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AppleTV Resale Market - Sizzling Hot?

urkel

urkel

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Nov 3, 2008
2,795
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I own two AppleTV's and after noticing them disappearing from store shelves (Target, Walmart, Best Buy etc all are sold out) then I figure its time to get rid of one because if the AppleTV3 has an A5 chip then we may actually see apps!

I usually sell through Ebay but their fees are ridiculous and someone told me to try Amazon. I listed my AppleTV for $95 just as an experiment and it sold within 30min. I kept watching and the average price would sell for $80-$90 but sometimes I'd see them even selling over $100!

Anyway, thats my tip and my question.

TIP: If you want to sell then list it on Amazon because their fees were only $6 and it was MUCH easier than Ebay.

QUESTION: Why are people wanting the AppleTV so bad now? Just a month ago Best Buy would have pyramids of AppleTV's collecting dust. So is there some hidden value here somewhere?
 
I bought one a a year ago and have hardly used it so was thinking about putting it on ebay/amazon, I was quite surprised with how much 2nd hand ones were going for, great for me though! Surely they'll bring out a new one soon?
 
I found at least two ATV about a month ago on Craigslist for $50 and $60.

One was used without box, and the other was brand new with box.
 
CocoaPuffs said:
I found at least two ATV about a month ago on Craigslist for $50 and $60.

One was used without box, and the other was brand new with box.
Click to expand...

Thats whats so weird. My best buy would constantly drop the price and the used market was $50-60 but suddenly now that its unofficially discontinued then it's a huge seller in the resale market.

Maybe people are prepping for Mountain Lion airsync, but thats not until summer and most likely we'll see the AppleTV 3 by then and it will be the same $100 pricepoint.
 
The lowest i seen an open box atv2 go for at my local best buy was $94.99, which was only $5 under retail. I passed and went for the new unopened units instead.
 
I wonder if people are speculating that a full Apple television could mean the end of the AppleTV?? If so, these things will go very high demand.
 
8CoreWhore said:
I wonder if people are speculating that a full Apple television could mean the end of the AppleTV?? If so, these things will go very high demand.
Click to expand...
Maybe, but who exactly would be thinking that? The average consumer doesn't have the AppleTV on their radar which is why these things were never big sellers to the mass market. And the true geeks have never felt the AppleTV was lacking (No Hulu, Amazon, HBO etc) and went for the Roku.

Best Buy was literally giving these away with open-box MacBooks since October (which is how I got my 3rd one) and still had huge inventory so I just find it odd that the resale market is so hot at the end of its product cycle.
 
Last edited:
It's just a byproduct of iOS, and more specifically iPad, going gangbusters over the last few months. LOTS of new users over the holidays, they all want AirPlay.
 
Just a question, but why would Apple put a 1 year old chip in a brand new ATV3?? I've seen this comment by several posters, but the logic of it makes no sense to me
 
The reason why they sell really good is because it can be jailbroken I guess. That opens up e.g. XBMC with Icefilms/NaviX so tons of free content.

When the new AppleTV comes out it could be a complete television set. The little box as we now know it might be gone forever (not likely, but could be an option if Apple wants so sell large screens. There is no point selling cheap boxes that can do the same as the big AppleTV's with your own Sony, LG, Samsung, Philips TV set).

Second reason why they might sell so good (I bought mine last month) is that the next AppleTV will likely run an A5 with new iOS or even an A6 processor. These might be (very) hard to jailbreak so it would only be good for iTunes content (which imo is a very limited media player). After jail breaking, the AppleTV is a very nice media player. Bit slow due the A4 processor that's already 2 years old but it will still do for most 720p content. And it's cheap.
 
You're assuming that an average user would know these information, but they do not, hence the reason why people would pay extra for jailbroken atv2.
 
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