Why are iBooks so expensive on eBay?

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Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
and who's buying them?





I see old 500 MHz iBooks with CD drives for like $800-$1400+ dollars!



Do these people NOT realize that Apple has brand-new iBooks starting at $999? With warranties, etc.



I saw an old toilet seat iBook 466 (or slower?) on eBay for almost $1000 bucks!



I'm not sure if



a) Apple's iBooks have a great resale value.



or



b) There are a lot of idiots on eBay.



I am looking for an old iBook 500 w/CD for my friend. I don't wanna spend $800 for a laptop thats 3 generations old when I can get a new one that's almost 2x faster for only hundred bucks more.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 15
    baumanbauman Posts: 1,248member
    I agree completely!! It's absolutely insane. There is no way those things are absolutely worth that much. I've been looking for a cheepo white iBook, and they all go for so much money. It's rare to find a 500 MHz for less than 800 bucks, when for just one hundred more you can get a NEW 800MHz.



    grr, I think I'll just wait some more.
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  • Reply 2 of 15
    lucaluca Posts: 3,833member
    I've been looking too - a friend wants one that does DVD playback. He wants a 600 MHz or faster too, although he doesn't really mind if it's a Rage 128 one.



    Well, I found a 500/DVD for $700, a 600/Combo for $850, and a few 700/Combos for $1000, but those were the BEST deals. I mean, there are a number of resellers undercutting these eBay sellers, which is just unheard of! I even saw a 366 MHz Graphite Special Edition (read: no DVD, Firewire, or Rage128 Mobility) for $825! But there were lots of other clamshells going for less... still too expensive.



    He recently found someone who posted an ad for a Pismo 400 with a Combo drive, a 40 GB hard drive, 1 GB of RAM, Airport, and two power adapters for just $850... but the guy's been MIA for the last two days. So he's looking for something else, either a Pismo or a DVD-capable iBook for not too much, like preferably under $900. If anyone is interested, I suppose you could contact me and I could hook you up...
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  • Reply 3 of 15
    pesipesi Posts: 424member
    hah. yeah, i long ago realized that eBay is a great place to sell, a horrible place to buy.
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  • Reply 4 of 15
    Well the apple 2nd hand market has gone very weird since Apple started to upgrade and lower prices of their machines. It's not uncommon these days that people offer their used stuff even more expensive than new! Many sellers can't judge the real value of the stuff, but sadly many buyers aren't aware of the prices for new Macs. I'm looking for an Apple laptop for myself for some time now, but haven't been able to get one at a fair price.



    End of Line
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  • Reply 5 of 15
    i've noticed this too.

    looking for an ibook for university in couple months time, been checking up over last month and a half.

    my fiancee got one on ebay, an ibook 500. standard model paid £600 for it. too much really but he had the money and wanted it.



    best bet, and the one i'm going for is the apple refurbished store. the deals on their seem better than even apple approved resellers who have refurbished ibooks.



    ibooks there tend to get 45% discount, but there are a few niggles.



    1) they may not have any come in when you want one



    2)they haven't got many and you have to get on there quick and log in and confirm before any other buyers (therefore need to have registered all details previously and thenlog in to the site as soon as it opens)



    3) in the uk its only ever open on wednesdays and lists the opening times as 10 h 00 to 24 h 00. never sure what this means. sometimes it opens midnight and a few times i couldn't get on it til later on.



    4)not gonna be prefect conidtion but should be working. and you might be lucky to get a cancelled order in perfect condition



    5)its discount of original price and not sure how this applies to the older models no longer sold on site normally



    6)can't be sure they all ship with lastest software if they could be up to a year old



    not sure why i'm telling you this, you'll all be my competition if you need the advice.

    anyway this is by far the best deal i've found on apples laptops.

    other discounts there aren't so generous.
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  • Reply 6 of 15
    jcjc Posts: 342member
    I teach photoshop in a classroom that has half macs and half PCs. Both the mac and the PC run photoshp fine. However a five to seven year old mac still runs photoshop fine. While the PCs start to bog down when they are two or three years old.



    also as high end PC desktops run with powermacs.

    PC laptops are crap compared to mac books. they are plastic have stickers all over the bottom from all the different people who make the components which you have to pray will work together well. The fact that macintosh makes the software and the hardware give them a giant edge in powerbook construction.



    So, Yes iBooks and Powerbooks do maintain their value really well. I just sold my 1gig Ti 15" PB for 3000 with a warrantee and a backpack so that i could the new 17" PB



    Macs hold there value like all qulaity products. such as Harleys, Mercadies and old comics
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  • Reply 7 of 15
    lucaluca Posts: 3,833member
    nm
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  • Reply 8 of 15
    Quote:

    Originally posted by JC

    I teach photoshop in a classroom that has half macs and half PCs. Both the mac and the PC run photoshp fine. However a five to seven year old mac still runs photoshop fine. While the PCs start to bog down when they are two or three years old.



    also as high end PC desktops run with powermacs.

    PC laptops are crap compared to mac books. they are plastic have stickers all over the bottom from all the different people who make the components which you have to pray will work together well. The fact that macintosh makes the software and the hardware give them a giant edge in powerbook construction.



