What is more economical? Replace Mac every year or use Mac until end of its life?

[poiihy]

Is it more economical to replace a Mac every year or so (sell it and buy newest one) or is it more economical to buy a Mac and use it until the end of its life?

 

[lionkin]

Is it more economical to replace a Mac every year or so (sell it and buy newest one) or is it more economical to buy a Mac and use it until the end of its life?

Both of them works so you have to choose one. My choice is to sell it if I want to upgrade for work or research. If It's personal use I keep it until the end of it's life.

 

[andeify]

I'm inclined to believe that if your buying a low end base model the resale value wont drop as much after a year as getting a higher end or specced out model. I'd say get a low end base model every year or get a high end or config to last.

 

[leman]

Well, let's look at it like this. With a new Mac, you lose around 20% when reselling it after a year. So after 5 years, you have essentially bought your second new Mac. However, you always have an up-do-date machine that is covered by warranty, so you will never need to spend any money for repairs or service. If you are in Europe (2 years warranty), you could get a new Mac every 2.nd year (losing around 30% in resale) — which would be a still better deal. In addition, replacing Macs becomes an amazingly good deal if you have access to edu discount.

To sum it up: with the benefit of having constant warranty and a current-gen machine, I'd always go the 'replace' route. But I also never keep the same computer for longer than 3 years. The performance difference becomes too much a factor.

 

[maflynn]

Buying/selling every year I think can turn out expensive, and on the long run, you're better off holding onto the laptop as long as you can. Not that I do that, but i think economically that's your best bet

 

[Max Payne]

Upgrading every year sounds fun, but I don't think I'll have the strength to do it. You'll have to list in in e-bay, craigslist... etc. Many Views & bids later and you never know what to expect next. Add to that deleting all your personal stuff from it and deautherizing followed by set-up of the new computer... It is just so much work.

 

[dannynjoni]

It does take some work but I believe it's worth it. Sometimes.

Not every update makes sense because there is little benefit to performance. I'd say usually every other year makes sense. Going quad core, for instance, was a huge update. Now with PCIe SSD controllers and wireless A/C and Thunderbolt 2, the connectivity speeds have skyrocketed. These are upgrades with huge return and very much worth it IMO.

Also, having a new, clean OS X install keeps things zippy on a new machine.

Economically speaking, I like to get last years MBP at a deep discount. I might not always be cutting edge but I save a lot of money using this method. Besides, they've (usually) gotten the bugs worked out by then!

My latest upgrade I went from a Mid-2012 (non-retina) to a late 2013 retina MBP . I am very happy with that jump and it didn't cost very much to do.