just saw a 1.8GHz/80GB MBA on ann arbor's craigslist for $1000 this morning. ad was gone less than 3 hours later. kinda scary how cheap used MBAs are selling for, given how well macs usually retain their value.
needless to say, i am sure i am not the only MBA owner looking to sell my 1st gen MBA to upgrade into a 2nd gen model once they eventually come out.
Actually, it's not that surprising. I've had a few Macs that I was forced to sell after only being a month old or so. And, usually lost anywhere from $500 to $1000 on the deal.
It hits you even harder when you buy the system with Apple upgrades instead of 3rd-party upgrades. Second-hand buyers always compare the price of the system against what it would cost with 3rd-party parts for the upgrades.
So, in my case, I had about $2200 into an iMac G5 with Apple upgrades. A couple months later, the best I could get was $1100. And, that was really hard to get that much.
I made the mistake of:
1) buying new
2) buying the upgrades from Apple
3) getting into a situation where I had to sell and suffer the loss
It's not really that Macs truly hold their value so much better. It's just that they start out high enough that they've got further to fall before they totally bottom out.
A $200 or $300 PC is going to be hard to get anything out of on resale because you really don't have far to depreciate and the new price is pretty cheap so most buyers will just go new.
A Mac will take longer to reach $0 just because it started out so darn high to begin with. But, it will drop a huge chunk of value as soon as you take possession of it. Just like a new car. You'll lose $100 to $500 (depending on starting price) just leaving the dealer (only with cars it's usually like $5000).
I've been through several Mac sales, and the only one's I've ever felt that I did O.K. with were ones I had held onto for years and got some good use out of. Anything I had to sell within the first year (or worse first few months) I took a huge loss right there. But, a huge loss doesn't feel so huge when it's say 5 years down the road and that $1500 machine might still get $200 or $300.
If PC's all started at $1000 and went up, you'd still get $200 to $300 out of them after a while as well. But, since they start at $200, they're hard sells either way.
On the other hand, I've made some great buys on second hand Macs. Due to the fast depreciation, I've gotten some of them at great steals. I got my Mac Mini G4 when it was only about a month old for $350 including shipping costs (obviously still had a lot of warranty left on it).
I've got a G3 iMac that I received in pristine and unused condition for $30 after it sat around for a few years (it was never used before I got it - and I could verify that).
Both of those machines are ones I still have, and they have been excellent computers. They are both still in regular use.
Often you'll see people selling Macs for near new prices. And, that can provide the illusion that they sell for that amount every time. But, just keep watching them and see how long they take to sell.
A guy here locally was trying to get more than $2000 for his nice G5 tower. But, he couldn't do it.
There's a guy here that's been trying to unload a near new Intel Mini for $700. He can't do it.
Sure, there are some people out there who will pay these prices. But, that doesn't mean that they've held their value. It just means that some people don't evaluate a deal as carefully as others.
If I can buy a refurb with a full one-year warranty for less than the price of someone else's second-hand machine with some of it's warranty used-up, then that second-hand machine is not too attractive. But, some people will buy them anyway.
If it sounds too good to be true, it often is.