Love Tech Hate Waste

What to know about shopping at Love Tech Hate Waste

Love Tech Hate Waste is a UK refurbished tech retailer offering 24,000+ lines across smartphones, laptops, gaming consoles, tablets, headphones, drones and computer components — covering Apple, Samsung, Sony PlayStation, Microsoft Xbox, Nintendo and other major manufacturers. The brand sits in the same competitive bracket as Back Market, MusicMagpie, Reboxed and Argos refurbished, but the standout operational signal is the 36-month warranty on every device — three times longer than the typical 12-month industry standard and one of the longest warranties in UK refurbished tech. The parent group has spent over a decade saving waste across food, drinks, clothing, games and consoles, so the circular-economy mission is auditable rather than marketing copy.

The catalogue mix runs from sub-£100 entry-level phones (older iPhone SE and Android models) through mid-tier laptops at £300–£700 and refurbished PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S and Nintendo Switch consoles at meaningful savings vs RRP, up to high-end MacBook Pros and gaming desktops. Refurbished pricing typically delivers 20–40% off new-retail RRP, with the actual savings narrowing on the latest-generation flagship models and widening on the 1–2-year-old previous-generation devices where the price-vs-spec curve is steepest. The 36-month warranty applies across the catalogue rather than just on premium tiers — a meaningful differentiator versus Back Market, where warranty length varies by seller and grade.

The professional refurbishment process is publicly disclosed: cosmetic restoration, internal testing, battery health certification and full functional verification before listing. Customer ratings cluster at 4.7-star averages, which is competitive with Back Market's 4.5-star and ahead of MusicMagpie's 4.6-star ratings on equivalent product categories. The first-party refurbishment (rather than the third-party marketplace model used by Back Market and eBay) means returns, warranty claims and spec disputes route through a single accountable seller — important on a category where condition-grading disputes are the dominant complaint type across the wider refurbished-tech industry.

Discount windows on refurbished tech are particularly intense around Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend (when refurbished retailers run alongside John Lewis and Argos new-tech discounts), the January post-Christmas window where unwanted gift returns flood the catalogue at reduced prices, and the autumn back-to-school season for student laptops. Practical buying tip: cross-check the refurbished price against the new-retail listing on John Lewis, Argos and the manufacturer direct before committing — refurbished savings only justify the warranty trade-off when the discount exceeds 20% vs current new-retail RRP. For previous-generation iPhones (one or two cycles behind the current model), the refurbished tier almost always beats Apple's own refurbished store on price while matching it on warranty length thanks to the 36-month coverage.

— MoneySaverCodes Team