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rMBP - Holding value?

P

PVisitors

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 1, 2011
529
9
Wasn't sure whether to post this here or in the Marketplace. I opted here as I am not selling or even close to selling right now, it's more a general enquiry based on past experience of other MBPs. If anyone feels this would be more appropriate in the marketplace despite my reasoning then please feel free to move it etc.

Anyway, I'm curious how well previous generation Macs hold their value when a new generation is released and if anybody can give me some estimated figures on how much the value drops.

For example, I bought my MBPR via education discount for £1500 which includes a standard free three year warranty in the UK, plus my MBPR also has a Samsung display with no IR. Considering without student discount the base model retails for £1800. Do you think when the Haswell MBPR is released, I would be able to sell this MBPR for c. £1400-1500 [bearing in mind the 2 years guarantee included plus Samsung display] or do prices depreciate faster than that?
 
I believe the retina ones will not but that is just my thoughts I believe the regular ones hold the value better because someone who can afford retina wont be buying a second hand one but will just buy the latest and retina will come down in price.
 
Well what i would say is £1400-£1500 an awful lot for a used machine those that can stretch to this, can no doubt buy new, and your system will be a generation behind by that point. I seriously doubt that Haswell will be a monumental upgrade on Ivy Bridge and those who will benefit the most will be people looking for a smaller system with dedicated graphics only. The 15" Retina with discrete GPU will not benefit as significantly, as the GT 650M is still far superior than any any integrated solution that Haswell will bring to the table.

Also bear in mind that there will be more Retina refurb`s directly from Apple as time passes. In short you will be lucky to come even close to this price unless someone is extremely naive. www.mac2sell.net will give you a good baseline and you will be lucky to see £1300 today, let alone when Haswell launches.

Mac`s in general do hold value for a computer, however as more enter the market the secondary market will not remain as robust, Retina`s will retain the same percentage of value as any other Mac.

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turbocrow said:
I believe the retina ones will not but that is just my thoughts I believe the regular ones hold the value better because someone who can afford retina wont be buying a second hand one but will just buy the latest and retina will come down in price.
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Same philosophy applies to any Mac, as for many they are a substantial purchase, Retina`s will drop percentage wise same as any other Mac produced give or take a couple of percent.
 
Queen6 said:
Well what i would say is £1400-£1500 an awful lot for a used machine those that can stretch to this, can no doubt buy new, and your system will be a generation behind by that point. I seriously doubt that Haswell will be a monumental upgrade on Ivy Bridge and those who will benefit the most will be people looking for a smaller system with dedicated graphics only. The 15" Retina with discrete GPU will not benefit as significantly, as the GT 650M is still far superior than any any integrated solution that Haswell will bring to the table.

Also bear in mind that there will be more Retina refurb`s directly from Apple as time passes. In short you will be lucky to come even close to this price unless someone is extremely naive. www.mac2sell.net will give you a good baseline and you will be lucky to see £1300 today, let alone when Haswell launches.

Mac`s in general do hold value for a computer, however as more enter the market the secondary market will not remain as robust, Retina`s will retain the same percentage of value as any other Mac.

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Click to expand...


I don't really believe that £1300 (for the present market) as I've seen MBPRs sell on ebay for £1450 even now and that's with the standard warranty. I'm not entirely sure Mac2Sell takes into account the retina display screen as it gave the exact same number for a classic MBP when I tried it earlier.

I was just curious how much effect the 2 years warranty will add to the value, considering that Applecare for the MBPR itself is around £300 now.
 
I bought a standard retina mbp for I think £1538 or £1580 using UK higher education discount when it 1st came out. I sold that machine due to small hard drive space after 2 months for £1500 on ebay. Also there are eBay and Paypal fees to consider.

Based on my experience, you will not get £1400-£1500 for a year old machine. £1250 will be a good price IMO.

P.S. I don't think have a Samsung screen matters to 90 to 95% of buyers.

P.P.S. 2nd hand buyer are looking for cheap deals, I know as I always buy my Android phones on eBay. So they/we will always look at the cheapest deal. Unless there is a same spec machine with standard warranty asking for the same £, look up on the extended warranty as a bouns selling point and not as extra that 2nd hand buyers will pay extra for.

