Restart Reliability Index · Refreshed quarterly
Which refurb SKUs actually last.
Every unit we ship is tracked. Every failure is logged. We publish the resulting model-by-model reliability data so you can standardise on the SKUs our field data says will hold up — not the ones we have the most of. No refurb competitor publishes this. We think that’s a mistake.
Filtered fleet
44,280
units in sample
Weighted failure rate
3.3%
12-month, all grades blended
Avg battery health
84%
at intake, battery-powered devices only
| Model | Units shipped | 12-mo failure rate ↑ | Battery at intake | Avg return grade | Median RMA | Our take |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
UltraSharp U2723QE Dell · Monitor | 2,640 | 1.3% | n/a | A | 2.6 d | Strong |
MacBook Air 13" M3 Apple · Laptop | 2,450 | 1.6% | 96% | A | 2.4 d | Strong |
EliteBook 845 G10 HP · Laptop | 640 | 1.9% | 94% | A | 2.8 d | Strong |
iPad Air 11" M2 Apple · Tablet | 1,420 | 2.0% | 92% | A | 2.9 d | Strong |
MacBook Pro 14" M2 Pro Apple · Laptop | 1,820 | 2.1% | 89% | A | 3.0 d | Strong |
OptiPlex 7090 SFF Dell · Desktop | 1,780 | 2.2% | n/a | B | 3.1 d | Strong |
ThinkCentre M75q Tiny Lenovo · Desktop | 1,140 | 2.5% | n/a | B | 3.3 d | Strong |
ThinkPad T14 Gen 3 Lenovo · Laptop | 4,820 | 2.8% | 87% | A | 3.2 d | Strong |
500e Chromebook Lenovo · Chromebook | 2,680 | 2.9% | 84% | B | 3.5 d | Strong |
ThinkPad T14s Gen 2 Lenovo · Laptop | 3,140 | 3.1% | 84% | A | 3.6 d | Strong |
Chromebook 714 Acer · Chromebook | 4,210 | 3.2% | 81% | B | 3.9 d | Standard |
Latitude 5430 Dell · Laptop | 6,210 | 3.4% | 82% | B | 4.1 d | Strong |
UltraFine 27UP850 LG · Monitor | 820 | 3.6% | n/a | B | 4.1 d | Standard |
XPS 13 9315 Dell · Laptop | 1,240 | 3.8% | 81% | B | 4.3 d | Standard |
ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9 Lenovo · Laptop | 1,980 | 4.1% | 80% | B | 4.1 d | Standard |
Latitude 7420 Dell · Laptop | 2,490 | 4.8% | 79% | B | 4.6 d | Standard |
EliteBook 840 G8 HP · Laptop | 2,880 | 5.2% | 78% | B | 5.0 d | Standard |
Surface Pro 8 Microsoft · Tablet | 380 | 6.3% | 74% | C | 5.8 d | Use with care |
Surface Laptop 4 Microsoft · Laptop | 560 | 7.1% | 75% | C | 5.9 d | Use with care |
MacBook Pro 16" Intel 2019 Apple · Laptop | 980 | 8.4% | 71% | C | 6.2 d | Use with care |
Sample reflects units shipped and tracked over the rolling 12 months ending this quarter. “Our take” blends failure rate, battery health, return-grade drift, and RMA speed into a single guidance label — details on the methodology below.
Methodology
How the numbers get made.
-
01
Every unit tagged at intake
Serial + SKU + battery-health reading + QA result are recorded the moment a unit lands on our floor. No sampling, no aggregation bias.
-
02
Failure defined narrowly
We count warranty claims + out-of-warranty RMAs + field DOAs. Cosmetic complaints and user error do not count; we surface those separately.
-
03
Weighted by units shipped
A 20-unit SKU and a 5,000-unit SKU don’t get equal say. Aggregates use unit-weighted averages, published with the sample size alongside.
-
04
Refreshed quarterly
Rolling 12-month window. Models with < 100 units shipped are held out until the sample is statistically meaningful.
Fair questions
Three objections we get.
Why publish this at all?
Because the honest answer to "which refurb model should I standardise on?" lives in our ops data — and keeping it internal is the industry default we want to break.
What about models we stop recommending?
They stay on the index with a "Use with care" label and a short note on the failure mode. Removing them would make the index a marketing artefact.
Can I audit the underlying data?
Enterprise customers (250+ units/yr) can request an auditor-readable CSV of the sample under NDA. We publish aggregates; customers get the raw.
Standardise on the strong column.
Send us the models rated Strong with a target fleet size and we’ll reserve matched batches from the best-performing SKUs for your next refresh.