iPad resale value?

[el-John-o]

Hey all,

Ok so I have a friend who has had every single iPhone from 2G on and only paid for the 2G, what I mean is, he either got it used (in the case of the 3G and 3GS) or New (4G 32GB) purely off of the proceeds from selling the previous model. IIRC, only the 2G and 4G were 'Upgrade' prices. Obviously, since a 4G 32 gig can be bought for $800 by anyone or $300 by a new or renewing ATT customer, it's easy to sell it for what you bought it for, even selling used, to the market of still-in-contract and non-att customers.

Anyway, point being, I'm picking up a new iPad 64GB 3G. It's an excellent product for what I need and that speculated upgrades of Gen 2 (such as the cameras, and integrated USB port as opposed to the camera connection kit) won't be anything I would have particular use for. If it's 7 inch like some folks say, I don't even want it. Now, if it IS something quite different, and better, what do you think I could get out of a few month old iPad? What say you? Will they be worthless with the next version (No contractual discounts, after all) or will they still be worth enough to cut my losses and upgrade on the cheap?

I know there's really no way to know for sure, so I am not asking for subjective opinions or statistics or anything, just to start up a speculative discussion.

-John

(P.S., nothing will influence my decision to buy now, it's silly to 'hold out' when it comes to Apple, because as soon as the second iPad comes out, there will be speculation concerning the third. But I am still curious as to your opinions.)

 

[hcho3]

I expect resale values to be around 250 dollars less than what you paid for. Maybe 300...

I could care less about camera on iPad. That is not what I bought my iPad for. Besides, you can only face chat with iOS and Mac devices anyway. With face time being still locked with wi-fi only, I don't see how this is going to be so useful in the real world.

Current iPad will run iOS 5 without any issues. I am not updating my iPad unless apple puts way better display than my current one. From 1st generation to 2nd generation, apple will try to add minor things and camera. iPad 3 will have much better updates.

 

[wordoflife]

From 1st generation to 2nd generation, apple will try to add minor things and camera. iPad 3 will have much better updates.

Personally, from the iPod Touch and iPhone, I see the most improvements from 1st Gen to 2nd Gen.

 

[el-John-o]

I expect resale values to be around 250 dollars less than what you paid for. Maybe 300...

I could care less about camera on iPad. That is not what I bought my iPad for. Besides, you can only face chat with iOS and Mac devices anyway. With face time being still locked with wi-fi only, I don't see how this is going to be so useful in the real world.

Current iPad will run iOS 5 without any issues. I am not updating my iPad unless apple puts way better display than my current one. From 1st generation to 2nd generation, apple will try to add minor things and camera. iPad 3 will have much better updates.

That's what I'm thinking, if it had a "retina" display it would also need to beef up the graphics hardware, I would think, to handle that sort of resolution, which is a win-win. Facetime is useless for me, other than sitting in the same room with someone and playing with it on wi-fi, lol.

Apart from a display upgrade and considerable CPU/GPU upgrade, I think the only other thing that would make me consider upgrading would be a vastly improved support for USB devices (not just an integrated camera connection USB port). The ability to plug in an aircard, for example, would be awesome. Yes, I know, 3G bla bla bla, but I ALREADY PAY for an aircard, why shouldn't I use it on all of my devices?

-John