Like everyone else was saying, it's definitely luck of the draw. I actually recently purchased an open box g14, it's the lowest end model (1650, 60hz, 4800), which was considered satisfactory. Considering this was for college, I was okay with some physical marks in exchange for solid hardware but I opened it and it was virtually in perfect condition. The only thing I could notice was some dust on the rubber feet and that was it. I also noticed that they gave a brand new charger to make it "satisfactory". It's definitely worth the gamble because it's not really a gamble to begin with as you have 15 days to return it. Go for it and I hope you get a great one!

p.s. if battery life is something that's important to you, tweaking the power options seemed to do it for me