One more point. I found either buy new mac and keep it for 2 years, or buy 1 year old machine and upgrade every year net the lowest deprecation.
 
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PVisitors said:
I don't really believe that £1300 (for the present market) as I've seen MBPRs sell on ebay for £1450 even now and that's with the standard warranty. I'm not entirely sure Mac2Sell takes into account the retina display screen as it gave the exact same number for a classic MBP when I tried it earlier.

I was just curious how much effect the 2 years warranty will add to the value, considering that Applecare for the MBPR itself is around £300 now.
Click to expand...

Mac2Sell is updated for Retina, AppleCare will just make your machine more attractive, you may get £100 more at best, like i said you may find someone naive i know i wouldn't pay £1450 for a year old, used machine, those presently on eBay UK are new sealed in box systems not used, let alone a year old and a generation behind, a realistic price will be around £1100, same as my high end 2011 15" MBP and i expect the same level of deprecation on my 15" Retina. Mac`s do hold value, however the first year is always the greatest loss...
 
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in my humble view

in my humble view i noticed that it takes 3 - 5 generations of a macbookpro to become an optimal machine with all of its kinks ironed out etc. it was 4 generations later that i bought my first 17"mbp and now i finally bought a new late oct 2011 17" mbp. obviously the newest technology takes a few years to really meet up to its original 'hype'.

technology isn't supposed to just be a savior fresh off the assembly line, because we are still too focused on the image and the profit that we are okay to spend more time getting it right the 8th time rather than the first time.

thank you.
 
I think a 256GB 15" model would keep its value fine but I think the others won't.

I expect the SSD price to fall dramatically in the coming years and the BTO option price to go from 255GB to 512/768GB won't remain as high. People won't value that you paid a lot to get 512GB/768GB of storage if that option is a lot cheaper in the future.

The reason I think the 15" will hold its value more than the 13" is because I don't think the 13" will have such a bad specs for the price in the coming years. I expect Apple to either bump the base storage to 256GB (more likely) or drop its the price next year.
 
vpro said:
in my humble view i noticed that it takes 3 - 5 generations of a macbookpro to become an optimal machine with all of its kinks ironed out etc. it was 4 generations later that i bought my first 17"mbp and now i finally bought a new late oct 2011 17" mbp. obviously the newest technology takes a few years to really meet up to its original 'hype'.

technology isn't supposed to just be a savior fresh off the assembly line, because we are still too focused on the image and the profit that we are okay to spend more time getting it right the 8th time rather than the first time.

thank you.
Click to expand...

People really believe this stuff huh?
 
Rhinoevans said:
Computers are not an investment. A consumable item. The best you can hope for is that it is still working in 4-5 years.
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No sir, though that may be the best you can hope for, it is not necessarily the best he can hope for. The best he can hope for is to sell it whenever the Haswell-based models hit the market and receive a good percentage back of what he originally paid for it. Cheers.
 
PVisitors said:
I don't really believe that £1300 (for the present market) as I've seen MBPRs sell on ebay for £1450 even now and that's with the standard warranty. I'm not entirely sure Mac2Sell takes into account the retina display screen as it gave the exact same number for a classic MBP when I tried it earlier.

I was just curious how much effect the 2 years warranty will add to the value, considering that Applecare for the MBPR itself is around £300 now.
Click to expand...

Mac2sell is too generic. It depends on your market, but you have to remember this is a used computer. The very expensive battery will have a number of cycle counts. The display will have however many hours on it. Even if the rest looks pristine, it's still a used item. Beyond that we have no idea what configurations Apple will offer at each price point with Haswell.
 
The real value is much lower than most can imagine.

In US, retail have the rMBP 15" for $2200 without tax, student discount is $2000, but you can get it for 1500-1600 used easily.

The holding value drops insanely fast for Apple products. A top end mint MBP 15" 2011 only have around 1200 value include with Applecare, while the original value was twice as that or more.

The longer you keep it, the value drops even further and faster. So I would have suggest that if you want to keep the latest in hand, you better sell it as fast as you can before the new model comes out.
 
shansoft said:
The real value is much lower than most can imagine.

