DJI Refurbished Store, Worth Buying?

djimatthews · May 23, 2016

Hey guys, long time P2V flyer and looking to upgrade to a P3A or P3P. I just saw that DJI now has a REFURBISHED STORE is it worth buying a refurb or should I just go new?

Patrick · May 23, 2016

you can probably get a better deal on a new one if you look hard.

msinger · May 23, 2016

Personally, I'd go new since the price is not that much more. For example, you could get a refurbished Phantom 3 Professional from DJI or buy a brand new Phantom 3 Professional here on Amazon for only $39 more.

ryantrax · May 23, 2016

You could probably do better on Amazon for a new. I didn't realize they started a refurb option.

CCDD · May 23, 2016

I personally wouldn't buy a refurb under any circumstances.

GadgetGuy · May 23, 2016

I believe the refurbs come with full warranty, so that might give some peace of mind, depending upon the level of care in the refurb process, and the price. Might also allow getting an old motor bird for better FPV range.

Shammyh · May 23, 2016

I'd look at a refurb I1 or I1 pro. Or perhaps even a Matrice 100. If the discount was substantial enough.

For the P3A/P, Amazon for a couple dollars more brand new seems like a better deal.

m0j0 · May 23, 2016

New is better than refurbished is only about 40$ more. No brainer here.

GadgetGuy · May 23, 2016

The old motor P3P's have the best video range, so that would be the only reason to go refurbed, if you could get one now, with a full one year warranty, instead of buying a used one.

Darmie · May 27, 2016

GadgetGuy said:
The old motor P3P's have the best video range, so that would be the only reason to go refurbed, if you could get one now, with a full one year warranty, instead of buying a used one.

That's cool to know. I have old motors. I was not aware of that.

Trackman1 · May 27, 2016

Correct me if I am wrong. But I think DJI offered a trade in program in China when the P4's came out.
Maybe these refurbs are those machines?

msinger · May 27, 2016

Trackman1 said:
Maybe these refurbs are those machines?

They could be. Or, they might be machines that people sent in for repair.

WetDog · May 27, 2016

Darmie said:
That's cool to know. I have old motors. I was not aware of that.

The 300 A controllers (that mostly came with the old style motors) have slightly higher output than the B and C models. This has been the subject of many a post - if it makes a difference it is not much of one. The new motors seem to be slightly more efficient than the old ones. Again, the operative word is slight.

AerialZ · May 27, 2016

I'm typically a big fan of Refurbs. I've never had a bad experience with buying refurbished electronics that were offered with a warranty. But, in this case of a P3 (or any aerial camera platform), I would stay away from them. There are simply TOO many sensitive electronics that may have been damaged by the original owner and were missed in the refurbishing process. With the number of people crashing the Phantom series, I'm sure they are overloaded with repairable wrecks. Sure, if I knew that it was a quality process of replacing everything that could possibly have been damaged, I might feel differently. But, there's simply no way of knowing what that bird went through to end-up back at the manufacturer (or possibly a shady dealer that doesn't really know what they're doing.) The price differential just isn't worth the potential headaches involved if something isn't working 100%.
Just my $0.02 on this one... Buy new and reduce your chances of problems.

GadgetGuy · May 27, 2016

WetDog said:
The 300 A controllers (that mostly came with the old style motors) have slightly higher output than the B and C models. This has been the subject of many a post - if it makes a difference it is not much of one. The new motors seem to be slightly more efficient than the old ones. Again, the operative word is slight.

The GL300A remote has the same power output as the GL300B. It's the GL300C that is 20% less power, and 20% less range, which makes a huge difference with a remote mod. 4 miles instead of 5 miles. New motors offer 10% longer flight times. About 3 minutes longer with a battery mod---30 minutes instead of 27 minutes. The real limiting factor is the FPV range and the old motor birds have the strongest FPV video power output at .746 watts from the aircraft.

BVC · May 27, 2016

m0j0 said:
New is better than refurbished is only about 40$ more. No brainer here.

Not always true.

Apple for example - they only reuse the internal board. New case/battery are on their referb units (iphone/ipads). Macbooks are typically (from forum reviews) simply just buy it/try it returns (no noticeable damage or nicks)

I'm curious to see how DJI refits their phantoms for 2nd hand sales. Really may not be a bad deal (if they lowered the price below a whimpy $40 savings!!)

alokbhargava · May 27, 2016

Per DJI, these are returned drones within 7 days of purchase and repackaged and tested by DJI. They should be good to go but you hardly save any thing. I would suggest to go for new for peace of mind.

GadgetGuy · May 28, 2016

alokbhargava said:
Per DJI, these are returned drones within 7 days of purchase and repackaged and tested by DJI. They should be good to go but you hardly save any thing. I would suggest to go for new for peace of mind.

Per DJI's return policy, the only way a purchase can be returned within 7 days is for a manufacturing defect. For that to happen, it was already missed at the factory. From my own P4 return experience, with multiple manufacturing defects only discovered after three flights, if DJI only fixed one, or decided that what I called a manufacturing defect was "normal", good luck to the refurb buyer of my defective unit, when they include P4’s in the refurb line!

Buy new!