Selling a PC to cut into the cost of a Mac?

[animefx]

I'm about to pull the trigger on a 20" iMac... I love, love, love, love my parents 17" iMac and OS X. However, I'm actually a little worried about the cost, because I *must* have 500 gigs. My only other worry is the screen brightness... My small-ish Sony LCD has XBrice which is rated at 400 brightness and the 20" iMac is rated at 280... so i'll see a drop in brightness, but do you think that a difference of 120 is considered a huge amount when talking about screen brightness? I used my parents 17" iMac and the brightness seemed good enough but I could tell it wasn't as bright as my Sony. My Sony lcd is 2 years old and people are still playing catchup with the brightness technology with the exception of the 30" Apple cinema display.

Anyways, my plan is to sell my 17" Sony LCD XBrite and my HP Athlon 64 PC (2.0 ghz) with a 1 gig of ram and 400 gigs worth of drive space.

I've noticed that many PCs are now $399 for a machine that is similar to mine in specs (darn). So I'm wondering what would be my best bet in making the most amount of money possible off of my PC? I thought eBay, but wouldn't shipping kill me? I thought the local paper, but I'm not sure how successful computers in classified ads are.

Any help would be appreciated, I really need to have my PC sell within 2 or 3 weeks of getting an iMac should I decide to "pull the trigger" on one.

 

[Eraserhead]

I'm about to pull the trigger on a 20" iMac... I love, love, love, love my parents 17" iMac and OS X. However, I'm actually a little worried about the cost, because I *must* have 500 gigs. My only other worry is the screen brightness... My small-ish Sony LCD has XBrice which is rated at 400 brightness and the 20" iMac is rated at 280... so i'll see a drop in brightness, but do you think that a difference of 120 is considered a huge amount when talking about screen brightness? I used my parents 17" iMac and the brightness seemed good enough but I could tell it wasn't as bright as my Sony. My Sony lcd is 2 years old and people are still playing catchup with the brightness technology with the exception of the 30" Apple cinema display.

Anyways, my plan is to sell my 17" Sony LCD XBrite and my HP Athlon 64 PC (2.0 ghz) with a 1 gig of ram and 400 gigs worth of drive space.

I've noticed that many PCs are now $399 for a machine that is similar to mine in specs (darn). So I'm wondering what would be my best bet in making the most amount of money possible off of my PC? I thought eBay, but wouldn't shipping kill me? I thought the local paper, but I'm not sure how successful computers in classified ads are.

Any help would be appreciated, I really need to have my PC sell within 2 or 3 weeks of getting an iMac should I decide to "pull the trigger" on one.

You can save money on the iMac by getting an external Firewire drive too.

PS Your Athlon 64 is surely worth more than $400 though, it must be a 3000+??

 

[MacAficionado]

What? Do you want to burn your eyes? I don't get why a display has to be so bright. I find myself having to lower the brightness on my 17".

Are you using you computers out in the sun or something?

 

[animefx]

Yeah, its a 3200. Maybe I'm underestimating its re-sale value.

You can save money on the iMac by getting an external Firewire drive too.

PS Your Athlon 64 is surely worth more than $400 though, it must be a 3000+??

 

[balamw]

You can save money on the iMac by getting an external Firewire drive too.

Yeah, you might just want to pull your drive out from the Athlon and put it in an external case to solve your storage problem. Added bonus, the Mac can actually read your current data. You could substitute a smaller drive if you want to sell your whole system.

You might also find that you might be able to sell your PC for more as parts than as a whole system. Weird, but people sometimes part with their money more easily in smaller chunks. Definitely sell the LCD separately from the PC and consider parting the rest out.

B

 

[animefx]

Thanks for the advice guys.

I'm considering the firewire option, but how much slower would a sata drive connected with firewire be than a normal drive thats hooked up with an ide cable? Also, the iMac is almost dead silent (unless your using the cd drive) an external firewire drive could be loud right?

Yeah, you might just want to pull your drive out from the Athlon and put it in an external case to solve your storage problem. Added bonus, the Mac can actually read your current data. You could substitute a smaller drive if you want to sell your whole system.

You might also find that you might be able to sell your PC for more as parts than as a whole system. Weird, but people sometimes part with their money more easily in smaller chunks. Definitely sell the LCD separately from the PC and consider parting the rest out.

B

 

[spinne1]

Anyways, my plan is to sell my 17" Sony LCD XBrite and my HP Athlon 64 PC (2.0 ghz) with a 1 gig of ram and 400 gigs worth of drive space.

I've noticed that many PCs are now $399 for a machine that is similar to mine in specs (darn). So I'm wondering what would be my best bet in making the most amount of money possible off of my PC? I thought eBay, but wouldn't shipping kill me? I thought the local paper, but I'm not sure how successful computers in classified ads are.

Used PCs simply don't sell for much because of the continuous upgrade of hardware technology and the ridiculously low prices (some of these companies have to be barely making any money). That said, if you sell on ebay, you have the difficulty of properly packaging your computer to ensure no damage in shipping (and they WILL be hard on your package in transit). As for shipping cost, the buyer pays all shipping costs. That said, the fact that you asked about shipping tells me that you have not been a ebay user much if at all, therefore many buyers will be hesitant to buy because you will not have built up an online reputation through feedback and your items will be relatively expensive to buy under that circumstance. The advantage of ebay is you have a potentially MUCH bigger market than if you sell locally.

If you sell in the paper, the key is to not be greedy with your price. If your price is tempting enough, you will get calls. If it is simply fair, you probably will not get calls. People shopping for used computers generally are looking for a good bargain, otherwise they will simply buy new (especially in the PC world where new prices are very low anyhow).

 

[matticus008]

Thanks for the advice guys.

I'm considering the firewire option, but how much slower would a sata drive connected with firewire be than a normal drive thats hooked up with an ide cable? Also, the iMac is almost dead silent (unless your using the cd drive) an external firewire drive could be loud right?

There's no appreciable difference between IDE and Firewire. Firewire and SATA theoretically run into problems, but the reality is that SATA drives aren't utilized at SATA speeds most of the time.

They do have potential to be loud, though, so choose your enclosure carefully. Sometimes, though, it's the hard drive itself that's loud--and there's not much you can do about that. SATA drives, fortunately, tend to be quiet.