In US, retail have the rMBP 15" for $2200 without tax, student discount is $2000, but you can get it for 1500-1600 used easily.

The holding value drops insanely fast for Apple products. A top end mint MBP 15" 2011 only have around 1200 value include with Applecare, while the original value was twice as that or more.

The longer you keep it, the value drops even further and faster. So I would have suggest that if you want to keep the latest in hand, you better sell it as fast as you can before the new model comes out.
Click to expand...

Yes, and PC products lose their value even faster.
 
For the past thee years I have been selling my Apple products right before the new replacements launch and I have always got good value. Sold my iPads (1,2, and 3) each for $400. Sold my iMacs for $1450. And I plan to do the same with my new rMBP. I have found that Apple products hold their value so much better than any other piece of technology that it makes it pretty easy to resell.

As for buying a 15" rMBP for $1500-1600 on eBay. I just spent the past two week scouring eBay for a deal and I never saw one any where close to that price. The lowest I ever saw was $1799 buy it now which sold in about 30 minutes. If you look at the completed listings the average was about $2000.
 
I'd guess a rMBP would 'devalue' the same as others..

I am currently on my 3rd MBP since they came out in Apr-06.. the latest one I bought as a Refurb in June-11.. I suspect it, as with my previous ones, will last me ~3 years, and I will hopefully sell it for about 50% of what I paid..

That being said, I suspect that a MBP of any design would lose 25-30% of its value in the First Year of use, then maybe 15-20% each year after until it is deemed 'useless'.. of course the condition you keep it in will greatly affect that.. All of mine were well kept and had minimal upgrades (RAM and HD) done that I may have gotten a few extra $$ for.. Maybe.. :rolleyes:

NO matter what, I do think they are well made machines and certainly HOLD their value seemingly better than any PC that I have encountered..

As always: Like It ~ Buy It ~ Use It ~ Sell It ~ Repeat

:apple:
 
PVisitors said:
Wasn't sure whether to post this here or in the Marketplace. I opted here as I am not selling or even close to selling right now, it's more a general enquiry based on past experience of other MBPs. If anyone feels this would be more appropriate in the marketplace despite my reasoning then please feel free to move it etc.

Anyway, I'm curious how well previous generation Macs hold their value when a new generation is released and if anybody can give me some estimated figures on how much the value drops.

For example, I bought my MBPR via education discount for £1500 which includes a standard free three year warranty in the UK, plus my MBPR also has a Samsung display with no IR. Considering without student discount the base model retails for £1800. Do you think when the Haswell MBPR is released, I would be able to sell this MBPR for c. £1400-1500 [bearing in mind the 2 years guarantee included plus Samsung display] or do prices depreciate faster than that?
Click to expand...

I think prices will decrease faster on the rMBP than on others (save, perhaps, the original Airs). The reason is that the rMBP is very expensive for what is, essentially, an upgraded screen. That advantage is going to disappear. Also, as volume manufacturing increases, pricing will come down.

You're paying the price of being an early adopter - and especially so for the owners of 13" rMBPs.

Once the next iteration of rMBPs comes out, I think you'll see pricing on the first generation rMBPs drop sharply.
 
SuX0rz said:
As for buying a 15" rMBP for $1500-1600 on eBay. I just spent the past two week scouring eBay for a deal and I never saw one any where close to that price. The lowest I ever saw was $1799 buy it now which sold in about 30 minutes. If you look at the completed listings the average was about $2000.
Click to expand...

I second this. I also looked high and low for a used rMBP on both Ebay and Craigslist. I could not find anything for less than $1800. I ended up buying a (supposedly) brand new one from MacMall a few weeks ago for $1999, with free next day air. Only issue is that it came with a missing screw on the bottom, along with 6 battery cycle counts, and an LG screen :(. Plus, the manufacture date was early June, 2012. It's going back to MacMall tomorrow for a full refund. I ended up buying 13" cMBP on Amazon for $963, with free shipping and no tax. I'll keep the 13" cMBP until the next round of rMBP's are released, and then sell the 13" cMBP on Craigslist :).
 
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