For our anniversary, I wanted to get a newer iPad with better camera, more internal memory and retina display for my wife who has really enjoyed her iPad v2( 16GB) for many years. We can’t bring ourselves to pay$800 for a new iPad, when a iPad v4( 64GB) would be more than enough for the next few years at half the cost. Getting an Apple-certified refurbished unit seemed ideal.
The unit arrived in good cosmetic condition, but after a full charge and half-day of use it would refuse to swipe to unlock. The screen would light up, and the clock on the lock screen would display the correct time( it wasn’t frozen or hung), but no amount of swiping would register. Hard-resetting would sometimes work, but not each time.
By the second day of( very light) use, the rear camera stopped working, and after consulting Apple tech support via phone, they determined that this unit was victim of several hardware-related issues and should be returned. I ordered a replacement unit through Amazon - and that process was as good as I think anyone could expect. No complaints there at all.
The replacement unit arrived, this time in a genuine Apple box and seemed to power right up. It was running iOS 6-something and after walking through the setup it automatically downloaded an iOS update( to 9.1), installed it and then rebooted. It never came back to life. It was in recovery mode and I was unable to fix it with my Macbook Pro and iTunes( as Apple suggests) so I took this second unit to the Apple store in Roseville, CA. They did their best, but confirmed that this unit was also subject to a hardware failure.
Maybe I’m just unlucky, but it has been very disappointing to get two units in a row that fail. I’m sending the second unit back and will not be trying this again.