
The Apple (Used) Premium? - omarish
http://priceonomics.com/computers/#apple-used
======
joezydeco
I'm a _huge_ fan of Apple's refurb store. But it can be a cat-and-mouse game
because as stuff comes in and out of stock, the website will change minute by
minute.

There is a site called refurb-tracker.com that puts out an RSS feed based on
changes to the store inventory. I used some tool to turn that into a twitter
feed @MacRefurb.

It's been running so long I don't even remember how to log in and change it.
And I forget what tool I used to make the RSS->twitter conversion. But I still
have 185 followers, 4 years later...

~~~
JL2010
And for this reason I wrote myself a script to wget the Macbook pro 15" refurb
page, and parse it for: Price, manufacture year, and matte screen option. If
it matched my criteria 3/3, then it would email me.

One morning I got that email and I no longer had an excuse :D

~~~
mootothemax
_And for this reason I wrote myself a script to wget the Macbook pro 15"
refurb page, and parse it for: Price, manufacture year, and matte screen
option. If it matched my criteria 3/3, then it would email me._

I like what you did there, great stuff! I do wonder how many personal bots are
out there, scraping sites for individuals' own gain like this.

I remember a good few years ago, getting frustrated at having to wait six
weeks for a driving test. I wrote a little script that ran every half hour,
logged into the DVLA's site (in the UK), entered my details, and looked for
recent cancellations. If it found one, it sent me the details, and I'd madly
scrabble together to try and book the slot. After I failed my first test, it
was even more useful :)

~~~
sliverstorm
I used to use Yahoo! Pipes to scrape every major craigslist location in
California when I was on the hunt for a certain model of car or motorcycle. I
wasn't the only one, either, because eventually the RSS service started
getting shut down every month when some arbitrary RSS bandwidth number had
been exceeded.

It was beautiful, transitioning from sifting through CL by hand, to having
carefully filtered ads delivered to my inbox within an hour of being posted.

~~~
pkamb
I use IFTTT.com to do the same thing on CL.

------
modernerd
I was delighted when Apple announced the Retina MBP; I suspected it would mean
year-old laptops might hit eBay at silly prices as some folks scrambled to
upgrade.

I was right, and have picked up two this month (one on behalf of a friend):

\- A MacBook Pro 15" 2.3 i7 Quad Core unibody, antiglare. (Sold for £908, cost
in March 2011 £2,169. 58% saving.)

\- A MacBook Pro 15" 2.0 i7 Quad Core unibody, 8GB RAM, antiglare. (Sold for
£950, cost in 2011 approx £1,500. 37% saving.)

Both of these represent considerable savings over the 17% median for a used
model stated in the article.

Both laptops can be user-upgraded with a 512 SSD (approx £300 from Crucial)
and up to 16GB of RAM (approx £100), even though Apple's advertised maximum is
8GB of RAM for 2011 MacBook Pros. Their Geekbench scores are pretty close to
the latest i7 chips in the Retina MacBook Pros.

Although they're out of warranty, the savings and the relative reliability of
nearly new Apple hardware makes these excellent value for money, in my view.
And they're not atypical of finishing prices for this sort of kit in Britain
at present; average selling prices are only £100-£150 higher. I got a good
price by finding auctions with average photos or formatting that were listed
with awkward finishing times (typical commuter home time/very early in the
morning).

Is there a premium for used Apple kit? Well, sure -- even the old ones are
desirable. But that doesn't mean you have to pay it.

~~~
chermanowicz
I think you just got lucky :/

~~~
modernerd
Twice?

------
IanDrake
I noticed these guys seem to scrape Craigslist for data. I wonder what
Craigslist thinks of that. Will they be the next helpful start-up killed by
Craig?

~~~
danso
They're not using the data as a means to compete with Craigslist, so I doubt
CL will care

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midas
I usually buy refurbished to save money, and I'm always surprised how
negatively people react when they find that out. I'm under the impression
manufacturers very thoroughly test refurbished products (after all, they know
part of it was broken!); it makes me wonder if on average refurbished might be
in even better condition than new.

~~~
iProject
FWIW: My family's last 7 Macs have all been refurbs. The $ saved go to
purchase additional (non-apple) RAM.

The last Mac I had that developed hardware problem (out-of-warranty) was _not_
one of those refurbs.

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ssebro
I'm kinda surprised that this article doesn't consider extra costs, like taxes
and (if in CA), recycling fee. When you're buying things that cost around
$1200 (macbook air), you'll "save" around $200 by buying on craigslist.

~~~
joezydeco
Do you get the craigslist seller to throw in a year of AppleCare? Because that
comes free with the refurb. It's $240 for the Macbook Air.

~~~
ssebro
It's 240 for 3 years with the MBA. If you save almost that amount on getting
the cheaper craigslist version, why not spend what you've saved to get a MBA
that you know will be covered for 2+ years? (assuming you got one that's under
1 year old)

~~~
joezydeco
Oops, my mistake. $240 extends the initial first year and makes it 3 years.

------
pbreit
This information inexplicably rarely comes up when people complain about the
price of Apple products. I usually get 80 cents on the dollar for Apple
notebooks but can't even give away a Windows machine. This makes it a no-
brainer to buy Apple.

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denzil_correa
I bought an iPhone 4S from eBay.

Back here, you can exchange your iPhone with a minor excuse (3G intermittently
working etc.) so the owner of the used phone exchanged it from the vendor for
a brand new one at no cost. Therefore, I got a brand new iPhone 4S at the
price of an iPhone4 with an Apple Care Protection plan. The only "used" part
of the phone are the 19 pin connector, the earphones and the adaptor which
personally doesn't quite keep me awake at nights.

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papercrane
You pay a premium over refurbished to buy a used Air? I'm I reading the last
graph right?

~~~
denzil_correa
[1] The percentage savings is in negative just for MBA 11" but also for the
MBP 15"

[2] It means that there's a -8% for the MBA 11" and -1% for the MBP 15"
savings if you prefer the used one. So you should choose the the refurbished
over a used ones for these models if price is your ONLY parameter.

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acgourley
By the time these models are buyable as refurbs they are also on amazon for a
similar price.

