I'm creating this thread because I just typed up this huge post about resale value and the thread was closed after I posted it (it was huge, now I have to redo it). I want to get this out because no one seems to comment about it in the comparison threads.
My GF sold her Macbook on CL for $730 cash in May 2009. She bought it for around $1000 in late 2006. Thats nearly 3 years of use for only $270.
In comparison, I purchased a $2700 Toshiba Tecra M7 (Tablet, killer GPU, and upgraded screen) on October 2006. Sold it in April 2009 for $615 minus shipping on eBay (no one in CL wanted it of course). Cost to own for nearly 3 years of use? Over $2000.
The funny thing is, she managed to sell it for more then mine. At the time of sale, my laptop was still running better than hers.
Right after selling our laptops, we waited for the revised 09 MBP13s and drove to Oregon to buy two of them for $1100 no tax. We sold the iPod touches for $200 cash off CL. Our effective price was $900 after education/ipod discounts (they ran out of printers, could of sold those too for at least $40 I assume).
So today, I looked to see how much I could dispose my laptop for.
http://losangeles.craigslist.org/sfv/sys/1728683324.html
$800. My cost to own for one year is a marginal $100?!?! Thats without negotiation. If wanted ads are being posted for $800, I'm sure I could get a lot more for posting a selling one. Heck, if I tried hard enough, I might even get $900 making my cost to own $0. A free laptop for a year, nice.
Now I know a lot of people aren't students, but the benefits are still there. You can get rid of an MBP relatively fast locally. My Tecra had no interest on CL. No hits, no nothing. I had to resort to eBay just to get the bastard off my hands.
With these things in mind, it would be a no brainer to go with a Mac if you care about your financials. On top of the ease of warranty fixes (there's 3 Apple stores around me), it really makes no sense at all to buy a Windows laptop.
(Just to note, even if Macs had terrible resale, I would still buy them because of the nice features).
My GF sold her Macbook on CL for $730 cash in May 2009. She bought it for around $1000 in late 2006. Thats nearly 3 years of use for only $270.
In comparison, I purchased a $2700 Toshiba Tecra M7 (Tablet, killer GPU, and upgraded screen) on October 2006. Sold it in April 2009 for $615 minus shipping on eBay (no one in CL wanted it of course). Cost to own for nearly 3 years of use? Over $2000.
The funny thing is, she managed to sell it for more then mine. At the time of sale, my laptop was still running better than hers.
Right after selling our laptops, we waited for the revised 09 MBP13s and drove to Oregon to buy two of them for $1100 no tax. We sold the iPod touches for $200 cash off CL. Our effective price was $900 after education/ipod discounts (they ran out of printers, could of sold those too for at least $40 I assume).
So today, I looked to see how much I could dispose my laptop for.
http://losangeles.craigslist.org/sfv/sys/1728683324.html
$800. My cost to own for one year is a marginal $100?!?! Thats without negotiation. If wanted ads are being posted for $800, I'm sure I could get a lot more for posting a selling one. Heck, if I tried hard enough, I might even get $900 making my cost to own $0. A free laptop for a year, nice.
Now I know a lot of people aren't students, but the benefits are still there. You can get rid of an MBP relatively fast locally. My Tecra had no interest on CL. No hits, no nothing. I had to resort to eBay just to get the bastard off my hands.
With these things in mind, it would be a no brainer to go with a Mac if you care about your financials. On top of the ease of warranty fixes (there's 3 Apple stores around me), it really makes no sense at all to buy a Windows laptop.
(Just to note, even if Macs had terrible resale, I would still buy them because of the nice features).
