Refurbish or Grey Market? You decide

[dfinkels]

If you wanted to buy a Sony a7RII and had to choose between two sellers at the exact same price, which would you choose and why?

 

- Grey Market model from long-established US seller with thousands of positive reviews on eBay

- Refurbished model from long-established US seller with thousands of positive reviews on Amazon. Refurbish work and 1-yr warranty provided by seller, not Sony

[duncanfoxphoto]

Grey market. All the way. It's a new rather than previously used and broken product. You can use your gear insurance to take care of any warranty concerns.

[markphoto4u]

U wanna save money buy a Sony A7ii. I have been shooting with 24 mp and have never needed more mp. I have printed 18x24 inch photos on my Canon Pro-10 and the IQ is superb.

 

 

markphoto4u

[dmwphoto]

Grey market. All the way. It's a new rather than previously used and broken product. You can use your gear insurance to take care of any warranty concerns.

 

using gear insurance to cover warranty concerns because you bought grey? does not seem right to me.

[Guest]

All my cameras are grey import. The problem with grey import is that government does not like it (they miss out taxes). But Sony doesn't really give a thing when it comes to warranty. At least in The Netherlands, you can register your camera on the website of Sony and have the standard warranty set it. Besides that, you can buy extra coverage warranty from Sony if you really are afraid about something breaking down. As I don't want to encourage something that might be little 'illegal', if would be in your situation, I would go for the grey import.

[blackfeather]

never gray market.

[Emptymind]

Buy a less expensive model - not an answer you want to hear but its the truth. Even at gray market prices its still a lot of money so pay the extra cash and buy from an authorized dealer and sleep better. I buy every camera and lens at B&H as they have the best customer service. I recently sent a $6,000 camera back to them as I had second thoughts. They did not flinch because I built a very good ten year history with them. 

 

Stay with one retailer if you can - it pays in the end. 

[Portrait Painter X]

Another vote for grey market here. I've bought many cameras and lenses over the years and never had a problem. Maybe I'm lucky, who knows, but I've saved thousands of monies, so I'll keep buying grey market, that's for sure.

[Golem]

Gray Market can bring you the wrong firmware and other grief. 

  

Refurbs are individually inspected and approved, which is way

better than a regular stock purchase, where only a statistical

sample have been inspected.  

  

The vast majority of refurbs are just inspected and reboxed,

without need of repair. So many cameras/lenses/etc are now

purchased either online, or from big box retailers, which means

no experts to advise the user how to use it. So, stuff is returned

as defective, and accepted for return by the seller, no questions

asked. Good customer service. But most of these returns are

not defective. Only the user's knowledge of the device is faulty.

  

Anywho, I loooove "open box" and "refurb", and I will not touch

gray market.

[duncanfoxphoto]

As someone who bought a grey market 70-200 because budget wouldn't allow the purchase otherwise, I have no complaints. 1500 usd for a US model plus tax, 1000 usd grey market w/ 3 year seller warranty no tax. 8.25% sales tax here.