Sony Vaio Resale values Vs. Macbook?

I'm curious as to whether, let's say a Sony Vaio Z notebook, would retain enough of its value if kept in pristine condition over a span of 2-3 years.

Bargain hunting has led me to notice that people tend to demand crazy amounts of money for 2 year old Macbooks with crap configurations, even when the next generation line of Macs is already out.

So I wondered if Sony is the same. I know it might be too early to tell with the Z since it only came out some months ago and hasn't been really updated.

 

I had to say it but based on experience, the Macbooks will have a better resale value than a Sony Vaio.

 

Popularity and, subsuquently, monetary value will vary between manufacturers and even model to model within the same manufacturer. It really comes down to the fact of supply, demand, and perceived value.

The Apple Macbooks, for example, have 3 positive things going for them.

1) There seem to be a lot who prefer the older design to the new one. A personal taste preference, but this means there is demand for it.

2) Macbooks are inherently higher value. Apple charges an arm, a leg, and a first born child for some of there setups that you could easily find cheaper in a PC. Again, consumer preference for the brand, or support, or whatever reason means a higher demand, and when you pay $1500 for a computer and then sell it 2 years later in good condition, it is a lot easier to ask for a higher resell value when you have high consumer demand and also have a higher starting point for monetary depreciation. In other words, if you had two similarly speced notebooks, but one was an Apple for $1500 and one was a Dell for $999 and they both loose $300 of value over 2 years, then the Apple still has a relatively high resell value compared to the Dell. Furthermore, that is before you take into account other aspects of the consumer demand that helps to provide more readily available potential buyers for your older tech equipment.

So, there really isn't a true winner or yes or no to your question. It is just a matter of reading the market and making smart choices on a notebook that will hold its value (because it is popular, or durable, etc.) and getting something that will both meet your needs for now and those of others later on.

BBGus

 

There's a difference though between what people ask and what the real resale value is. Some people who own macs are a bit ignorant when it comes to selling notebooks. Like here in the netherlands I see a couple of guys offering second hand Macbook Airs at a price very close to what new ones cost on sale. They've been offering it for a over 3 months though so they're not selling it.

But in my experience Apple's resale value is generally a bit higher.

Although some Sony models come really close. For example, a well specced and maintained TZ can get a lot of money in an ebay auction.

If you buy a Z, maintain it well, upgrade the hard drive yourself and have a good ebay reputation the resale value will be very similar to a Macbook.

 

It depends on the model. MacBooks seem to have better resale value than MBP's because they are probably cheaper. In the UK if you sell a used £1,700 MBP 6 months later on Ebay you can expect to get about £800 for it. I have seen older MBP's even being sold for around £500-600 on Ebay. MBA resale value is not great over here either.

Whereas i have seen several TZ models and old TZ UK models like TZ1 and up to TZ3 go from £700-£900 that had a rrp from £1,300 plus. I wish that i could get a TZ for £500 in the UK. It is hard to get a Core solo TX for that price on ebay.

SZ's resale value is not as high but if you have decent warranty you can still get a fair return.

 

The SZ will not even have any decent value even with a long warranty.

Last February, I sold my SZ370 that I owned for about 3 months at a lost of about $600 from my purchase price.

Right now, I've been trying to sell my SZ381 (with Premium Carbon Fiber lid), about 2 years 4 months left as of now on-site accidental warranty, plus a whole bunch of extra laptop accessories for about 6 months for $750 USD shipped (with offers welcomed from interested buyers).

Sad to say, I've only ever received 2 offers from "interested" buyers. One offer me $500 USD shipped while the other even had the cheek to offer me $250 USD shipped saying that I would be lucky to even find a more generous buyer! That was 5 months ago.

Although, I hate to agree with this guy, I think he may be right. I really regret not selling to that potential buyer who offered $500 a few days after I listed my laptop. At least it is a lot better than $250 shipped.... I mean shipping the whole laptop, its original box & all those accessories will have cost me up to $50 just using insured postal service.

 

Lol at $250 shipped. Well to get $600 loss after 3 months is pretty much on parallel or better than you would get for an outdated MBP over here.

I tried to sell one MBP and i sold one. The first one price was to low so i pulled it. The laptop had an rrp of £1,800 at the time and people were offering me £1,000 or less, less than 4 months later. The other one i sold that was a few weeks old and compared to the full rrp price (which i did not pay) that went about £400 under it. The MBP second hand resale value has dropped since i bought one.
It is the people who get a student discount that can get an ok return on a MBP normally.

Someone offered me £750 a few weeks back for my SZ7 that has a 3 year warranty until June 2011. I bought it for £850 and paid £100 for the warranty.
I wanted a bit more then £750 i decided not to sell anyway but i would have accepted £800 for it if i went through with the sale.

Also with the MB's some people want the old gen ones because they want firewire.

 

Maybe you're just not posting in the right places? I wonder if eBay might do better than someplace like craigslist, which is restricted by geography. I know that the premium SZ's screen alone (the LED version) goes for more than $250 USD shipped, even on eBay, so I definitely wouldn't take a horrible lowball offer like that.

 

no comparison. macbook holds its value way longer. The os is what keeps the value.

 

Maybe I don't post it in the right place. Yeah, I still laugh at reading the offer of $250 for my SZ381. I would rather dump it into the ocean than sell it for that price. Maybe it will even be better for me to donate to a charity organization.... At least I'm doing something good IMO. No way am I selling my SZ381 for those kinda money. I bought it March of last year for $2,650 & paid another $340 extra for the extended warranty & have babied it since (no damage, no repair ever done, no nothing)... Maybe one of these days when I get a huge blow to my head by banging it against the wall, I'll let it go for $250 shipped! LOL!

I think I would even struggled to get $850 for my slightly less than a year old SZ791 (I paid $2,499 the day it was released, although I did pay another $350 for my extended 4 year warranty), partly because most people know that the Nvidia 8400 are faulty. I guess for someone who frequently buy & sell laptops, getting the Premium Carbon lid is just plain silly & useless because I lose unnecessary money.... as all I seem to get are lowball offers.

*Sigh* I love the good old Dell days, where I usually lost just 20% max of the buying price when I sold them after about a year of use....

Maybe I should seriously consider switching back to Dell again. Cheap, decent quality, top-class customer service, IMO. Come on Dell, bring out your new 13" XPS laptops!

 

I appreciate the input folks, and great post BBGus!

 

My SZ260P Sold for $1200 with a 7200 rpm hard drive and a T7600 processor. The T7600, at the time, was going for $400 alone on eBay so I guess I netted about $700 on the laptop, if you consider the hard drive upgrade. I had also added Vista (valid key) and 4gb of ram so it was a fairly nice machine but I paid well over $2,500 with upgrades less than 2 years earlier. I sold it to someone I knew and he knew I treat things very respectfully and upgrade often so he was happy. If I had to list it on eBay or Craigs that might not have been the case.

 

Wow. That is a good price... To think that I couldn't even get anyone to offer me more than $500 for my SZ381 (Premium Carbon lid) with T7400 CPU, about 2 1/4 months of on-site AHD warranty, XP Pro + Vista Business, & an extra Hitachi 200GB 7,200rpm notebook HDD + some other extra goodies.... oh well... I guess everyone hate SZ381 for some reason!