Want a cheap Mac? Visit the refurb store!

The intense competition between suppliers of Windows PCs drives the prices ever lower, and some people would also say that the quality suffers too. After all, you get what you pay for.

Apple doesn't sell cheap computers and it steers well clear of the bottom end of the market and instead it prefers to produce a small number of high quality premium priced products. Does this mean that there is no such thing as a cheap Mac? No it doesn't because you can get significant discounts on Apple hardware if you know where to look. You can save tens or even hundreds of pounds on new kit, but few people know how.

When Apple refreshes it's product line and launches new hardware, have you ever wondered what happens to all the stock of the current kit? One day the Apple stores are selling plastic cased MacBooks and the next day they have brand new all-aluminium bodied ones. Where have all the old models gone? And when the desktop iMacs were recently replaced, where did all the existing ones go? Of course, Apple will try to run down stocks in the run up to the launch of a new product, but you can't run stocks down to zero and there will always be some old models lying around in warehouses. What hapens to them? The answer might be that they are sold off at the Refurb Store, an online supplier of Mac kit at discounted prices.

According to the FAQ at the site, everything sold at the Refurb Store is pre-owned, in other words, second hand. However, some people that have bought from the store have reported that they have received items in their original packaging that has never been opened and never used. It's brand new. It seems likely that old stock is sold off at the Refurb Store. The pre-owned kit the store refers to might be the demo models that have been on display in Apple stores. Although the kit has been switched on all day every day and occasionally prodded by potential purchasers, it will have hardly been used. The Macs will have been idling in a mimimal usage power-saving mode most of the time.

When you buy from the Refurb Store you could be lucky and get new kit, but it could be an ex-demo model. Don't worry about ex-demo models because they have been wiped clean, the latest version of OS X has been installed, and it's been repackaged. Everything sold comes direct from Apple. It's just like new and it comes with the same warranty as new kit too.

You'll find more than just Macs at the Refurb Store and there are iPods too. The items on sale change quite frequently and if the Mac you want isn't available today it might be there tomorrow, but you have to be quick because there are often limited numbers available and you'll need to snap it up before anyone else. You should either subscribe to the RSS feed or install the widget and keep it on your desktop. You'll also need to select your country because the products and prices are specific to your location.