Ways to try gear.

mamallama wrote:

Pontoneer wrote:

mamallama wrote:

Pontoneer wrote:

riveredger wrote:

Pontoneer wrote:

mamallama wrote:

Pontoneer wrote:

mamallama wrote:

jrtrent wrote:

Pontoneer wrote:

hawk15 wrote:

I was about to rent a lens for $100.

But then I thought I could also just buy and return.

I've rented before and ended up buying so I'm not just buying with 0 probability to keep.

Has anyone gotten into issues with renting via the buy-and-return method?

Just go into a shop and ask to see/try a demonstration model .

I'm fortunate to have a dealer who is happy to let customers take floor samples out of the store to try outdoors for a while. I haven't had to resort to renting something to see if I'd like it.

And the dealer then sells it as new to someone else if you decide not to buy it?

Why not ?

A display item is still new ( not secondhand ) , unless it has been sold/returned .

True. Never sold at retail but it is not new and unused. I guess people who go to dealers and take the item out for a test drive should not complain when they get a new camera from B&H that has smudge marks on the LCD screen and a shutter count of 300.

When I ran my hi-fi shop , we ALWAYS sold the display model ; the one that the customer had seen/heard working : we knew it was in good order when it left the shop and this eliminated claims of it being faulty or damaged when they got home ; indeed with many items we would deliver and set up free .

If , rarely , a customer insisted on a new , unopened boxed item , it was always opened and tested in front of them - NOTHING LEFT THE SHOP WITHOUT BEING CHECKED .

I have no problem with display items which , legally , are still NEW .

If something has smudge marks they haven’t bothered to clean it ; I’d also consider 300 clicks excessive, but 10 or 20 , consistent with checking and perhaps showing to a couple of customers before the third one saw it , perfectly acceptable .

If an item is boxed back up properly , you as a customer would have no way of telling .

Which makes it deceitful.

Not at all : the item still IS new .

That's questionable. How do you define new? If the shop owner uses the item for a couple of weeks but never has sold it to a customer, would it still be considered new

In any case it is definitely not brand-new which is defined as conspicuously new and unused.

Of course it is new , as opposed to used or second hand , which is the same thing .

A ‘brand-new’ item can still be opened and tested or have been on display .

Most brand new cars will have either sat in a showroom for some time and/or sat in a field , perhaps for months , awaiting delivery to a dealer .

Even your ‘brand new’ camera may have been manufactured some months ago ; it may have sat in an exporters warehouse , before being shipped hafway round the world , then it may have sat in an importers warehouse before being ordered by a dealer , who might keep it in their stockroom , or put it in their shop window before it is finally sold .

None of these things stops it being ‘new’ .

You are stretching definition: .new and brand-new have different meanings.

Not to me they don't