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I got a free laptop at my college, should I sell my Macbook Pro?
- Thread starter kiwi34fruit
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@Reelknead You're absolutely right. If my rented computer breaks, I will have to pay my college for the entire thing including its incredible software from the Adobe CS5 Master Collection to Painter 11. I've been planning to give my 13 inch away to my mother, but she's never used a computer before and I fear she will break the 4500+ dollar laptop. This winter though, I've decided to give it to my sister who's much more tech-savvy than I am, unless my mom can learn how to use it safely.
@longball11 I'm at least on my personal Macbook Pro 5+ hours on class days. A much larger and geekier number on weekends though, I honestly have no idea.
@Sneakz Thank you for telling me that.
@Mike Macintosh & silerdoman01 & fcortese There is no way I can afford such a luxury. Please realize that it took me TWO years to save enough cash for the Macbook Pro. And this was before I dived into 160,000 dollars in debt for college. I actually had a eMachines desktop for twelve years before I upgraded into my current Macbook Pro. Yes, it really took me twelve years to change computers.
@kidwithdimples I wish you were right, so I could give back the damn thing and get my money back. But like I said before, after every single year, "an anonymous donor" or some ridiculously rich alumnus, gives my school 2000 fully updated Macbook Pros with at least 3300 dollars worth of applications. One is worth more than 1/4 of my semester tuition. I've never heard of a school doing that before.
I will sell my 15 inch Macbook Pro, if anyone has a better option other than just buying the latest and newest brand in 2014 (when I graduate). I do not want the idea of spending more money to be my solution.
@longball11 I'm at least on my personal Macbook Pro 5+ hours on class days. A much larger and geekier number on weekends though, I honestly have no idea.
@Sneakz Thank you for telling me that.
@Mike Macintosh & silerdoman01 & fcortese There is no way I can afford such a luxury. Please realize that it took me TWO years to save enough cash for the Macbook Pro. And this was before I dived into 160,000 dollars in debt for college. I actually had a eMachines desktop for twelve years before I upgraded into my current Macbook Pro. Yes, it really took me twelve years to change computers.
@kidwithdimples I wish you were right, so I could give back the damn thing and get my money back. But like I said before, after every single year, "an anonymous donor" or some ridiculously rich alumnus, gives my school 2000 fully updated Macbook Pros with at least 3300 dollars worth of applications. One is worth more than 1/4 of my semester tuition. I've never heard of a school doing that before.
I will sell my 15 inch Macbook Pro, if anyone has a better option other than just buying the latest and newest brand in 2014 (when I graduate). I do not want the idea of spending more money to be my solution.
i believe what he said is what we call a joke...
and technology advances really fast, just think 50 or 60 years ago computers were as big as houses
the c2d is DUAL core. all ppc processors were Single core.
and GHz does mean everything...thats why computers with faster processors are generally faster than computers with slow processors.
and if you disagree, put a maxed out pb g4 beside a base mbp and see how big the difference is
]Firstly expensive art college.. Lol
Now my overrated criticism is out the way, I honestly would sell your MacBook Pro if you get to keep this one for 4 years.. If you sell up and put the money in a high interest savings account on a 3-4 year fixed term, you could gain up some interest, and technology will be way advanced over your MacBook Pro by then, and if you do get to keep your free MBP, it's a bonus.
If you don't need the extra screen size, I say do it.
P.S. Please don't be offended by my opening statement ^^
I definitely just laughed for a good five minutes.
Sell MBP. Keep one you got. Profit.
Your current MacBook is better. Copy all the applications worth ~$3000 onto your current MacBook and put the College one somewhere safe. If at the end of the course you are allowed to keep it. Put it on eBay and buy a future-MacBook. You end up with a decent computer either way though.
Just because it is newer, doesn't make it better.
Just because it is newer, doesn't make it better.
I'd sell your current MBP for a decent price, then put the money you get from it into a bank account with bonus interest. Don't touch the money for 4 years, then when the four years is up you'll have enough to buy a brand new MBP thats got 2014 technology
Hmm.. I'm not sure I get your logic. Do you have a better option than selling it now and putting the money into an interest-bearing account? If you don't do anything, you'll have two MBPs. I'm sure keeping your 1 MBP safe is enough to worry about; do you really want to juggle two MBPs for 4 years? And what will you have at the end of those 4 years? One (or maybe 2) 4-year-old MBPs.
