Is a refurbished Imac a good deal?

Refurbished iMacs from the Apple Store are a great deal any way you look at it. These machines have the same warranty as a new machine. They go through more QA than a new machine first when it was new and next when it goes through the refurbishing program. Apple wants your experience to be good they have absolutely no interest in selling machines (new or refurbished) that break because they know that will hurt their reputation & probably cost them money. The last thing they want to see is a customer coming back complaining about faulty products.

IMHO yes AppleCare is also a good buy, the more you invest in your iMac the better deal it is. AppleCare is the same price for all iMacs, if you purchase an entry level machine then it's not nearly as good a deal as if you buy a high end iMac. In most cases if your machine breaks after the 1 year warranty you saved money over repair costs. Also with AppleCare you get a full 3 years of telephone support where the original warranty only offers 90 days. Last you have 3 years of piece of mind and you can't put a value on that.

I've been very happy with the refurb purchases I've made. Fact is, from the look of the refurb computers and iPods I've bought, they were never used.