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Refurbishing an iPhone at Rebuy: Not every shop convinces with quality
Photo: Matthias Kremp / DER SPIEGEL
If you are one of those people who don't always and absolutely want to have the latest smartphone, a refurbished cell phone could be the right choice for you.
Refurbished
devices are used devices that have been checked, cleaned and, if necessary, repaired by the manufacturer or a dealer
.
At least that's the theory.
A recent test by Stiftung Warentest, for which the testers bought a total of 45 refurbished smartphones from nine providers, shows that this is not always the case.
But first the good news: If you buy a refurbished cell phone, you can save a lot of money compared to buying a new one, namely up to half of the original purchase price.
According to the Stiftung Warentest report, the savings were lowest at 20 percent at Refubishedstore and highest at around 50 percent at Clevertronic.
Apart from the competition, the testers also tried Apple's refurbished store.
They described the condition of the two Series 11 iPhones ordered there as “excellent”.
According to Apple, however, all iPhones offered through the in-house second-hand shop also get a new battery and a new housing.
According to the Stiftung Warentest, the possible savings are small, older models are “available even cheaper in some other shops than refurbished ones from Apple”.
Camera broken, no phone calls, no security updates
But the other providers also promise to check, clean and, if necessary, repair the used equipment before reselling it.
At least as far as the visual appearance is concerned, the testers were often pleasantly surprised.
Although they had always ordered devices in the cheapest category, which can show signs of wear such as scratches and scrapes, many were in "remarkably good condition
".
The examination of the technology usually did not reveal any errors either.
But at least nine devices had defects.
Some had distorted speakers, one had a camera malfunction, and one cell phone even had an "indelible remote access profile from a company."
Even more drastic: With a device supplied by BuyZoxs, it was not possible to make calls because the previous owner's SIM lock was still active, and no security updates were possible with another Refurbed model.
Problems like these could have been avoided with good quality control.
The testers only rated the BuyZoxs and Refurbed shops as "sufficient" in terms of the usability of the devices because they noticed several such errors.
In contrast, the Rebuy, Asgoodasnew and Clevertronic shops performed best.
You can find the entire test results, with further details and tips for buying a used product, at Stiftung Warentest.
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