Any reason(s) NOT to buy the Philips 3595?

[KeepItSimple]

Refurb does not mean broken. It means "now fixed".

Yeah but someone else's cooties are on it already so forget it

[lordsmurf]

A lot of refurbs are pre-consumer.

[KeepItSimple]

I know I was J/K, besides I have some Windex to get the perceived cooties off . I love refurbs and have bought many without a dud yet. And yes they often look brand new and not used at all. The most recent was an Epson all-in-one photo printer/copier/scanner for $69 at Fry's. The replacement inks for that unit are $73 at Amazon so it would be cheaper to buy another unit with ink instead of the ink!
Yep love them refurbs.

[Trollheart]

Don't know about Ireland, but in the U.S. every major retailer has a consumer friendly return policy....buy with credit card...if it you are not happy pretty quick, return it for full refund credited directly to the card.

No, unf in Ireland it is mega-hard to get your money back or get an exchange due to the machine not being what you want. Here, you need to prove it's not working, or is defective in some way, and most times they'll just replace it with another of the same, so really, unless it breaks, once you buy it you're more or less stuck with it.

[Trollheart]

Well, the clock is ticking. Buying the Philips tomororw morning, unless someone can really demonstrate why I shouldn't.
Look for a thread some time later then with my views and review of same (won't be too technical though...)
Thanx again for all your help guys, and may all the machines you buy be perfect for your needs!

[LCSHG]

Refurbs can be a very good deal, considering that most returns are because the user doesn’t understand the operation not because its defective. Than because the manufacture has to insure that the unit is working and will most likely pay greater attention to this than in a new unit.

What does the price of the ink have to do with a new or refurb printer. The price of the ink is going to be the same
Epson has gone to greater lengths than HP in the cost of ink or to block any attempt to refill a cartridge
One needs to understand that these companies will practically give the printer. They are selling INK not printers.

I fill my own cartridges.

[jjeff]

I think what KeepItSimple was trying to say was that it would be cheaper to but the printer with the installed ink, than the ink alone. Buy the printer just for the ink and throw away the printer.
Not sure about Epson, but the only fly in that ointment I see is if Epson uses "starter" ink cartridges. HP and Brother for sure are big into that. The cartridge that comes with a new printer only has a little ink in it. A super rip-off if you ask me. I bought a new HP printer only to have the new "starter" ink last for 2 pages. I returned the printer and got a new one. The new one also only lasted a few pages. I got tired of the game and bought a new cartridge which has been working ever since. CHEAP bas*erds!

[LCSHG]

I know what is being said but again there are many issues with all the printer units out there And many of the blocks that are placed are in then selves a problem --- But Again
All these company’s are in the INK selling business
You, KeepItSimple and others have returned the printers to beat them at there own game. But gave it up.
The Printers you returned were not defective and will become Refurb units
The same with many DVD units

[LCSHG]

I had to leave for the day and thought about my post above
I don’t’ believe I worded it well.
I meant no offence But was only trying to emphasize the Refurb issue.
I had done the same thing when I Tried out a DVD unit and than returned it.

[Billf2099]

I didn't mean to imply the non-haters in this thread were haters. I read a lot of philips threads, I have three machines so... go figure. There's a bunch of haters here. It tends to drown out the majority opinion which is rational and states plus' and minus' of particular machines. Lots of consumer electronics are sold as refurb. My paranoia on that stuff is almost as bad as it is for open box stuff at the store. But I bought an open box item once and it worked out OK (not a philips) this particular unit would ONLY work with burned Minus disks so I shunted it off to my parents who needed a combo DVD VCR. Samsung for those keeping score. I prefered my philips dvd for color reproduction. I just wanted one less box in that room. So I replaced it with a dvd recorder and a tivo.

[KTH]

What about the option of repairing the HS2? I don't know what Panasonic's repair policy is for Ireland, but the last I heard in the U.S. Panasonic was repairing HDD DVD Recorders for a flat rate charge. I think it was a hundred plus dollars. At least with this option you would know what you were getting. I don't know if Panasonic still has this policy in place or whether it applies in your particular country or not, but it's at least worth calling Panasonic to find out.

[Trollheart]

Thx KTH. I've actually been to Power City and picked up the Philips now, so that's a moot question.
However, to answer it, I do know that when the machine was within guarantee, and the hdd died, I had to ship it off (at my expense, though luckily I have contacts as I work in the freight game!) and they replaced the drive, sent it back no charge. HOWEVER, the slip did note the cost of the hdd (whch I assume I would have been billed for had the Panny been out of its guarantee), and it was STG 300. That was four or so years ago, so I guess it would have dropped a lot by now, but still, for the expense involved I don't believe it's worth it.
TBH the unit works fine 90% of the time, it's just every so often it has a hdd crash, and once it happens all you can do is reformat, so you lose everything. I've lost count of the times I watched progs I wanted to watch/keep disappear before my eyes before I had had a chance to transfer them to DVD! It became a case of holding my breath when recording anything, waiting for the hdd to fail, making sure everything important got transferred off the hdd as fast as, and even things I wanted to watch but not keep got hi-speed-dubbed to DVD RAM so that at least it another meltdown occurred, I'd have the progs to watch once I'd reformatted.
It's no way to live...
Then when the dvd tray started refusing to open, I knew things were coming to an end. Until I could replace the unit, I used the "divide" function to chop off the beginning and end bits of the progs I had recorded (I had to do a full record all through the day if I wanted something recorded while at work or out, as the timer failed a long time ago), and then transfer the chunk of prog I wanted to DVD. In fairness, doing it this way I haven't since had a crash, so I think it's down to the "partial erase" feature of the unit, but quite frankly it just wasn't an acceptable situation.
So now I have the Philips, and I'll put the Panny down in the living room, where my sister can use it to record stuff she wants to see. I'll set mine to record the same progs if theyre important, so she'll have a backup if the disk crashes again.
Not a bad result, all round! Plus I get a built-in MP3 player and DIVX, which I hadn't on the other machine...

[jjeff]

Trollheart, The very best of luck with your Philips(not that I think you'll need luck, but it can't hurt!).
And Happy St. Patty's day to ya!