DJI Refurbished Products: Should You Buy Them?
Customers often hesitate at the sight of a refurbished electronics as resellers may create their own "refurbished products" or label them as "manufacture refurbished product" without any certification. This can often leave you empty handed with drone that malfunctions straight out of the box. In this article, we will break down what exactly are DJI Refurbished products and what their process is.
Quick Summary;
Genuine DJI Refurbished products are fantastic value for money. However, finding genuine DJI Refurbished products can be difficult.
Let's Dive Deeper;
If you look towards the DJI Official website, you will notice that DJI Official Refurbished products are not available to be purchased in Australia, but are available in other regions such as America (NA).
If the refurbished products are not available in your region but a local seller has refurbished stock available, there could a potential the stock can be "grey", whereby from another region.
What's wrong with Grey Stock?
The first issue is that you will be unable to pair your regions Care Refresh to your drone and secondly if there were to be a warranty issue, you may have to take it back to the retailer or send it to the original region, which could be North America, Hong Kong etc.
Official refurbished products go through a lengthy certification process that ensures full functionality, fresh batteries and must pass the same certification test as a brand new drone/product and come with a 1-year warranty
However, users have found refurbished products from non-DJI channels have led to used batteries, accessories and most importantly, are activated leaving no warranty or limited remaining amount of warranty.
There are many benefits from buying a refurbished product such as the reduced cost (you can save up to $900), excellent product quality and if they are genuine DJI Refurbished products, you will able to bind the Care Refresh Insurance program to the drone!
What is a Refurbished product?
A DJI Official refurbished product is essentially a product that had a minor/major fault during it's warranty period. Most of the time, this occurs within the first few days even hours of ownership where the product may have a faulty internal drive, battery error, compass error and sometimes a motor error. These are simple replaceable parts, not repairing a completely damaged drone. These refurbished drones can also be customer returns/change of mind, where the drone is in full working condition but has to go under a factory recalibration to reset all hardware (different to a software factory reset).
DJI repairs these products and replaces all faulty parts to a "brand new" condition before offering them for sale. The stock of these items do vary depending on the product so they are not always readily available.
There have been reports of some non-official DJI products having certain components replaced with new but some components replaced with used parts or parts from a donor body, which is another crashed drone beyond typical repairs. These are dangerous as they may not perform to the same ability as a brand new product and may cause damage if the drone were to malfunction in mid-air.
How does DJI test refurbished products?
- Each product is tested to make sure it is in working condition. This includes all calibrations such as the gimbal, compass and IMU. There are several tests that need to be completed in this phase.
- Any defective parts that are identified during the testing process are replaced with functional parts and then tested once again.
- Batteries are replaced, no damaged batteries will be included.
- Every product will be cleaned and disinfected before being packaged.
- A new serial number will be assigned and the firmware/internal hard drive will be flashed.
- Before it gets shipped off, it will undergo a quality assurance check.
Packaging
In order to differentiate between a new and an refurbished package, DJI instead uses a black sticker with "Refurbished" on it and will be refurbished down by it's serial number.
It is very important to ensure you see this sticker to ensure it is a genuine DJI refurbished product. Inside the box, you will find the product manuals (may not be new) and cables.
When buying new DJI products, one thing to look for on the serial number / barcode stick is for your regions identity. For example;
Australian Stock = AU
North American Stock = NA
United Kingdom = NA
Hong Kong = HK
Warranty and Care Refresh
DJI applies a 1 year warranty (including the battery) on their refurbished products. This means you are covered as if your product was a brand new product.
As they are considered "like-new", you will be able to purchase care refresh for your drone if it's in the correct region.
Pricing
Refurbished drone and other products are sold at a discounts compared to a new product. The savings for a drone is usually 10-20%, which makes these refurbished products value for money. However if the price seems to good to be true, it's more than likely a non-official refurbished drone disguised as official refurbished.
If you are hesitant about purchasing refurbished products and instead want a new product at a discounted price, please do not hesitate to contact our friendly sales team ( sales@d1store.com.au) who will help you out and give you the piece of mind buying a brand new product with Genuine Warranty (Australian readers only, sorry!).
Bottom Line
If you are looking to get the latest drone and want to save a bit of money, genuine refurbished stock is a fantastic option!
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