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How much would it cost to buy a rMBP and sell 1 year later?

W

whitedragon101

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Sep 11, 2008
1,349
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I am trying to figure out how much it would cost to buy a top spec rMBP each year and sell it on the next refresh 1 year later to buy the current model.

How much would you loose on the transaction each year?

How much would you loose on the transaction for 2 years?


I have been looking at ebay but finding it hard to determine a solid idea of the price drop over time. (I am in the UK but international advice welcome too, hopefully the percentage drops are similar).

Thanks in advance :)
 
They tend to hold their value pretty well, and a 1 year old laptop is still pretty new. Craigslist and Ebay will give you less than Amazon.

I'd say you would lose ~$200-300 the first year, and it would taper off a little after that, but that's a wild guess. You would lose more if a new model comes out with faster CPU and GPU, or other major changes.

edit: You can check out new and used prices here for a bunch of different computers here: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_nr_n...pro+retina&ie=UTF8&qid=1400518029&rnid=493964
 
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whitedragon101 said:
I am trying to figure out how much it would cost to buy a top spec rMBP each year and sell it on the next refresh 1 year later to buy the current model.

How much would you loose on the transaction each year?

How much would you loose on the transaction for 2 years?


I have been looking at ebay but finding it hard to determine a solid idea of the price drop over time. (I am in the UK but international advice welcome too, hopefully the percentage drops are similar).

Thanks in advance :)
Click to expand...

You will have a sharp drop off right when you open the package to the end of the first year, then it will plateau off for the next 2 -3 years followed by another sharp drop off after that.

Now, all of this is upset if Apple releases a major update or announces that they are moving their Macs to ARM (the latter could actually work in your favor)...
 
I also plan on selling mine after one year, but it's to upgrade to the latest and greatest. Bought mine for £1,869 + 3 year warranty from Apple (student discount) and I've been informed I can expect ~£1,600 or so. Just hoping they don't drop Maxwell.

Also if Apple adopted ARM in their rMBP's I would rapidly be ditching my Mac, how would that even work? Think of all the software that would no longer be supported, simply for longer battery life? I don't see it happening, especially not with Intel hellbent on reducing power consumption.
 
SCOLANATOR said:
I also plan on selling mine after one year, but it's to upgrade to the latest and greatest. Bought mine for £1,869 + 3 year warranty from Apple (student discount) and I've been informed I can expect ~£1,600 or so. Just hoping they don't drop Maxwell.

Also if Apple adopted ARM in their rMBP's I would rapidly be ditching my Mac, how would that even work? Think of all the software that would no longer be supported, simply for longer battery life? I don't see it happening, especially not with Intel hellbent on reducing power consumption.
Click to expand...

They have almost certainly been testing OS X on ARM chips, as well as others, for a while now. They had been running OS X on Intel chips in-house long before they made the switch from PowerPC to Intel. The transition might be a little rocky for some, but probably not as bad as it's made out to be.

As far as the OP is concerned, such a switch would definitely dent the value of an Intel machine.
 
SCOLANATOR said:
I also plan on selling mine after one year, but it's to upgrade to the latest and greatest. Bought mine for £1,869 + 3 year warranty from Apple (student discount) and I've been informed I can expect ~£1,600 or so.
Click to expand...

If you plan on selling after a year I would have thought it made more sense not to buy 3yr Applecare....or do you get Applecare cheap as a student and hope that selling with Applecare adds more resale value than it costs?
 
It depends on a number of factors, such as the specs of the next rMBP. I am pretty confident that you should get at least somewhere around 70% of the original price back; slightly less for higher-end models.
 
Mike Boreham said:
If you plan on selling after a year I would have thought it made more sense not to buy 3yr Applecare....or do you get Applecare cheap as a student and hope that selling with Applecare adds more resale value than it costs?
Click to expand...

In the UK we get AppleCare free with the student discount (15%).

Barney
 
556fmjoe said:
They have almost certainly been testing OS X on ARM chips, as well as others, for a while now. They had been running OS X on Intel chips in-house long before they made the switch from PowerPC to Intel. The transition might be a little rocky for some, but probably not as bad as it's made out to be.

As far as the OP is concerned, such a switch would definitely dent the value of an Intel machine.
Click to expand...

