refurbished computer worth it?

I don't have any experience with refurbished computers, but am looking into buying an RCI one here for the purposes of showing power point slide shows using the computer and projector (for teaching community education classes). Are the refurbished computers as trustworthy as a newly purchased first hand computer? It's strange to buy something without at least seeing a picture -  or not be able to touch and feel its newness. Do you think that it's worth the price difference or will I just end up having to buy a new one in a year?

Also, does anyone know of a place where I can buy a discounted projector for a non-profit?

Thanks.

In response to your question about RCI computers, please read this recent discussion we had on those right on this forum: [ here is a link ].

I'm not sure a discounted projector is worth the cost.  The bulbs that the lamps use are very expensive to replace, about $300 on average, and that is about 50-30% of the cost of a new projector with a 1 yr warranty.  [ Here's a link ] to some projectors that are currently on sale at Dell.com - about the 3rd one down in the list is on sale.  I currently use a [ Dell 1609WX ] and love it.

Thanks. In fact, I had read that forum about whether or not it was an upgrade - and the consensus seemed to be that if he just cleaned his harddrive, it would be the same as buying a refurbished computer. But, in our situation we do not have a laptop for this purpose and the question becomes: Do we save a buck and buy a refurbished one or do we just go ahead and buy a new one?

Thanks for the info on projectors... I am looking into some places. I tried to have staples donate one but they denied. I really like the Casio Superslim XJ-S37 because it has the option of being pc-less with a software that can change your slideshow into a format that can be read by the projector.... and the fact that it's "super slim." When traveling and carrying it around a lot, that is a must have.

Hard to say - the price ion the refurb laptops is great, especially as it comes with Office 2003 pre-installed.  I prefer ThinkPad laptops these days, and I purchased a refurbished one in Nov 2007 for $399 from buy.com (a ThinkPad T40) - I still use it today and I installed Windows 7 on it (with a bit of a workaround for the graphics driver, but otherwise works great).  Here's a link to some [ ThinkPad refurbs on buy.com ] -  they are more expensive and probably about the same class of PC - though have some different specs and don't come with Office.

Its relatively cheap to upgrade RAM these days...  I would give the RCI laptop a shot and upgrade its RAM to the max available for the model you receive.

Will it only be used to run the projector therefore never running off battery?  If you buy used sometimes the battery is not that good.  We have had good luck with used dell latitude laptops.

Refurbished computers are a buyer-beware sort of thing, I guess, but from my experience I've only had good luck with refurbished equipment. I've had two refurbished Dell laptops and a refurbished Airport Express, and they've run without a hiccup. I wouldn't use them for anything mission-critical, but since you're using them for a projector machine that will only see light use I think a refurbished machine would work out just fine for you!