Poll Returned SP3: received new or refurb unit?

[driekus]

6 hours on the phone in the last 3 days. Transferred between departments 28 times.

Now even more confident it is a refurb. It is amazing what you can find with data recovery tools. They didnt do a good job erasing the data.

 

[grumpy]

Unless it arrives in original retail packaging, it is a refurbished unit.

 

[driekus]

Yeah I guessed as much, I will deal with this appropriately. Going to recover as much material as possible and see if I can get anything interesting.

On my 7th hour on hold now. This is ridiculous. It broke my record of 5 hours talking to the Sony Store.

 

[driekus]

Well officially gave up on Microsoft Support. All up close to eight hours. At no stage were they concerned that I could pull data from the laptop.

 

[Striknine]

I am on my third SP3 so far in a one month time frame. Both times I took it back I received a new in box unit. The first one the screen was sunken into the metal frame, the second had issues with the lock screen turning on during sleep and draining my battery. The third one seems to be OK so far. Fingers crossed.

 

[driekus]

Well I went into the Microsoft Store expecting to get a new replacement. I explained to the store staff the situation including the ability to access the previous owners files and the 7 hour calls to their online store.
They promptly refunded my money which I didnt expect but am very happy with the outcome.

Needless to say when I returned the Surface I did a 5 pass deletion of any critical files.

 

[jonypx09]

My second unit was a refurbished unit and it had a battery issue. Instead of returning it to the store, I decided to do the Advanced Replacement Program. When I received the third unit, it was wrapped in the same plastic as the retail packaging, so I think it's a new unit. This unit appears to be working perfectly, except there's some minor damage on the top-left corner of the frame. I think it's a manufacturing defect; I may exchange it again sometime near the expiration date of the warranty period.

 

[RémiM]

Question: do you always get a new product if you exchange your product in a MS store ?

 

[VickiFL]

Question: do you always get a new product if you exchange your product in a MS store ?

I did.

 

[RémiM]

I did.

You got yours from a brand new box, like the SP3 regular box ???

 

[VickiFL]

You got yours from a brand new box, like the SP3 regular box ???

Yes, twice, and I did it at the Microsoft Store. It was a white and gray retail box, sealed. I've never received a plain brown box.

 

[RémiM]

Interesting @VickiFL .

Does the brown box automatically means refurbished ?

The woman at the MS store told me "here is a new SP3". Mine was in a cardboard box, perfectly wrapped and into the plastic protection, like a brand new one.

Is there a way to retrace the life of the SP3 with the serial number, and at the same time a way to know the lot # ?