Dell laptops don't hold their value

I am about to sell my Latitude for around $450. this is pretty much the average going price I see on ebay and craigslist.

Why Dell's lose their value so quickly. This computer 1 year and a half ago was sold by dell for well over a $1000.

It seems to me that Lenovo, Sony, Apple, and maybe Asus hold their value much better.

If you buy a Dell and don't sell it within the next 6 months you will lose most of its value.

Is the market so flooded with Latitudes? I don't see that many around.

what are your thought on Dell depreciation?

 

Second-hand prices of Dell computers are controlled by the prices at Dell Outlet (which come with a full warranty). The people who have found the best bargains from the Outlet don't see much if any depreciation over the first year of ownership.If you are worried about depreciation then buy your Dell from Dell Outlet.

I've just bought my E6410 from an ebay reseller of Dell Outlet stock and the cost was 60% of what I would have paid had I ordered the same configuration from Dell. When I bought my E6400 I paid the full price because I was in a hurry. This time around I decided to wait until something tempting showed up.

John

 

I think this is fairly normal depreciation for any laptop... the average price of a ThinkPad T400 is also about $450 on craigslist... a friend of mine recently picked one up from a local seller for just $400.

I just try not to buy new; it's almost never worthwhile in my opinion.

 

Sounds about right to me - 50% of original price paid (assuming you bought new) is normal. Sony and Apple hold their value a lot more - the latter even better.

The only laptops I'll buy new are Sony and Apple because of that, and my last Apple was a refurb from Apple. If it's any other brand, I'll buy refurbished.

 

the only new laptop I bought was my first one Asus, after that I learned to buy used/refurb but under warranty is a must.

Sony's outlet prices are ridiculous!

 

I learned this after my first Outlet purchase years ago. As a matter a fact, I JUST sold a Studio XPS 1340. I paid $701 shipped/after taxes for it nearly a year ago after a 20% coupon. I sold it two months ago for $640 bucks on Craigslist...

 

Even brand new, over the past 3-4 years, its been pretty easy to buy Dell gear for 50% less, on eBay, than if you went through the Dell website.

A lot of firms out there buy all their users laptops. Sometimes laptops are outright cheaper than buying desktops even. I've worked in places where 95% of the laptops never leave peoples' desks. These make for excellent refurb laptops.

Dell heavily discounts as well to volume customers. A customer buying 16 laptops may very well pay an overall lower price if they order 20, and sell the other 4 off. That's why you see a lot of brand new Dell gear in the "grey market" supply chain. Not usually in quantities high enough to fulfill a contract, but certainly, there are plenty of great deals to be had if you just need a couple laptops and are flexible on the configurations.

 

Was thinking about this post earlier. The blanket statement of DELL laptops don't hold their value is kind of tough to make without any other data to back it up. If you had said, man, I feel like my Dell laptop didn't hold its value - then its all well and good - its your opinion. But you made a broad statement and didn't give us any info to back it up.

You did qualify the second statement as a personal opinion when you said "It seems to me that Lenovo, Sony, Apple, and maybe Asus hold their value much better." The "it seems to me" makes all of the difference.

You also don't say how much you paid for your laptop. Yes, there were E6400 laptops on Dell's site for over $1000 when they first came out in Oct 2008. Did you pay over $1000 18 months ago? No you probably didn't because you also say "The only laptop I bought new was my first one".

Now look at your six month statement. You say that if you don't sell your Dell within 6 months you lose most of its value. Definition of most - a great majority of; nearly all. The smallest majority would be 50%. Even by your own standards of the word "most" your Dell has lost 55% of its value - but it took 18 months. I would also assume that you paid $900 or less if you bought it as a refurb - which means that in 18 months, your machine has in fact not lost most of its value.

Lets compare the resale value of other business class laptops from Lenovo, HP, Apple, Sony, or Asus.

From Ebay.

Apple - Macbook Pro originally priced at $1,999 - $2,499

APPLE 15" MACBOOK PRO 2.5ghz 4GB 500gb SD BT WIFI - $959
MACBOOK PRO 15.4 2GB 15.4" 250GB LAPTOP WIRELESS - $799
15" Macbook Pro laptop. 2008 model. Applecare until May 2011. - $885

HP - HP 8530w ELITEBOOK - Prices start at $2,499

Hewlett Packard EliteBook Mobile Workstation 8530w - $551
HP 8530w ELITEBOOK 2.66GZ 1900x1200 QUADRO770 + 4GB - $770
HP 8530w ELITEBOOK 2.66GZ,1900x1200 #AW217US 2.5y wr - $599

Lenovo - T400 - March 2009 price $1,419

Lenovo ThinkPad 2765PAU T400 Notebook - Intel Core 2 - $764.48
Lenovo ThinkPad T400 slightly used...NO RESERVE!!!! - $350
Less then Year Old Lenovo Thinkpad T400 2.4ghz/3gb - $450 (0 bids)

Asus - U2E - $2200

ASUS U2E-B3B 1.2GHZ CORE 2 DUO U7600 4GB 64GB SSD + 160 - $820.10

Sony - Sony Vaio VGN-FW351J/H - $1149

Sony VAIO VGN-FW351 - $600 (0 bids)


I am going to go ahead and stop with the examples. You should get my point. ALL laptops don't hold their value.

Your E6400 is a 2 year old model that has been replaced by the E6410. The new model has a new generation of processors and a new chipset. The same is true for the rest of machines I listed above. What would be really interesting would be a comparison of E6400 used prices just before and after the new nehalem based laptops were widely available.

 

Bokeh -

eBay alone, isn't the only place to sell electronics, computers specifically. It's just one of many ways to gather a few numbers to get an idea.

You make your point, on "new" prices of Apple, Sony, Asus, Lenovo, etc. yet the OP, assuming, bought his refurbished.

Furthermore, the prices should be "refurbished unit pricing" vs the last 30 day average on ended eBay items with similar/same spec's.



I have bought and sold a number of laptops and two desktops over the past couple of years. For instance, I bought my 13.3 Macbook Pro refurb for $900 and change about a year ago. When I sold it, about 3 months ago, I got $750 via local listings with near-expiring Applecare, though the buyer did pay for Applecare upon purchase and I used my student discount to pass the savings along to him for Applecare. In this instance, I was only hit with roughly 25% depreciation "fee". When I sold my Sony VGN-240F for $525, I lost 30%. Certainly not the 48% you're showing in your example. Even if you were to take my example, and yours, you're still only looking at 39% depreciation. I bet if someone else chimes in, that number would potentially drop again.

I firmly believe Sony and Apple (especially in my experience) hold their value better than others. All in all, there is going to be a loss, but usually not as great as some of their competition.

 

The only reason I compared new to used after 12-24 months was to stay true to the premise that the op made - new Dell E6400s were over $1000 18 months ago, and are now down to $450. He never told us what he paid for his refurbished.

My main point was that all laptops depreciate over time and at roughly similar rates. We can all close the gap between what we pay and what we sell for. 20% outlet coupons are great.