Danny Gorog04 July 2007, 4:46 AM
COMMENT |Thinking about buying a Mac but still think they are too expensive? Think again -- even if you're a Windows user.
 Think about the resale value when buying a Mac. |
There is an interesting article over at
AppleMatters that looks at the second-hand value of Macs over time. The article points out that Mac sellers can expect around 40% of the retail price back if the machine is sold within three years of purchase.
So that got me thinking about the age-old 'Macs are more expensive than PC' debate that keeps rearing its ugly head. There has been plenty of debate around this, and plenty of
side-by-side comparisons stating that Macs are in fact cheaper than their PC equivalents.
I know these comparisons only apply to brand-name PCs but you can't build your own Mac so that comparison is the right benchmark.
Also, most consumers don't go out and upgrade the internals of their machines (let alone the operating system) so I am talking about replacing an old box with a new box.
Apple, like other brand name PCs has overheads that it simply need to include in the final price. Your local computer store doesn't have to worry about advertising, promotion, tech support etc.
One thing these side-by-side comparisons generally don't take into account however is the resale value of your computer.
Having recently upgraded my Mac to the latest Santa-Rosa based MBP I can tell you that the value of your old Mac makes buying your new one much easier to swallow. In my case, I spent just over $2700 (ex GST) for my new computer and sold my old one for just under $1700.
So basically it costs me about $1000 a year to keep my Mac current - I think that's good value and something you couldn't achieve if you did the same with your PC laptop.
It's also worth considering that once your laptop falls out of warranty any repair can be very expensive.
In this age of frequent product updates and the increased liquidity that markets like eBay afford determining the value of your second hand product is going to become an important purchasing consideration.
And if you are trying to work out whether to buy a Mac or PC it's worth considering what the value of your computer might be in the future and factoring that in to what you are willing to spend today.