I've decided to buy an off-lease Dell Latitude 9410 from Dell Financial Services, via their retail web site https://dellrefurbished.com. All of the machines have been evaluated to be in good functional order, but some of them have cosmetic blemishes separated into cosmetic grades. Cosmetic grade A are for machines in good shape, and grade B indicate machines that are in... less good shape at a lower price. Since I'm a cheapskate, I ordered a grade B unit and in my specific case, it wasn't bad at all!

When the machine arrived, my first surprise was the label at the bottom: "Refurbished to Dell specifications by FedEx Supply Chain" I expected the evaluation and refurbishment process to be done by a Dell subcontractor, I just didn't expect to see the FedEx name. Prompted by this surprise, I did a bit of research to find FedEx TechConnect, with uncertain relationship to "FedEx Supply Chain" formerly GENCO. To me it seems like an odd side gig for FedEx to take on, but I'm not a MBA at FedEx business development.

I found some damage on the keyboard. It means the backlight would shine through these damaged corners, not something I'd notice while I'm typing and looking at the screen. This damage is not a surprise in hindsight: when the screen is flipped around to turn this into a tablet, its keyboard becomes the exposed bottom of the device. The previous user of this laptop must have set the tablet down on something that caused this key cap damage.

Another problem with this device was the rubber strip at the bottom: it's gone. There's supposed to be a layer of light gray soft material overmolded onto this hard black plastic core strip. With the soft layer gone, all I have is this ugly looking strip. Fortunately I don't have to look at it when I'm using the laptop. As a substitute, the refurbish process added cheap square stick-on rubber feet.

The stick-on squares are much thicker than the missing rubber strips. In laptop mode, this meant a larger gap at the bottom for better air cooling. But the thickness gets in the way when I fold the screen around for tablet mode: I couldn't fold the screen completely flat when these thick rubber pads are in place. I will look for slightly thinner stick-on rubber feet to replace these thick squares, with the goal of restoring full tablet mode form factor while preserving laptop mode air cooling. I consider this a minor detail that is within my ability to fix, and not a big deal.

I found no noticeable damage on the screen, the metal body, or lid. Those were bigger concerns buying "Grade B" and my unit is practically pristine on those fronts. I don't think the slightly scratched keyboard would bother me very much, and I can replace the stick-on rubber feet. I'm perfectly happy accepting those blemishes in exchange for >80% discount off original MSRP, especially when its internals look perfectly fine.