New to Mac: Mini? Pro? Macbook?

[UnknownSouljer]

If you want to sell your used great, that's great -- but saying that people who don't sell their used gear are "patently untrue" is nonsense. You've assumed I'm talking about equipment that's only a year old; I'm not. You've assumed I'm talking about equipment that's still got value; I'm not.

No, you said that you're "throwing away a display". I stated that is "patently untrue". You're in actuality selling a display along with a computer. If you're going to make an argument against a statement I say, please put it back into its original context.

Okay, so if you're assuming that we're talking about a system that is say 5+ years old, why would you even make the argument in the first place that "loosing a monitor" is so crucial? I won't go as far to say "everyone" replaces their displays after 5 years, but even my father that has zero technical knowledge has replaced his monitor more frequently than that.

Secondly it's possible to sell machines even older than that to people that want them. G4 Cube's which have been outdated by over a decade still sell on eBay. So you have to really answer the question, at what point is something obsolete and unsellable? I consider G4's to be unusable as a day to day machine, but other people want them if for no other reason other than history or modding.

I don't think you're reading my responses in context. They are all addressing specific points. I'm not just blanket firing on anything.

The reason I'm not talking about selling equipment that's a year old is because it's a wasteful practice. Buying new equipment after selling non-depreciated assets doesn't recovering enough value to justify the depreciation on the new purchase. The equipment probably hasn't been owned long enough to provide any ROI on the original purchase, as well.

Okay, but you have to admit that it's an opinion and not a statement of fact that it's "wasteful" to sell a machine a year old.

Second, really... ROI? Is that your argument? If it really is, then I want you to troll every video card forum calling out every person that decides they want to spend $600+ dollars on just video cards every year. The reason for flipping machines is because you want the latest and greatest. It has absolutely nothing to do with cost or value or anything. But in addition to that, I made my point earlier about the loss of investment anyway. But if you want hard numbers. I'll give you two examples of what I have done personally.

I purchased a 2009 27" iMac, the first 27" model they made. I maxed it out and spent approximately $2400 on it. After more than a year, I sold it for $2000 even. It was a loss of 1/6th, which is far better than you could do with most any other investment of this kind. After the first year, the iMac actually depreciates slower. You'd probably be able to get $1600-$1800 after the second year. The biggest portion of this loss was simply that it wasn't "new", similar to what cars experience.

I purchased a 2010 13" MBP for approximately $1000 dollars (refurb) and sold it a year later for $850. This was a slightly greater loss of a bit over 1/6th. Still again much better than any other investment.

Thirdly, with ROI you're calculating how much usage you got out of the machine for the year AND how much you sold it for. So I would have only needed to of gained $400 worth of use from my iMac example for it to break even. I think I accomplished more than that in utility throughout the year. I would say even more so in the terms of the 13" MBP, because it was my only machine for a year, and I managed to do all of my photo editing and journaling on it for a year for a job that heavily required both.

Fourth, no matter what you do or you do not do, depreciation always occurs. With the loss of depreciation it doesn't matter if you keep a machine 1 year or 10 years, loss is loss.

In determining the profits (net income) from an activity, the receipts from the activity must be reduced by appropriate costs. One such cost is the cost of assets used but not immediately consumed in the activity. Such cost so allocated in a given period is equal to the reduction in the value placed on the asset, which is initially equal to the amount paid for the asset and subsequently may or may not be related to the amount expected to be received upon its disposal. Depreciation is any method of allocating such net cost to those periods in which the organisation is expected to benefit from use of the asset. The asset is referred to as a depreciable asset. Depreciation is technically a method of allocation, not valuation, even though it determines the value placed on the asset in the balance sheet.

Any business or income producing activity using tangible assets may incur costs related to those assets. If an asset is expected to produce a benefit in future periods, some of these costs must be deferred rather than treated as a current expense. The business then records depreciation expense in its financial reporting as the current period's allocation of such costs. This is usually done in a rational and systematic manner. Generally this involves four criteria:

cost of the asset,
expected salvage value, also known as residual value of the asset,
estimated useful life of the asset, and
a method of apportioning the cost over such life.

Using even the most basic concepts of depreciation selling a computer after it has lost one year of depreciation and buying another one isn't nearly as big a deal as you make it out to be.

And yes, even after ONE YEAR there is depreciation. You can't argue this, it's a fact. Depreciation occurs immediately after purchase in the case of a lot of new items. I brought up cars earlier, and computers fall under depreciation after purchase as well. As soon as you are the owner, you can't get full price on any machine. However, Apple machines lose significantly less than their PC counterparts. Flipping them like I've said earlier is extremely easy. Almost trivial if you know anything about the market.

 

[seanclayton]

Macbook Pro.

 

[flwolf]

Asking this here instead of making a new thread. I have a 27" iMac that has the ATI 6970m 1gb card. I'm thinking of getting the 15" retina with the 650m. Which is the more powerful video card?

 

[mikeblas]

The 6970M is faster.

 

[flwolf]

The 6970M is faster.

Thanks.