You can save hundreds on the 2018 MacBook Air just by buying refurbished

If you've read any of Mashable's laptop reviews, you know that some of the more jacked-up notebooks from the Lenovo ThinkPad, Apple MacBook, and Huawei MateBook series can do almost everything a desktop computer can do without sacrificing portability.

But spending upwards of $1,000 on a laptop? In this economy?

(Couldn't be us — at least, not until our tax refunds hit.)

We'll let you in on a little secret: You can easily save a ton of money on a laptop by forgoing "brand new" in favor of "new to you" — that is, by buying a pre-owned device that's been inspected, fixed up, and certified to work just as well as it did right out of the box. Whenever we see a retailer selling one of these so-called "refurbished" devices, it's typically hundreds of dollars cheaper than those in mint condition (with little to no difference in either functionality or cosmetics) — plus, they tend to get much better discounts when they go on sale. Read more...