[seec]

It used to be very true, but with Apple's popularity the second-hand market is quite saturated (especially since there are many people buying them impulsively).

Unless you have a specific configuration, depreciation isn't much better than an equivalently priced PC. In fact, my experience is that the long tail value of the PC is better if you picked something that was high-end.

[hot_gril]

I don't know. Can't imagine it's easy to sell a used Windows laptop directly to begin with, and those big resellers probably offer very little. Even refurbished Dell Latitudes seem to go for cheap on eBay. I've had an easy time selling old Macs, or high-end desktop market might be simple too.

[seec]

Macs are easy to sell if they are BtO with custom configuration, in that case you may not lose too much. But the depreciation hit hard on the base models, the market is flooded because people who buy those machines tend to change them often or are people who were trying, confused, etc.

Low end PCs (mostly laptops) don't keep value very well but then again you probably got them for cheap on a deal or something like that, so your depreciation might actually not be as bad as an equivalent Mac. The units you are talking about are entreprise stuff that are swapped every 3 years or so, for accounting reasons mostly, but it's not the type of stuff I would advise anyone to buy brand new (the strategy would actually be to pick up a second-hand unit).

High-end PCs, laptops or big desktops keep their value pretty well because they are niche by definition and very rare. Depending on your original choice you may actually have a better depreciation than an equivalently priced Mac because there are fewer of them on sale at any given time.

It all depends on your personal situation, strength of local market, ease of reselling through platforms that provides trust and many other variables.

What I meant is that it's not the early 2000's anymore, where you could offload a relatively new Mac (2-3 years) very easily; while not being hit by big depreciation because they were not very common.

In my medium sized town, there is a local second-hand electronic shop where they have all kinds of Mac at all kind of price points. High-end Razers sell for more money and are a rare sight. It's pretty much the same for iPhones, you see 3 years old models hit very hard with depreciation while some niche Android phones take a smaller hit.

Apple went through a weird strategy where at the same time they went for luxury pricing by overcharging for things that makes the experience much better (RAM/storage) but also tried to make it affordable to the mass (by largely compromising on things they shouldn't have).

Apple's behavior created a shady second-hand market with lots of moving part (things being shipped in and out of china) and this is all their doing.

[hot_gril]

Well these listed prices are asks, not bids, so they only give an upper bound on the value. I've tried to sell obscure things before where there are few or 0 other sellers, and no matter what you list it for, you might never find the buyer who wants that specific thing.

And the electronic shop is probably going to fetch a higher price than an individual seller would, due to trust factor as you mentioned. So have you managed to sell old Windows PCs for decent prices in some local market?