    So, Yes iBooks and Powerbooks do maintain their value really well. I just sold my 1gig Ti 15" PB for 3000 with a warrantee and a backpack so that i could the new 17" PB



    Macs hold there value like all qulaity products. such as Harleys, Mercadies and old comics




    Well that explains why Apple notebooks don't lose their value as fast as x86 notebooks, but still doesn't explain why used ibooks sell for more than _NEW_ ibooks on ebay, does it?



    End of Line
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  • Reply 9 of 15
    jcjc Posts: 342member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by User Tron

    Well that explains why Apple notebooks don't lose their value as fast as x86 notebooks, but still doesn't explain why used ibooks sell for more than _NEW_ ibooks on ebay, does it?



    End of Line




    Consumers are silly.

    I was talking to a PC friend of mine the other day and he said " I would have bought a mac but they are so expensive i can not affors them." then I found out that he bought a $1500 laptop that had about the same specs at a $999 iBook. Its like people have it built into their heads that macs are expensive so they do not even check the prices.



    whatever the reason its not the fault of the sellers. People only sell things for the price that others will pay.

    if what your saying is true and I have no reason to doubt you. Then people are just not well informed with up to date info,



    Quite oftem you get a lot of extra stuff with a used computer on eBay. extra hard drives, more ram, etc,etc
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  • Reply 10 of 15
    I think it's the auction format that makes iBook prices on ebay so insane. People get caught up in the "spirit" of the auction, and begin to lose touch with reality as they try to "win" the bidding war. What's so funny is that often the person who ends up with the highest bid is anything but a winner.



    Still, the auction part doesn't explain everything. The main reason is as others have already stated, that Macs hold their value because they have a longer usable life span than Wintels. And because they rock!
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  • Reply 11 of 15
    Quote:

    Originally posted by dstranathan

    a) Apple's iBooks have a great resale value.



    This the correct answer. (just so ya know)
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  • Reply 12 of 15
    jpp1cdjpp1cd Posts: 135member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by missyvortexdv

    i've noticed this too.

    looking for an ibook for university in couple months time, been checking up over last month and a half.

    my fiancee got one on ebay, an ibook 500. standard model paid £600 for it. too much really but he had the money and wanted it.



    best bet, and the one i'm going for is the apple refurbished store. the deals on their seem better than even apple approved resellers who have refurbished ibooks.



    ibooks there tend to get 45% discount, but there are a few niggles.



    1) they may not have any come in when you want one



    2)they haven't got many and you have to get on there quick and log in and confirm before any other buyers (therefore need to have registered all details previously and thenlog in to the site as soon as it opens)



    3) in the uk its only ever open on wednesdays and lists the opening times as 10 h 00 to 24 h 00. never sure what this means. sometimes it opens midnight and a few times i couldn't get on it til later on.



    4)not gonna be prefect conidtion but should be working. and you might be lucky to get a cancelled order in perfect condition



    5)its discount of original price and not sure how this applies to the older models no longer sold on site normally



    6)can't be sure they all ship with lastest software if they could be up to a year old



    not sure why i'm telling you this, you'll all be my competition if you need the advice.

    anyway this is by far the best deal i've found on apples laptops.

    other discounts there aren't so generous.




    Is this only in the UK? Why don't they have something like this in the US? Can I buy from the US if it is the UK site?
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  • Reply 13 of 15
    jcjc Posts: 342member
    Deal mac.com is a good source for used macs



    http://dealmac.com
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  • Reply 14 of 15
    Quote:

    Originally posted by jpp1cd

    Is this only in the UK? Why don't they have something like this in the US? Can I buy from the US if it is the UK site?



    well i don't know about ordering fom the uk site, there would be conversion rate and i just don't know what shipping would end up (you get free delivery in the uk)



    but good news, i looked on the US site for you and couldn't see it but i searched. just put refurbished in the search box and it should bring them up, i saw them. but since i didn't get the refurb store page like we have in britain, then i don't have any idea if the US one is open always or not. but atleast you can get them in the US, even though it doesn't say how much you save, is no % mark down noted but must be cheaper atleast.



    hope that helps
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  • Reply 15 of 15
    cliveclive Posts: 720member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by missyvortexdv

    ibooks there tend to get 45% discount, but there are a few niggles.



    3) in the uk its only ever open on wednesdays and lists the opening times as 10 h 00 to 24 h 00. never sure what this means. sometimes it opens midnight and a few times i couldn't get on it til later on.




    When they first opened the refurb store on the UK site there were some decent deals - big discounts on not-quite-current TiBooks, but since then they seem to have reverted to form.



    I used to get a shot at Apple returns back in the mid-90s, but there was rarely anything that had "bargain" written on it. Usually it was stuff that was 18 months to 3 years old, that was well below its original price, but... in the mean time machines had got bigger and faster and... cheaper.



    The only decent thing I ever bought was an 8100/110, which had been around GBP:3,200, but I got it for GBP:1,800. However, the 8100/100 was around that money anyway, and not long after they introduced the 132 (or was it 8500 - can't remember).



    MacUser in the UK is notorious for the prices in it's classified section, you'll often see relatively old kit priced at considerably more than the equivalent new machine.
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