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How well does Apple hold its value?

S

silversyren

macrumors member
Original poster
Apr 9, 2006
51
0
Er, last question from me for a while, I promise. I need to take a break from obsessively looking at Apple for a little bit.. :p

If I bought an Apple Powerbook G4, 15" for say, 1300$ now, could anyone give me an idea of how much I'd be able to sell it for a year from now?

A portable computer would be rather helpful to me at this point in time -- I'm a student entering my senior year of college. i also want to run Photoshop and while my other option, an iMac Dual Core isn't terrible, waiting for new revisions couldn't hurt any.

Waiting a year would allow me to wait until Photoshop goes native for the new operating systems, any issues to hopefully be fixed, and prices to possibly drop? :p

While I'm in school, I have a Mac lab I can work in if i needed somethign really heavy duty -- they're all power macs.

Are there any issues I should know about the 15" before I buy one? Is it possible to get a nice 15" Powerbook for 1300$ or is that just wistful thinking?

Thanks again.. :)
 
They hold more value then a PC does, but you have to understand a mac gets outdated just like a PC does (hardware wise) it holds more value then a pc does tho. buy you a dell core duo and a macbook pro, both with same specs and see which one sells for more in a year. Your dell will sell for much less ($2,000 system, $1,000 or less) and your macbook pro will be a small difference in purchase price ($2,400 system, 1,800). if you added up the price difference with dell coupons and all, in the end you would make out better or even reselling a apple computer then a pc (plus your getting macos+windows if needed). You don't have there stylish design in the pc world like a mac does.
 
Macs generally hold their value very well. However, it's hard to say with current PPC Macs, because the Intel transition will make them obsolete earlier than they otherwise would have been.
 
Apple hold their values quite well. You would still loose a fair amout ($450) but for $1300, i would only buy it if it was a 1.67GHz
 
Any ideas on how much my two year old iBook with 768MB RAM, 1.07GHz G4, and 80G Harddrive would get?
 
part of the reason apple computer hold there value is they update less offen. I do question if they will hold there value as well now that they have gone intel. With everything off the shelf stuff right now by which I mean I could build a mac hardware wise with out a problem. So value of the apple hardware now is going to drop as quickly as they will with dell and homebuilt computers.

Now they will hold more value over a PC computer because you can only get OSX on an apple computer. It will all come down on if apple will speed up it update process as new chips come out. I would think they would as time goes on.

I do depresions of apple computer to increase from where it is now but I dont expect it to get as high as PC are.
 
I actually make $$ off sales; sold a number of powerbooks, ibooks, etc. and always break even at bare minimum.

There's no such thing as "losing" money anymore with Apple purchases. i tend to think of it as pay for use, then sell, get money back, and buy something better.
 
Timepass said:
part of the reason apple computer hold there value is they update less offen. I do question if they will hold there value as well now that they have gone intel. With everything off the shelf stuff right now by which I mean I could build a mac hardware wise with out a problem. So value of the apple hardware now is going to drop as quickly as they will with dell and homebuilt computers.

Now they will hold more value over a PC computer because you can only get OSX on an apple computer. It will all come down on if apple will speed up it update process as new chips come out. I would think they would as time goes on.

I do depresions of apple computer to increase from where it is now but I dont expect it to get as high as PC are.
Click to expand...
i've sold a bunch of old macs and was always surprised how much i got for them...one reason they hold their value so well is that there's no competition to lower the price of new computers. so, there's a nice market for used macs...
 
G3 ibooks that went for $900 four years ago still get around $350 on ebay. So I'd say pretty well, for a computer. I mean, it's not a car or anything...
 
Generally Macs hold their value well, but I guess that is changing. I cannot imagine that people would want to buy G4 PBs for much money after the consumer Macbook core duo will be released.

This has at least happened to the iMacs. G5s are selling now for ca 50% of their original price from last year....
 
They hold their value well compared to other PCs.

I sold my 2 year old 12" aluminum for $1100 two weeks ago on Ebay. I am a student so I didn't pay that much more for it when I purchased it.
 
Willy S said:
Generally Macs hold their value well, but I guess that is changing. I cannot imagine that people would want to buy G4 PBs for much money after the consumer Macbook core duo will be released.

This has at least happened to the iMacs. G5s are selling now for ca 50% of their original price from last year....
Click to expand...

But this has always been true (*remembers buying my G4 400 in 2000 and the price drop when it became obsolete*). There is an initial, significant price drop when the next gen comes out. But that drop is the only major one; then there is a general depreciation that, to me, is more than reasonable, and in fact less than most machines...
 
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