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Advice for selling Macbook

R

relativist

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 13, 2009
179
0
So I've upgrade to the current generation white Macbook. I've got my old 1+ yr, Macbook, 2.4Ghz. I took the 4Gb I had in the old one and put it in the new Macbook. The question I have is, should I return the 4Gb and upgrade the hard drive for the next person, since I'm technically inclined and able, also will I get more $ for doing so? Should I include my Isis Cover too? (it has the old mapping on the function keys so I will get the new one) If I should update the hard drive, which one should I upgrade to?

Oh, and yes I'm going to open it up for shipping to UK as was recommended before in another thread. Thanks much.
 
After trawling through all the crap on ebay and seeing lots of fictitious macbooks my advice is to quote the serial number so people can check on Apple support that the item is genuine.
 
That's great advice, any opinions on doing an upgrade before resale? I'm kind of surprised no one has said anything on that!
 
If I were you, I'd put the 4GB's back into your old Macbook and sell it like that. I know most people are more willing to spend more cash on a computer with a lot of RAM because they're too lazy or scared to do it themselves. Then use the money from selling the MacBook and buy 4GB's of DDR2 800MHZ RAM for your new WhiteBook for like $50 US. BTW, you can only put in 800MHZ DDR2 in the nVidia WhiteBooks...not the Intel WhiteBooks. Best of luck with it.
 
bobriot said:
After trawling through all the crap on ebay and seeing lots of fictitious macbooks my advice is to quote the serial number so people can check on Apple support that the item is genuine.
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That could cause more problems though, the people running MacBook scams on eBay could then steal that serial number and say that's the one attached to the computer they're "selling", sucking more people in.
 
Ivan P said:
That could cause more problems though, the people running MacBook scams on eBay could then steal that serial number and say that's the one attached to the computer they're "selling", sucking more people in.
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Good point, just proves that there's always someone out there smarter than yourself.

Ok to prove that you actually own the item and that the buyer is not going to receive a house brick in a box clearly print your name on some paper and photo it with the item. Don't know what more you can do? Maybe offering collection would be a good sign of trust.
 
Ok, since there's two votes for putting the 4Gb Ram back in, I'll do that. It's CAS 5 memory, so when I upgrade my new white nVidia macbook I'll get the CAS 4 Ram. BTW, I wasn't aware the nVidia macbook could use 800MHz DDR2, is that really true? I heard it would use it, but at 667MHz...
 
Also... about the Hard Drive, should I buy a 320Gb 7200 rpm and do the upgrade, or should I leave it up to the buyer if they want me to, or just forget that? The 35 pass secure erase is about 9 minutes till completion, so I have no qualms sending the current drive.
 
relativist said:
BTW, I wasn't aware the nVidia macbook could use 800MHz DDR2, is that really true? I heard it would use it, but at 667MHz...
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Yes on nVidia WhiteBooks this IS possible. Apple apparently doesn't advertise this to help keep a performance gap between the WhiteBooks and the Unibodies. Also, as far as the disk drive goes, what size drive is it? I wouldn't worry about RPM's when you sell it. Most people don't even think about RPM's of a HDD, they just look at the basics: Processor speed, RAM amount (not RAM speed), and HDD space (not HDD RPM).
 
Thanks, then for sure I am going to put the 4Gb 667MHz back. I was looking at that thread again, and it looks like things have changed last I posted on it and it was confirmed that 800MHz will work. That's great news, so I'm going to get an 800MHz 4Gb set to put in my nVidia white macbook.

As for the size of the hard drive, since I have not bought it yet, it can be any size. I guess your suggesting I get the 5400rpm 500Gb hard drive and put it in? The 7200 rpm 500Gb drives are still out of stock last I checked. How about the Hitachi travelstar 5k500.B, it's $90 on the egg with $10 mail in rebate?
 
relativist said:
As for the size of the hard drive, since I have not bought it yet, it can be any size. I guess your suggesting I get the 5400rpm 500Gb hard drive and put it in? The 7200 rpm 500Gb drives are still out of stock last I checked.
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I say get whatever is the best deal...as long as its at least 200GB's or so; and don't get a 7200RPM drive unless the person you're selling it to will even know what that means. 9/10 people aren't even going to think about the speed of the hard drive, they're just going to ask how big it is. Not to mention the fact that Apple doesn't even offer a 7200RPM drive from the factory (on Macbooks); so don't feel like you're trying to pass a third rate HDD to the person who buys it, because it's still current technology.
 
How much do I discount for not having the warranty current? $100? $200? I'm hoping that doing upgrades makes up for this... namely 4Gb (which I already have) and 500GB hard drive, which I am adding.
 
relativist said:
How much do I discount for not having the warranty current? $100? $200? I'm hoping that doing upgrades makes up for this... namely 4Gb (which I already have) and 500GB hard drive, which I am adding.
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Well how much are you wanting to sell it for? i.e. What is the price that you're discounting from.
 
Don't forget to mention that while the whole laptop isn't covered, the new hard drive and ram are still under warranty.
 
what i do when selling stuff like laptops is write my trademe (like ebay but for new zealand) username on a piece of paper and hold it in the photo so that the buyer can see that i do actually have the item and that im not trying to scam people.

i always ask for the same when im buying a high risk item. i did that with this macbook unibody when i bought it as they were new out and i got it for a good price. I wanted to make sure it wasnt a case of 'too good to be true'
 
I'd say the only true "weaknesses" your old macbook has compared to the new ones is a slower FSB (800MHZ, I believe) and the lack of nVidia graphics. Other than that, It has a huge hard drive, maxed out RAM, and a faster processor than the new WhiteBooks. I think you should be able to pull at least $800US out of it.
 
The 500GB hard drive is waiting for me, all I have to do now is install it, do some updates, take some pictures and post it for sale. I've decided that I'm going to do a reserve of $900 for a 2.4GHz white macbook with 4Gb RAM and a 500GB Hard drive, 1+ year old, no Apple Care. I think that's a fair price, especially when it comes with iWork 08 disks, and a black keyboard jimmy. We'll see how opening it up to UK buyers goes, hopefully they can bid it up. Besides pay off my CC with the proceeds I'm going to get Apple Care from school, so I don't goof up and miss the 1 year mark and have to do this all over again.
 
tayloralmond said:
I'd say the only true "weaknesses" your old macbook has compared to the new ones is a slower FSB (800MHZ, I believe) and the lack of nVidia graphics. Other than that, It has a huge hard drive, maxed out RAM, and a faster processor than the new WhiteBooks. I think you should be able to pull at least $800US out of it.
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Not sure about that price since I bought my new nvidia white MB for $999 with an additional $200 rebate for an effective price of $799. There are many deals out there for the nvidia white MB as a loss leader so an informed consumer isn't going to pay $800 for a used MB with the Intel graphics.

Cheers,
 
panzer06 said:
Not sure about that price since I bought my new nvidia white MB for $999 with an additional $200 rebate for an effective price of $799. There are many deals out there for the nvidia white MB as a loss leader so an informed consumer isn't going to pay $800 for a used MB with the Intel graphics.

Cheers,
Click to expand...

I agree with you, but 9/10 consumers aren't "informed." Most are going to look and see that it has a 2.4GHZ processor, 4GB's of RAM, and a 500GB HDD. If the average consumer looks online and sees that the cheapest MacBook is $999 on the Apple Store (with 2GB's of RAM and a 120GB HDD), I think most would assume that $800 is a pretty good deal.
 
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