larryepage Loc: North Texas area

These are valid thoughts, as borne out by my personal experiences. As far as I can tell, there is no real legal standard for what constitutes a "refurbished" item. For a number of years, i "refurbished" older two-way radio sets. That involved cleaning them, repairing them, usually by swapping parts from donor units, and evev doing some repainting with textured spray paint. I was not doing this for resale. It was just the only financially feasible way that I had to add operating examples of older models to my collection.

While refurbisment of camera equipment depends mightily on who is doing the refurbishing, "factory" refurbs generally consist of a quick cleaning and repacking into boxes that provide some protection while distinguishing the products from new ones. The problems generally arise when a return product damaged by a customer gets mixed in with demos and ordinary undamaged returns. Why would that happen? If you bought a new lens and dropped it, would you rather be honest about what happened and have it repaired or take it back to the store with a complaint of "never worked properly right out of the box?" Thats why most people buy refurbs with never a complaint, but a few of us have had very negative experiences. (Fortunately, my lens was rather quickly "made right" by the manufacturer, but it was not replaced.)

I have also had two cameras of different models which were bought new from the same retailer at slightly different times. Both suffered serious operational failures during their warranty period. The exchange period for each was past, so they had to go for repair. Those repairs were pretty serious, involving replacement of the main circuit board and a second (different) circuit board in each camera. I will always believe that those cameras were part of a damaged shipment...perhaps the same one. Either a truck accident, a train derailment, or who knows what?

That's why I said earlier that there is always some risk involved with a purchase, no matter where from. And no number of choruses of "I've never had a problem," or "I've never had to file a warranty claim remove that risk. You just have to understand it and be ready to respond if circumstances require it.

Finally...I still have and occasionally shoot my original digital SLR, bought in 2006. I like it, it is important to me, and I like to use it once in a while. (I've finally found homes for several other older cameras which still work just fine.) So I understand having an attachment to a camera that is no longer "current." But the photo equipment world is changing. Rapidly and radically. Its going to be getting harder and harder to maintain old stuff in operating condition. So there is some merit to some of the advice which has been given to you.

Just be aware and be prepared to be flexible.

Laramie Loc: Tempe

KEH has a G5 X II and a G1 X III. the G1 has an APS-C sensor.

BebuLamar

is the refurbished more or less expensive than gray market one? Does the gray market one has return period?

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

If you want the piece of mind of 'new', then buy a new camera direct from Canon or an authorized USA reseller. Don't oversubscribe the work effort on 'refurb', nor oversubscribe the risk of 'used' or 'international'. These cameras are just little bundles of relatively mature technology, about the size of a deck of cards. The 20mm difference of focal length is immaterial if that's the complete difference of a supported vs discontinued model.