially on like modern iPhones, if you got like an ultra wide and whatnot, not too far off. (screen whooshing) Now this, this I am very familiar with, my friends from our Supplytronics store. We were able to purchase a iPhone 12 mini refurbished probably know, I'm a pretty big fan of the iPhone mini.
Not only did I daily, an iPhone 12 mini back in the day. I also spent a lot of time with the iPhone 13 mini up until very recently, at $270. Yeah, we paid $270 for this and that's a pretty good deal. That's significantly cheaper than like a standard iPhone 12 even. Whoo, that is a nice purple. Okay, so back seems to be quite nice and very minor like scuffs around the camera lenses.
But that makes sense 'cause when you set the phone down it kinda gets scratched a little bit, a little bit of wear around the edges. So you can see that some of that purple anodized finish is a little bit scraped there, a little bit on the bottom. Yeah, it's just got some scuffs all the way around.
But I will just say that I don't care too much about the rails of the phone. Not only will that just be covered up by a case, but also it doesn't really impact anything. Now the question I have with this, nowhere in here did they say anything about the battery percentage, which especially for a phone like this, which is three years old is a concern.
Doubly so because I'm using an iPhone mini, which even was brand new had, okay, battery life. 86%. I would say that that's acceptable. Let's try the camera real quick. Okay, we're speeding.
So we've got the main camera and the ultra wide seems fine. Yeah, no this is a fully functional iPhone. I've actually got the DJI out. Obviously this is more expensive but I'm actually gonna say that I bet the iPhone video is probably gonna look better than the DJI or at least fairly similar.
And of course this is a whole phone which is very usable. So first of all we've got some video from the DJI Pocket and now we've got the video from the iPhone. Now we put them side by side. Hopefully you can get a good sense for the stability of the DJI, but also the overall image quality of the iPhone 12 mini. I take an iPhone mini over all these things any day. (screen whooshing) Next up, we have what I think are headphones. (paper rustling)
So we have the Skullcandy Grind Fuel, (box thudding) boy, that's a name if I've ever heard one (paper rustling) or the Dime XT 2. (box thudding) So both of these have been refurbished, it looks like by actual Skullcandy. We are of course to the point where we're buying used Bluetooth earbuds, which understandably some people may have some concerns with. But I am a bold man of action and not afraid of a little (plastic bag rustling) extra ear juice. I got plenty of my own already. (laughs) Okay, so we'll start out with the Dime XT 2.
It does use micro USB but for $7, it's fine. Can I just point out the fact that they've been quite discolored by sitting in people's ears, I think? No, eh, are they supposed to look like that? - [Joanna] The other ones look like that. - Oh no, you're right. Okay. All right, now while those charge, let's take a look at the other set. Oh, oh here we go. These are USB-C, already worth the upcharge.
Unfortunately these both I think actually need to be charged. They're completely dead out of the box. So we're gonna start out with the Grind Fuel, which I'll remind you are our $15 earbuds. Now I don't think they have any kind of like active noise cancellation. The passive's actually quite strong, like these in my ears. They're big, even though they're so large though they're actually not that heavy.
So I think comfort's probably gonna be fine. Let's listen to some music, shall we? Yeah, 15 bucks man, I think these are pretty decent. I'm a little bit more curious about these $7 ear buds because seven bucks is getting to the point where it's like that is super cheap. So let's start by trying to get 'em paired. Okay, so here's the thing. Our $7 earbuds are having much more significant problems, no matter how long I wait or them to charge.
The right one never does anything. The left one powers on and it goes in this little like pairing mode, but it never shows up on the phone and it doesn't do anything besides power on, power off or do the little beepy thing. But no matter what I do, even though it looks like it's in pairing mode, it does not show up on the phone. And I wonder if that's because the right ear bud it charges but never turns on no matter how long I let it charge.
While the left one has been fine. Thankfully though I got a two year warranty on these that's like $3.50 a year per warranty or return policy that I'm probably gonna have to take a look at in about seven seconds.
(screen whooshing) (Austin tapping) It's time for the grand finale. It's been a video of ups and downs my friend. (claps) Thank you very much for coming along for the journey.
Hopefully you've already subscribed (bell chiming) and decided to ring-a-ling that ding-a-ling button 'cause I've got a real treat for you right now. When I was on eBay, I was scrolling through and I saw a refurbished PSP Go. - [Alex] Now how disappointed would you be? - Excuse me, what happened? Are you about to tell me that the PSP Go is a PSP no? - [Alex] Well why don't you open what we do have and I'll explain to you. It'll be a real surprise. - What did you do to my PSP Go? - [Alex] It'll be a real surprise.
(plastic bag rustling) - A Mario mini fig? - [Alex] No, so the PSP Go was unfortunately- - It's a Game Boy! - Yeah, it magically transformed into a Game Boy. The PSP Go was unfortunately canceled because the seller I guess just, you know, couldn't make any more of them ever again. So now that he's gone forever.
So now instead (chuckles) here's a Game Boy Pocket. - (chuckles) But that's not the same thing. Warning, opening this package will cause extreme happiness.
Well it would've if there's a PSP Go in here. Alright, so run me through what's going on here. So this is clearly a modded Game Boy Pocket. It's in the DMG style shell, which feels okay. I mean it's got the stickers, which are, you look closely, the fonts aren't right but like it's decent.
Oh it's, oh it's backlit display. Oh okay. That is a lot better. - Yeah, it's a backlit IPS. - Yeah.
- And then I'm guessing that they just gave you a Mario mini fig as a little bonus? Game Boy Pocket. This was original without the mods. I'm gonna guess probably 60 bucks, with the mods, $130. - Ooh, that's very close. We paid 150. - Okay, that's not terrible.
I mean I will say that screen looks phenomenal. You know what though, actually hang on. There is a little bit of a problem. The screen is a little bit misaligned.
It actually is really noticeable here. So you can see that there's like white pixels. Do you see that on the bottom and on the side? It kind of depends on your angle, but I can actually see, even though that's nice and black, do you see like the, the white on there? I think the screen lens is actually slightly too big for this.
I will say compared to buying a DKOldies Game Boy Pocket, which has been refurbished, this one which has been modded with the display and the shell and everything, well worth the $50. So while we were able to find some pretty decent deals and some good tech and some stuff that was in good shape, a lot of stuff either had problems, was broken, was missing accessories. Like I appreciate eBay for offering their certified program with the two year warranty.
And a lot of the other items that didn't have, that at least had like a one year warranty, which is very much appreciated. But the quality level overall today I would say was a little bit subpar. Thank you very much for watching. Make sure to subscribe (bell chiming) to the channel ring-a-ling, the ding-a-ling button. And if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna PSP go, be a Game Boy. (bell chiming) ♪ Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo ♪
2023-12-05 01:47
