Grading: Four Dimensions, One Letter

A grade is a contract. When a buyer pays for “Grade B,” they have an expectation. When the seller delivers something different, the dispute opens. Grading exists to make the contract precise — not to be artistic.

The four sub-grades

On every scale the higher number is the better device. Functional (F0–F3): does it work? F3 is Perfect, F2 Fully Functional, F1 Partially Functional, F0 Non-Functional. Battery issues live in their own grade because a working laptop with a dead battery is not the same as a laptop that won’t boot.

Cosmetic (C0–C4): how does it look? C4 Near-Mint, C3 Light Wear, C2 Moderate Wear, C1 Heavy Wear, C0 Damaged. Cosmetic is the most subjective of the four, which is why the defect codes and body zones exist — to anchor the letter to specific observations rather than to the tester’s mood.

Battery (B0–B3): B3 High Health at 80 percent of design capacity or more, B2 Acceptable from 60, B1 Low Health from 30, B0 Missing or Defective below that — a missing battery and a dead one are the same commercial fact.

Data (D0–D3): what happened to the storage. D3 Certified Erasure with a certificate, D2 Secure Wipe without one, D1 Factory Reset where data may still be recoverable, D0 Not Erased — data present, device locked or wipe failed.

The overall grade

The overall grade is what buyers see. It runs A to F, with guidance per letter: A is premium refurbished (F3, C4 or C3, B3 where a battery applies), B is standard refurbished, C is working with issues, D is for parts or repair, F is recycling only. The tester chooses the letter with those guidelines in front of them. There is no weighted formula behind the curtain and no floor rule; the number that matters is the one a human wrote after looking at the machine. Grades A to D are sellable. F is not.

Market-ready is more than a letter

Before a device can be listed, the platform checks that it is graded, has a value, carries the disposition resale, and has erasure evidence where it holds data. What it does not require is a logged refurbishment: As received is a valid refurbishment level, and the sales layer shows it to the buyer as exactly that. A laptop that needed nothing is not penalized for needing nothing.

Why the rules live in settings

Different markets have different definitions. A broker selling to refurbishers is stricter on functional than a recycler buying for parts. Settings > Core > Grading rules holds the grade bands for each dimension — the weight range of recorded defects that maps to each letter — with the platform defaults and your organization’s override side by side, plus the auto-grade rules that suggest the functional and battery grades from test results. Change the bands there, and every tester from that moment grades against the same table. The table is one place. That is the whole design.