AMAZON CERTIFIED REFURBISHED PHONE - GOOGLE PIXEL OG REFURBISHED

SELLER: flip cells

Google pixel 1 2016 refurbished bough from AMAZON CERTIFIED REFURBISHED

Ok, so I made the mistake of buying a refurbished phone, so this is to warn other people about it. The phone itself is awesome, lightning fast, android p, snappy always, the camera is amazing, screen too, good looking, an overall great phone but….. I had the bad luck and bad thinking of buying refurb.

Maybe it was bad luck, maybe all refurbs are like mine, I don´t know, but I have to tell you, if you live in USA then fine, you can return the phone and no problem at all, you can try as many times until you get a good one, but for people outside US just don’t do it, buy new, trust me.

CERTIFIED REFURBISHED?

This phone is not certified refurbished nothing, it is just a used phone with something fixed, in my case it was the screen they fixed (and a bad fix too btw), slapped in a box with a charger and sold on amazon like “CERTIFIED”, THERE IS NO QUALITY AT ALL, keep reading.

REVIEW

LOOKS:

Almost Perfect, no cosmetic visible issues, no scratches. LIKE NEW, it was pristine.

But a big problem, mine has a gap between both side frames and screen, I guess they replaced the screen and used a cheap ass glue for the screen and there is a small gap or the screen being a little bloated over the regular level, the problem is that dust and water can enter the device more easily, very crappy quality control for a “certified refurbished” yeah right. Thankfully this does not affect the usage, it is just annoying to see and feel the screen separated from the metal frame.

BATTERY (this was the killer in my case)

Well, battery sucks, I don’t have a new phone to compare but basically, I get the same battery life with the pixel and with an old ass Samsung s4, sure, I guess I have a lot of battery wear and life is diminished, but the most annoying thing is that the phone will turn off at random at 10-15-20%, sometimes it hangs until 1% but very few times, most of the time it dies at 15%, so charging all the time is a must, easily 3 times a day. Really bad stuff for a “CERTIFIED REFURBISHED”, this happened too on my old s4 with a heavy used battery with wear over years, but at least I can change the battery on the S4.

Trust me I use every available trick to save battery, using greenify, 25% brightness, no notifications for apps, no fb app, no Bluetooth and nfc, everything in check, no weird apps, just the bare minimal active apps (whatsapp, gmail, telegram). The battery was heavy used and it has wear (damage), this can be easily tested yet they did not. I get 2h OST on screen time, maybe 3 with tons of luck, using all the before mentioned tricks, this is not acceptable.

You can use the app accubattery to check battery wear levels, mine says 70-75%, imagine buying a new phone with 30% less battery, as you already know this is the most important thing in a phone and a refurbished phone has this danger present, they could have replaced the battery and done with it but no, greedy refurb sellers just slap a new case and resell the phone. I might live with a wear of 5-10% but 15-20-25-30% just no, you cant live with this, specially since you have to care even more for the phone, in order to slow the wear you have to charge between 20-80%, no less no more, imagine how crappy that is, and the phone eats easily 30%/h, so you end up with 2h of screen per charge, this is a kick in the balls. So how is my life now? I charge my phone like 3-4 times a day in order to keep 20-80% levels so the wear is a little less, but a battery with this level wear is already dying, you can know this because the phone can turn off at 20% 10%, that means heavy damage.

Should you buy it?

Sure, if you live in USA, you can return it with no problems, but for me in CHILE, I have to pay shipping and taxes, I can’t return it and send another back, I should have bough a brand new phone or a moto g6plus novia 6.1, those phones have a great battery, not this crap “CERTIFIED REFURBISHED”, so save your money.

The pixel is an amazing phone even in 2018/2019, the camera easily overcomes the rest of annoying things it has, but please DO NOT BUY REFURBISHED.

I should have returned the phone and get a new one, but I was stupid enough to let it fall and scratched a little of the case, I guess I could not return it with that scratch, I don’t know. Now I have to live with this cancer of a phone.

DO NOT GO CHEAP ON A PHONE, BUY NEW.