I’ve long extolled the advantages of buying Apple Certified Refurbished Macs and other Apple products rather than new. My own last four hardware purchases from Apple have all been Certified Refurbished two laptop systems (a 17″ PowerBook G4 and a 13″ Unibody MacBook), as well as two ACR iPods over a span of several years. I’ve been completely satisfied with all of them, and friends I’ve turned on to the ACR alternative report similar positive experiences.

We’re days away from the launch of the iPhone 3G S, and AT&T apparently is eager to dump off their stock refurbished iPhone 3Gs (the 3GS moniker vs. plural 3Gs is going to prove confusing for quite a while, huh). On the refurbished cell phone page at AT&T’s website, you can now order a refurbished 8GB with two year contract for $79, and a refurbished 16GB with contract (white only…black is currently out of stock) for only $129.

In a recent post, I talked about how a recipient of a refurbished iPhone was able to uncover sensitive data from the past user with a little searching. I also talked about how there is currently no known way to actually clear the info on your iPhone. Turns out I was wrong. Read on to find out how to actually clear the memory.

Now that both U.S. and U.K. online stores have reported depleting stocks of brand new units of the iPhone, here’s you’re chance to snag one for yourself if you haven’t done so, or if you don’t want to wait for the rumored 3G iPhone. AT&T has started offering refurbished units of the 16GB iPhone for more »