Having bought a refurbished laptop from Newegg, I did so with hesitancy. Reviews are hit and miss (some people end up without a battery, a battery that can barely hold a charge, or no charging cable), and unless you're really hurting for cash, it usually isn't a good idea to go that route. I was hurting for cash and picked one up from Newegg for relatively cheap (less than $250), and it works well enough. It came with a freshly installed OS (Windows 7), and I managed to nab one that actually had a decent HDD (so many refurbs seem to try to pack in a really small HDD, usually around the 60GB range). The battery only holds about a three hour charge, less when anything even remotely power consuming is used (such as playing videos), and it did pick up a charging issue that I only noticed about a month ago, which is why I know my battery life so well now.
All in all, if you can afford something new in that spec range, get it. A refurb is barely worth the risk of getting a shit battery, much less the myriad of other issues you could end up with.
@noob killer: Make a new topic for your problem.