price drop much??

[Fabricman112]

so this is more of a discussion, I´ve had a lot of mac(intosh)´s over the years..
never really sold any, but I´ve given, "borrowed" etc away many/all to family and friends
now I realized that my 2009 MBP (3.06GHz, 128GBssd, 8GB Ram) is of no use to any of us.. wife´s family, my family etc...
long story short, in the winter of 2009 I paid in Sweden almost 4800$ (somewhat equivalent currency) and today barely 3 years later I can´t get more than 1100$ anywhere for it...
and the end of my sale I got approx. 1000$ for it.. (a very close friend) I did however not pay "anything" for it, I got it for my company, so it´s either buy a lot of stuff or loose it to taxes, but the values are the same
the point of this discussion is, I wonder if it´s the same "everywhere" cuz back in the day when a pc was "top of the line" for 3-4 years u did NOT see anywhere near the drop in value as today..

 

[thekev]

You're speaking in nonsense. You put some very expensive upgrades into a machine, which only makes sense if you need them at the time you purchased it. After 3 years, anything can tank in value if it's outpaced by future technology. We saw a migration to nehalem then sandy and ivy. Current cpus are significantly more powerful. The 9600m is significantly slower than the 650m. SSDs came way down in price. If it's the original hardware, the battery and ssd are old, so they are worth very little. The display isn't that amazing compared to the recent influx of IPS displays in the newest notebooks (not just the rMBP). You have usb3 in the newer ones as well. Why would it hold its value that much better if it is outpaced by cheaper current models? The only potential market would be those who want or need a combination of a lot of screen real estate and a mac with cost being a major consideration.

 

[thedarkhorse]

Computers and technology lose their value over years? no way!

I don't know what planet you are on but that's the way it has always been. 3-4 years is a long time in the world of technology.

 

[Fabricman112]

You're speaking in nonsense. You put some very expensive upgrades into a machine

I know that, but what I´m saying is that some 10 years ago the machine was still very competitive 3-4 years later...
it seems like a very good marketing strategy to sell at an "overprice" with a profit of 30% at least...and a year later "offer" a new model a little better, faster etc. rendering the last model almost worthless
and yes I know it was the worst time ever buying a MBP...

 

[thekev]

I know that, but what I´m saying is that some 10 years ago the machine was still very competitive 3-4 years later...
it seems like a very good marketing strategy to sell at an "overprice" with a profit of 30% at least...and a year later "offer" a new model a little better, faster etc. rendering the last model almost worthless
and yes I know it was the worst time ever buying a MBP...

I don't entirely agree. Three to four years depending on the years selected could have meant a significantly different generation. You happened to purchase something right before two consecutive years of extensive changes and the rMBP on the third. That obviously isn't ideal, but many of those upgrades should have flagged themselves as sunken costs. You paid for the best cpu on an architecture that was nearing its retirement age. You bought an ssd when they were still new. You should expect a near zero return on those things after several years. A decade ago Macs were a much smaller market. You didn't have the sheer volume of used machines available, and you didn't have refurbished ones of the current or prior year at the pricing we see today. I think it has always been a mistake to view these as an investment. They are things which are written down over time, and with notebooks you're always paying for the fact that they're crammed into a smaller package.

 

[Fabricman112]

*snip*.

excellent post sir
I guess I´m just a little surprised... now I didn´t loose any money, and I got a nice laptop to a friend so I´m all good
If you´ve ever dealed in cars.. I´ve always considered Macs as exotics, I guess not anymore eh..

 

[thedarkhorse]

well to be fair a PC laptop with the same age and specs would probably go for half as much on the used market. Macs do hold their value better, but it will always decline by a decent amount every year just like any other technology.

 

[Fabricman112]

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2012/07/24Apple-Reports-Third-Quarter-Results.html
"The Company sold 4.0 million Macs during the quarter"
I guess being a Mac is not special at all these days

 

[thekev]

excellent post sir
I guess I´m just a little surprised... now I didn´t loose any money, and I got a nice laptop to a friend so I´m all good
If you´ve ever dealed in cars.. I´ve always considered Macs as exotics, I guess not anymore eh..

Bleh car references come up too much. My favorite was the one regarding ram upgrades, comparing the price of Pirelli tires from a Porsche dealership to the same thing after market. There's kind of a weird perception issue with used Macs, and to a lesser degree iphones. It actually annoys me when people on here sometimes emphasize resale value, especially with new potential Mac owners. The requirements of that user are much more important. It still sounds like it served you well, and now it serves one of your friends. I call that a win.

 

[clyde2801]

Well, it used to be that Macs held value better when they were based upon the Power PC CPU's. (And now, we've upped the G4 CPU from 1.25 to 1.33ghz! Huzzah!) You could get premium pricing for a used machine if there wasn't that much of a performance difference between them.

The good news is that Macs are on the intel update cycle and have the same hardware as Wintels. The BAD news is that Macs are on the Intel update cycle...

I haven't owned a wintel in years, so I cannot say with certainty that Macs still better retain their value over time. (But I kind of suspect so.)

And I'm wondering why a 2008 MBP is of 'no use' to ANYONE is your family or extended family, considering my wife is still contentedly using her 2.4ghz c2d uMBP for basic tasks with 8 gigs of RAM using 'just' a 7200rpm HDD. Is your mother in law doing some serious heavy lifting on FCP?!? (Mostly kidding...)

Not going to lie, it hurts a bit when a top of the line mac portable you bought a year ago for $1700 is now selling refurbed on the Apple Store for $1000. Ouch. But to continue your car analogy, it may make more sense to buy a year old system for a discount and get all the use out of it you can rather than buying new systems every year. May as well be taking advantage of the upgrade and depreciation cycle rather than having it take advantage of you.

 

[Fabricman112]

you all post interesting angles.. but I dont want my ex-hardworking MBP to endup facebooking, twittering.. all day, I just know she would get suicidal quickly
so when I say noone in my sphere has any use for it, I mean USE it...
but I know now she´ll stay in a happy, loving home and get all the care she wants, so I dont really care about the (surprisingly high) price drop

 

[clyde2801]

you all post interesting angles.. but I dont want my ex-hardworking MBP to endup facebooking, twittering.. all day, I just know she would get suicidal quickly
so when I say noone in my sphere has any use for it, I mean USE it...
but I know now she´ll stay in a happy, loving home and get all the care she wants, so I dont really care about the (surprisingly high) price drop

Grandma can use it to facetime with the kids. The kids can use it to talk to Grandma, do schoolwork, etc. Or it can inspire another family member to write the next great novel. Or it can serve as a home media or file server.

Though...my wife has had hers on facebook a lot when the battery started to fail and almost unhinge the bottom case....maybe you're right, and it WAS suicidal...