If you want to benefit immediately instead of waiting 4 years, the easiest thing would be to sell your MBP 15, get an ACD and carry around your MBP 13 as someone else already suggested. That way, you'll gain a better work environment immediately.
I know you say that buying a cinema display would be too expensive, but(!) I'm sure you could sell your MBP15 on eBay or something and have some money left over even after buying an ACD with that?
I think the longer you wait, the less your MBP 15 will be worth and the less you'll be able to recoup.
Good luck!
Sell it...by the time you're done with college you can use the money from your MVP that you sold and buy the latest mbp. Why not use it...tuition won't go down anytime soon
I know you said you couldn't sell your school issued MBP...but, hear me out on this...
Keep your MBP, its much better. Sell the school-issued MBP, but mark the model number that it is. At graduation, if you have to return it, then buy one off of ebay or the like.
You get to keep your better, hard earned MBP, and you make money at the same time. If you have to return it, then you spend a less to buy a used one to give back to the school, and if not, well you get to keep the full price
Keep your MBP, its much better. Sell the school-issued MBP, but mark the model number that it is. At graduation, if you have to return it, then buy one off of ebay or the like.
You get to keep your better, hard earned MBP, and you make money at the same time. If you have to return it, then you spend a less to buy a used one to give back to the school, and if not, well you get to keep the full price
I think he was referring to the Core Duo MacBooks. But, also those were dual cores... Hence the name Core Duo.
...why have to worry about taking care of the school's loaner MBP = just don't accept it and keep using your own MBP... sell yours when it no longer meets your needs = easy solution.
Yes, it seems like the best idea is to simply sell my Macbook Pro right now and buy a better (and even more expensive one) in four years. But if I do this, I will ultimately end up spending more money, especially if I end up buying a very impressive monitor/cinema display. This is the very last thing I want to do; spend more money.
As I've said before, there's no way I can get a high-interest banking account with my current credit score. I have no credit whatsoever because I've just turned into an adult. Just got the new banking account and everything.
I've decided if I do sell my Macbook Pro, I will buy a computer that's less than what I sold for to make a minor profit. Unfortunately, this won't be anything Apple-related due to their unfathomable prices.
This idea is ridiculously ingenious but at the same time very very risky. I have no idea if they can track the rented ones down, but I'm certain they've at least recorded their serial numbers. I have no idea on how to transfer the enormous amount of software either.
I think I'll give it to my sister or mother before I hand it back to my school. It's becoming a nuisance, but I'm not going to return a Macbook Pro if someone freely lend it to me for four years, no charge.
You need to realize this is not a "free" laptop. You and/or your parents are paying an incredible amount of money for your education. $160,000 for a maybe $2000 MacBook Pro with software is not a good deal, especially since you are not guaranteed to even keep it. The school gets the hardware at a discount and the software at an even bigger discount.
Save the MBP for food money when you graduate with an art degree in this economy.
That is horrible advice. If he is going to use the macbook for money, he should sell it now because that is when it is worth more. If he waits until he graduates, he's going to get far less for it and he didn't even get use of it since he had another computer.
My advice would be that unless the OP actually foresees he is going to use his MBP to go ahead and sell the MBP before it loses more value. If he plans on using the school's MBP and letting his sit around, all he is doing by not selling his own is losing money as it loses value without actually getting any use of it for the value he's losing. At least if he uses it, he's getting use out of it for the value he loses (that is the only reason I'd keep your own MBP, OP, is if you see you'll have good use of it now, not in 4 years).
If he has to give up his school's MBP at the end of it, he can buy another computer (as he said, probably cheaper. But, a 13" MBP is decently cheaper than the 15" he has now and by 4 years from now still should be a better computer than the 15" he has now anyways!).
Money wise, it makes no sense at all to keep the MBP unless OP has use of it now. In four years with the amount of money he can make for it now, he can buy a better computer. If he waits til then, he won't have as much money if he needs it for food, and he won't be able to afford a better computer for the amount he can sell it for in 4 years and it will *at the very least* start to be outdated by then.
In the end, OP should decide if he is going to get enough use out of it now to keep it. Otherwise, sell it if OP isn't going to get good enough use of it now for the amount of money it is worth now.
