Resale Value?

I tend to purchase laptops every year - buy the latest and greatest and sell the last generation laptop right when the newest gets released. This worked great for me in the Apple world...but looking at Clevo/Sager on eBay and there doesn't appear to be a great market. Do any of you guys sell/upgrade regularly and if so, where do you sell and what type of return on investment do you see?

This seems to be one area where Alienware would have an edge...just due to them being a "name" that the general public knows and associates with gaming (for better or for worse).

 

Quite a few people post their sagers here on the NBR for sale forum..

Also seen em advertised on the xotic pc forums..

Maybe craigslist? Lol

 

I'm actually selling my Macbook Pro to buy an 8150, the prices almost match up perfectly with the 485M I've been changing my laptop every year with minimal loss as well.

I'm a bit worried about the rumored Macbook refresh though. A big update like that might devalue the current generation making me take a bigger loss.

This whole recall thing really came at a bad time.

Another disadvantage to this world is probably the fact that these machines will most likely devalue faster and the market will not be as big as in the Apple world.

Who knows though, I might just give up and use the laptop until it dies.

 

Yeah I'd ditch that Mac pretty soon lol. Before they start officially announcing apple press conferences about the refresh..

If you can go without one for a bit.

 

Difficult for a computer science major but I could live with it. I'd also have to give up any sort of gaming for a couple of weeks.

Not sure if that's worth it (I also don't know how much it will devalue).

 

Well, I understand there are numerous outlets for one to place an ad for these laptops...but my question is more about ROI. With my Apple laptops, I'd usually get about an 85% return when selling them every year. And this is after they announce a refresh (sometimes because I paid minimal $$$ and upgraded them myself - something an astonishing amount of Apple users would never dream of doing, thus adding value).

It's a big concern for me. Even though laptops from Sager/Clevo can be largely upgradeable - there are limits, of course.

 

I'm interested in this also. I'm moving over to Clevo from Apple. I just sold a 5 year old macbook pro for 900 bucks. It would make the purchase easier to know they hold there value.

 

The PC world in general doesn't hold as much value because people buy PCs for specs mostly and value second. In the mac world, people buy for emotional reasons first, then specs, then value so its easier to get more resale value from your used macbook.

 

Which is why Alienware has good resale value.

 

One year is a good timeframe to sell and regain a decent amount of money back. For example, I bought my NP8662 in August 2009 for ~$1500. I could have sold it last summer for ~ $1000-$1200. But now it's worth $500 maybe.

Of course depends on when in the Intel / AMD / nVidia design cycle they are, but over the years I've found one year it holds about 70-75% of its original value, which is actually quite good.

 

Thank you! That's the type of info I'm looking for. I could definitely live with that. Would you be able to elaborate on places you used to sell these? I have heard enthusiast site forums are recommended (i.e. Hardforums, here, etc.) versus eBay.

 

Here @ NBR, and if it doesn't sell then it goes on fleabay.