What is a “refurbished” laptop?

Refurbished laptops and tablets, also commonly referred to as “renewed,” “remanufactured” or “re-certified,” are previously used laptops that are reconditioned to look and perform as close to a new model as possible.

What makes our Toughbooks and Toughpads so special? We refurbish all of our laptops and tablets in our own refurbishing facility. Unlike many of our competitors, we don’t purchase “refurbished” computers from third party vendors who don’t meet our quality standards and just resell them. Our refurbishing process is performed by highly trained technicians who put our products through a detailed and rigorous testing procedure before leaving our facility.

What are the benefits of buying refurbished?

The biggest advantage of purchasing a refurbished laptop or tablet is price. Your savings compared to the cost of a new laptop or tablet can be substantial. Savings can range anywhere from 30 to 90 percent compared to a comparable previous generation or previous like-modeled laptop or tablet. Even buying an older model and enhancing its performance by maximizing your RAM and adding a fast Solid State Drive (SSD) can result in a well performing computer for a fraction of the cost of its newer counterpart.

What about a warranty?

All of our refurbished laptops and tablets come with a warranty and also have an extended warranty at additional cost available. Please visit the page of the specific item you are interested in to see what warranties are available.

What is the process of refurbishing a laptop or tablet?

Any refurbished laptop or tablet that you purchase from Tough Outlet goes through a rigorous refurbishing process.

When your order is received, one of our highly trained technicians searches through our large inventory of laptops and tablets to find the exact model that you ordered. The first step is to run an extensive diagnostic program to insure that all hardware is working properly. After that it’s off to cleaners who thoroughly clean and sanitize your laptop. Once, your laptop or tablet is shiny and clean it goes back to the technician who then adds any optional items like RAM and hard drive upgrades while also conducting any necessary repairs.

After that, your operating system is installed and tested and when completed your product is sent to our quality control department to be checked one more time before handing it off to our shipping department.

As you can see, there is a lot to do, but by refurbishing our own laptops and tablets we can control and insure the quality of our products instead of relying on third party vendors.

Are our laptops and tablets “re-certified?”

Generally when you see the term “re-certified” it refers to a product that has been refurbished by the manufacturer. In regards to Toughbooks and Toughpads, the manufacturer does not sell used or refurbished laptops or tablets so none of their products are available as “re-certified.” Some of our competitors may label their products as “re-certified” but you might want to ask them who certified them since the manufacturer does not sell or resell such products.