^Times three.
1) Sell the old one now while it still has plenty of warranty left,
2) Buy a bigger harddrive to swap into the rinky-dink 13 incher, and
3) buy a refurbished 24 Inch ACD for working at home on your digital art projects.
*4) also check on getting Applecare through the university - they may already have purchased it for your machine?
My girlfriend got a free macbook pro with her program and was told that in all likelihood the depreciation of computers would allow them to just keep the machine at the end of the program. Sounds like your school is doing the same. Plus, knowing you art students, you'll have covered the MBP with stickers and paint and what not.
Why isn't anyone reading my posts? For the third time, all of the laptops that are given to my school are donated. Every year, my school obtains around 2000 Macbook Pros that are fully updated with the latest version by an anonymous donor. Why would my school lie about that or even supply us with laptops in the first place if they simply wanted the money? They would act like every other American college by keeping the 4500$, and tell us to bring our own computers.
The solution still seems to be sell your old one and buy the 2014 version or an excellent cinema screen.
How much is my Macbook Pro worth anyway? 1,000$ too much?
Whatever it is worth now, it will probably be only worth half as much (if that much) in 4 years. Are you going to get that much amount of money in use of it for those 4 years when you have another computer you can use? If you aren't going to use it at all, I'd argue then you just pissed away that much money for something that just gathered dust.
You can always put that money aside for buying a computer in 4 years so you can be assured you have the money to spend on another computer. And in 4 years I'd be very surprised if whatever computer you could afford for that money wasn't much better than the one you have now (save maybe for screen real estate since apple seems to keep the computer sizes at the same price but if you're willing to go not Mac you probably can get just as big a screen and a better computer).
Besides, I'm kinda hoping you are going to college so you can find a career that will support you (yeah, art may mean you're starving for a while cause even if you are succesful it is a career that usually requires build up and determination before getting to the succesful stage) so that eventually money won't be an issue. Otherwise, it's not so good an investment (unless you have that kind of money to spend to just do stuff you enjoy, and it sounds like you don't).
Firstly of course: that MBP from college ain't free, but for 160k USD a year that the college gets from you it's just a drop in the ocean. Whether you get to keep the MBP at the end of 4 years is immaterial. The depreciation will mean that that 1000 USD laptop will be worth about 300 usd then.
Your MBP is better, but neither is great for graphics. You need an external PVA/MVA/IPS screen for doing anything serious with colours.
If the college as a special AppleCare / theft insurance then this is an important consideration.
I realise you've worked hard for your MBP, but I would sell it if money is tight - use the free MBP instead.
I was actually asking on how much my Macbook Pro is to find out how much I can sell it for. I've decided to at least give one of them away.
Fortunately, I'm going to art college for computer animation. I think there's a much larger future in cinema than in selling paintings/sculptures. So hopefully I'll have a chance to get a decent job as much as another graduate from a regular college.
Ah sweet, I prolly would have enjoyed doing that but when I went to college I had no clue what I wanted to do and was aimless (I totally do not suggest that. Better to have some idea of what you want to do or what is out there).
Well if you're really that tight on money sell your current one and put it in the saving in your bank, you will gain interest on it that in 4 years if you don't get to keep the rented one you should have no prob purchasing one later on.
Not to mention that its there if you need it for something else.
Like Mike says, sell the old Mac, use the school's one and save the money you get for your old Mac. I am just saying, CD's (the money kind not the music) are earning s**t for interest nowadays and the stock market is too unsteady and shaky although it is doing better than interest from banks.. Either put the money in the bank with a Long-term CD, say 1 year, and see what the economy is like in a year or put it into Treasury Notes or gold, or better yet buy some Apple stock. It has continued to do well! If you are uncertain, then stick with a bank's CD at the best rate you can get. In 4 years, you are looking at probably gaining a couple of hundred bucks on your investment (realistically) from the banks. That should put you over $1K as seed money for your next Mac. If you continue to use your old Mac, in 4 years it will be older and virtually worthless. The school gives you a computer you can use and you earn money NOW from your older Mac that you would never be able to get when you graduate. Think about it. Not emotionally, but pragmatically. May the Force be with you, Live long and Prosper, etc!!