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What's a fair price?

wsteineker

wsteineker

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 17, 2001
727
0
Montgomery, AL
Hey folks, I think I need a little input. I'm looking to sell my Cube in order to buy an iBook, and I have two questions.

First, will a new 800 MHz iBook with 640 MB RAM be able to compete in terms of feel with my current setup (G4 450, 1.5 GB RAM, 32 MB Radeon)? Does anyone have any thoughts as to whether or not this transition is a good idea?

Second, what's a fair asking price? I've got the loaded Cube, a 15" Apple Studio Display LCD, iSub, and 16x QPS CD burner. I'm selling it with 10.1.5 and 9.2.2, Toast 5 Titanium, and Office v.X. Everything is in great shape. What should I ask for a setup like this? Any input would be most appreciated. Thanks!
 
arn

arn

macrumors god
Staff member
Apr 9, 2001
16,363
5,795
Originally posted by ShaolinMiddleFinger
I would rather keep the cube. Going from a G4 to a g3 sounds bad in my opinion....
Click to expand...

Going from a 450MHz G4 to a 800MHz G3 is a step up.

The G3 and G4 are similar in speeds if you don't take into account Altivec...

I suggest you go to an Apple store and test drive a iBook G3.

arn
 
wsteineker

wsteineker

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 17, 2001
727
0
Montgomery, AL
I'm planning on trying to test drive one of the new iBooks at an Apple store, but there's a catch. The closest Apple store is a little over two hours away in Atlanta, and the closest CompUSA is an hour and a half away in Birmingham. It also happens to be the worst CompUSA in the free world. So I can't just roll on over, if you see what I'm saying.

The Cube only has a 100 MHz system bus, as does the iBook, and I can't think of any AltiVec aware apps I use save for the VERY occasional Photoshop job. That said, I don't think it'd be THAT big a deal. My real worry is with the memory issue. Will OS X drag with only 640 MB as opposed to 1.5 GB?

Also, does anyone have any input as to a fair asking price? Thanks again for the help, folks. I appreciate it. :)
 
C

cubist

macrumors 68020
Jul 4, 2002
2,075
0
Muncie, Indiana
I have a very similar setup...

... and if I were to sell it I'd hope to get around $1000, not including the cd-burner. You might want to hang onto the cd-burner, get the $999 cd-rom ibook and get the ram for it from crucial or owc. You end up roughly cost-neutral, but saving space.

You might get more for the cube on ebay; you might get less. Including the cd-burner won't get you much more; in general, I think "extras" don't add much to the sell price. The iSub might add something. On the software, unless you're including the original CDs and manuals, it doesn't add anything to the value.

You might consider listing the cube on cubeowner.com.

Second, you might consider keeping the cube and looking for a less expensive, used portable. For $430 you can upgrade the cube to 800MHz.
 
wsteineker

wsteineker

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 17, 2001
727
0
Montgomery, AL
I thought about the whole less expensive used portable thing, but it doesn't set well with me. I also don't want to upgrade the Cube. I am at a point where I need portability (job, school, etc. all keep me traveling), and I don't want a desktop any longer. I am considering this purchase to replace the Cube, not supplement it. I am hoping that I can recover the cost of a mid-range iBook by selling my current rig. I have my eye on this model instead of the low end because of the faster processor and larger amount of video memory. Also, portability is an issue. Dragging a big external drive around that weighs roughly as much as the iBook is sort of a downer there. Anybody else got any ideas???
 
macktheknife

macktheknife

macrumors 6502a
Jan 24, 2002
639
0
Take a look on eBay to see how much Cubes are fetching for. With your whole setup, I wouldn't be surprised if you can get about $1,000 or so for it. That's more than half the price of a 800 Mhz iBook. If you want the 12 inch screen iBook, then you're almost there.

Here's my honest opinion. It sounds like your needs have outgrown the Cube, and no matter how much you can get by selling it, you will need to get something more portable. If indeed this is true, then just sell the Cube and the rest of the setup ASAP and get the highest price you can. The longer you wait, the bigger the decline in the Cube's resale value.
 
D

dabirdwell

macrumors 6502
Sep 26, 2002
457
26
Oklahoma
Get the iBook

Sounds like you can get a student discount too.

You may find that there are certain intangible benefits to the iBook over the cube, I think you will be very happy.
 
T

Thirteenva

macrumors 6502a
Jul 18, 2002
679
0
Why don't you just upgrade the cube?

was it sonnett that had the 1ghz upgrade for the cube? I think it was like $500, Its cheaper than buying an ibook and you'd still have a cube(I think the cubes are cool).
 
wsteineker

wsteineker

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 17, 2001
727
0
Montgomery, AL
Ok, so I've decided to sell the whole setup on eBay. I'm hoping to clear $1000, but I'm praying for closer to $1200. Anyhoo, I've decided on the 12'' 800 MHz combo drive iBook. I'm going to max the RAM out and hope for the best! Thanks for all the help with this one.

One last question. Should the RAM discrepancy stated in my above posts be a real issue? Thanks again!
 
S

Somebody

macrumors member
Oct 17, 2002
43
0
NYC
I think your hope for $1200 on eBay is not unreasonable.

I'm in a similar situation -- once my new PB gets here, I don't expect to have any further use for the Cube, so I'm probably going to sell it off via eBay. Mine's somewhat inferior to yours (only 896 RAM), and I'm not selling it with a display or external CD Burner or as much software as you (I have Jaguar, but not Office or Toast). I've seen Cubes similar to mine go for as much as $900 or even $1k in recent months.

Having the Radeon will help your resale value somewhat: Thanks to Quartz Extreme, Radeon-equipped cubes seem to be in much higher demand than the ones with only the Rage.

About the difference in RAM: Figure out how much RAM you're actually using on a regular basis on the Cube. If it significantly exceeds 640MB, then the decreased RAM will likely mean you see a performance hit. Otherwise, you'll probably be fine.
 
wsteineker

wsteineker

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 17, 2001
727
0
Montgomery, AL
Macktheknife,
The RAM issue is as follows: My Cube has 1.5 GB of RAM, whereas the iBook has a max of 640 MB. Do you think this will pose a problem? Thanks for the input!
 
jelloshotsrule

jelloshotsrule

macrumors G3
Feb 7, 2002
9,596
4
serendipity
i seriously doubt that 640 will slow you down.

you said you're not running altivec aware apps except for PS rarely... so i guess you're not running fcp, or any video stuff or anything...

what apps DO you use? i'm guessing word processing, mail, browsing, etc?

640 will be fine...
 
W

WannabeSQ

macrumors 6502
Oct 24, 2002
361
0
I dont know if its a good comparison, but you could try taking out some ram from the cube and see. Wont translate exactly, considering the different processor and speed, but might help some. I doubt there will be much of an issue.

A side note, you could try looking for an older TiBook. If your cube was fast enough, and you just wanted portability, a 550 or 667 mhz TiBook might be fine, and come in around $1500 used (I think)
 
wsteineker

wsteineker

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 17, 2001
727
0
Montgomery, AL
Jello:
I run Office, surf the web, check my e-mail, and occasionally use PS or Dreamweaver. Other than that, I play 2D games (EV Nova, etc.). I'm with you in thinking that 640 probably won't slow me down.

WannabeSQ:
I thought about the PowerBook, but I want to run Jaguar, and only this generation and the previous one are equipped with graphics cards powerful enough to take advantage of QE. These models are still a little out of my reach in terms of price.
 
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