Tldrâ
Pros:
– Cheap
– Appears to be in good working order from a functional standpoint.
– Full complement of original accessories, not off-brand ones which could potentially damage the phone.
Cons
– Numerous chips and scratches
– Dust in places that shouldnât have dust yet
– Weird splotches that appeared to be some kind of adhesive
– Debris in the charging port
Full review:
I normally donât write reviews since what I buy is usually already backed by a number of decent reviews or not worth reviewing anyways(ie cables, etc). Given the small number of reviews here I thought I ought to write something especially given the somewhat lackluster experience I had recently.
I ended up purchasing a unit from Magic Mobile Partners.Overall I donât have much of a complaint on the unit I received from a functional standpoint, though I didnât get to test too much of it given that I didnât know I needed a nano sim and didnât have one in the time I had the unit.
That being said my primary complaint is surrounding the overall marketing of these units and what constitutes âcertified refurbishedâ. Regarding the unit I received – the only form of refurbishment I could see was that the software had been reset to factory settings. I wouldnât mind this if I had bought the phone from a place like, Ebay for example, but given that it was given the moniker âcertified refurbishedâ I was expecting a little more work to have been done.
Why do I think that the unit wasnât put through a proper refurbishment process? When I saw the unit, there were multiple chips and dings on the metal band running along the bottom bezel as well as scratches at various points on the phone. Assuming things had been replaced or repaired, for it to still have that much wear seems strange.
Dust – dust was everywhere. I knew it couldnât have come from me since I couldnât even use the phone yet(no nano sim so no reason to carry around in my pocket) Dust was trapped between the bezel and the screen, dust was over the screen, dust was just about everywhere I looked.
Scattered on the phone in various spots, I could see some kind of adhesive, that or sticky residue of lord knows what left over from a previous owner.
All in all, this was not a device that could be considered âcertified refurbishedâ in my opinion. I knew going into the purchase that this would be a used phone, however, at least for me, whenever I see the words âcertified refurbishedâ, I expect standards to be a bit higher than the average used phone when preparing for resale.
To be fair, it may not be Magic Mobile Partnerâs fault – itâs entirely possible they rely on a third-party to refurbish their phones. But in the end, clearly quality and pride of work in the refurbishment process was either lost or never done at all, hence my rating.
One final note for the developers / modders out there, your experience may vary but I believe these are probably all previous Verizon units based on what I could find regarding my unitâs build number. It came with 7.1 so if I had kept it I could have unlocked the bootloader.