You're right, but Intel's Core x86 architecture brought so much over PowerPC. ARM would only improve battery life while sacrificing performance and the ability to run a back catalogue of OS X software. Intel's chips are great these days, with Broadwell we can expect some pretty sensational battery life - Haswell is already amazing. Plus we can kiss good bye to running VM's or boot camping which is something that was crucial to me in jumping ship to Apple, both for gaming and programming.

Mike Boreham said:
If you plan on selling after a year I would have thought it made more sense not to buy 3yr Applecare....or do you get Applecare cheap as a student and hope that selling with Applecare adds more resale value than it costs?
Click to expand...

Yup comes with the 15% discount so it made it a pretty sweet deal for me. I was a bit shocked at how easy it was to get the discount and warranty. All you needed to do was to be either logged onto the campus WiFi network (Eduroam which covers pretty much every university in the EU - I was in Germany visiting friends and was automatically logged onto their WiFi at Hamburg Universitat) or be logged onto one of the computers. It would be so easy for anyone who wanted that deal to just ask or bribe a student, or even just ask the library for short term access as a visitor. Then all you do is log on, go to the educational store and order, a letter confirming my warranty arrived shortly after the Mac (was fun tracking it from China and ironically it was in Frankfurt the same time as me and ended up getting back about 20 mins before it arrived at my home in the UK). Also I would like to add I am an actual student, just pointing out that maybe Apple should have some sort of checking procedure.

Mike Boreham said:
Thanks, understand. No brainer to get free Applecare then!

Out of interest does the small print allow Student Applecare to be transferred to a new owner?
Click to expand...

It's not actually Applecare, it's like Applecare just without the telephone support, but all the same hardware warranty etc... I haven't used support yet so I couldn't care less so long as I have the warranty. It's passed along with the rMBP which should help the resale value.

I don't know what educational discounts are like in the US or the rest of the EU.
 
SCOLANATOR said:
You're right, but Intel's Core x86 architecture brought so much over PowerPC. ARM would only improve battery life while sacrificing performance and the ability to run a back catalogue of OS X software. Intel's chips are great these days, with Broadwell we can expect some pretty sensational battery life - Haswell is already amazing. Plus we can kiss good bye to running VM's or boot camping which is something that was crucial to me in jumping ship to Apple, both for gaming and programming.
Click to expand...

I definitely agree with that. I think it would be better to stay with Intel for the same reasons.
 
SCOLANATOR said:
All you needed to do was to be either logged onto the campus WiFi network (Eduroam which covers pretty much every university in the EU - I was in Germany visiting friends and was automatically logged onto their WiFi at Hamburg Universitat) or be logged onto one of the computers. It would be so easy for anyone who wanted that deal to just ask or bribe a student, or even just ask the library for short term access as a visitor.
Click to expand...

If you know the url of the Apple Ed store that your university uses you can just type it into your browser and log onto the Ed store.
I actually got my son to order mine from home as I was in Egypt on holiday and wanted it delivering the day before my return. (I am an Uni student).
You can google and find out all the uni Ed websites (each uni uses a different url for the Ed store)
I actually posted the link that Bolton Uni uses in another post (just do a search for Bolton to find it) it is useful to see what the Ed discounts actually are.


Barney
 
My 2 cents are that Ed discounts are not all that great because they come off full list price where you have to pay sales tax 6-8% depending on the state.

In the States we are usually better off getting a new one from the AppleInsider price list.http://prices.appleinsider.com Get it out of state from MacMall or B&H for a good savings. And if you want best bargain, go refurbed on tax free weekend.

Example: The US Ed discount on a top of the line rMBP is $200. The refurbed version is $500 off. Same machine, same warranty. What would be great is an Ed discount on a refurbed machine. ;)
 
Thanks for the input guys.

If anyone would care to venture a figure/percentage that would be great. If I'd loose £300 ish per year that is doable, £400 ish would be expensive and over £500+ might make it a deal-breaker.



Thanks 556fmjoe , SCOLANATOR

556fmjoe said:
T
I'd say you would lose ~$200-300 the first year, and it would taper off a little after that, but that's a wild guess. You would lose more if a new model comes out with faster CPU and GPU, or other major changes.
Click to expand...

SCOLANATOR said:
Bought mine for £1,869 + 3 year warranty from Apple (student discount) and I've been informed I can expect ~£1,600 or so. Just hoping they don't drop Maxwell.
Click to expand...
 
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