[The Godfather]

iMac/A 233MHz 192MB 4GB CD
bought for $1300 in Jan 1998, sold for $500 in Dec 2000
28% depreciation per year*

iBookG4 800MHz 512MB 30GB Combo drive
bought for $1100 in April 2004, sold for $600 in May 2006
19% depreciation per year

MacBook 2GHz 2GB 60GB Superdrive
bought for $1200 in May 2006, would go for $900 in eBay today
22% depreciation per year <- I saw my mistake

*Using the formula: (1-(sellprice/buyprice)^(1/yearsowned))*100%

Seems like in general, the return of Jobs has spawned computers that are more desirable to keep and buy, even when old. I had speculated that new Macs would become obsolete faster on Intel chips, but they really don't. This may be because of the x86 MHz race ended at some point on 2004 or 2005. done absolutely nothing for anyone.

[Lateralus]

Yeah, your little formula has a number of flaws.

One of which you mentioned; The level of development in processors has stagnated recently.

And the other thing being that you'd have to think back a very long while to find another period in Mac history where models were going this long without updates.

Not to mention that the price something is eventually sold off for is dependent on more things than I can count.

[Mastrap]

You also have to think back a long time in Mac history when models were as good and capable as today's Macs.

[goMac]

IMO Intels hold their value far worse. Look at the Macbook Pros. A C1D 2.16 Macbook Pro was around $2800 at release, it's now around $1400.

[The Godfather]

Originally Posted by Lateralus 

Yeah, your little formula has a number of flaws.

One of which you mentioned; The level of development in processors has stagnated recently.

And the other thing being that you'd have to think back a very long while to find another period in Mac history where models were going this long without updates.

Not to mention that the price something is eventually sold off for is dependent on more things than I can count.

Didn't I formulate my equation correctly? It measures the depreciation of a product in a year, it takes empirical data and returns an empirical result.

Shouldn't the answer to the thread title be derived from averaging a bunch of empirical results?

[Obi Wan's Ghost]

Originally Posted by The Godfather 

Didn't I formulate my equation correctly? It measures the depreciation of a product in a year, it takes empirical data and returns an empirical result.

But like he said, performance improvements to x86 CPUs haven't been as progressive lately as they used to be. They're adding more cores and tweaks but Moore's Law per CPU core appears to be vanishing. That's why Intel computers are holding their value better now than they used to. If you went back to when iMac/A and iBook G4 were released, Intel machines lost something closer to 50% of their value per year.

[macintologist]

My 1.83ghz Intel iMac with 2GB RAM and 250GB hard drive was bought for $1600 from Apple in Feb 2006. Now I think I could sell it for around $1000. That is an average of 27% deprecation per year. Good or bad?

[Salty]

I think in general people don't want to give up their Macs near as much. Not to mention a while ago we got to the point where for the tasks most people do, processor speed doesn't actually matter THAT much. I mean I'm kinda prosumer, I dabble in lots of pro apps, and even my 1Ghz G4 PowerBook really wasn't that much slower than my new CD MacBook. Now technically the MacBook blows it out of the water. But for most things my PowerBook even now isn't really all that bad, I still use it sometimes. And OS X doesn't have he same kind of bloat you see in Vista. So there really are fewer reasons to upgrade. Now of course there will always be reasons to upgrade every few years. But on the Mac side it will probably be that Apple will always keep the newest flashiest OS running fine on hardware up to four years old.

[Luca Rescigno]

I think your math is wrong. I'm no mathematician, but here's how I think it would be done:

In the first case, you lost $800 in about 3 years, out of a $1300 value. That's $267 a year. $267 divided by $1300 is 20.5% per year.

In the second, you lost $500 in two years, with the original price being $1100. $250 a year. $250 / $1100 = 22.7% per year.

In the third, you lost $300 in a year, with the original price being $1200. $300 a year. $300 / $1200 = 25% per year.

Are you using a compound interest formula? Even then, your conclusion of 12% a year on the last one is utterly crazy, since you lost 25% of the value ($300) in one year. Okay, you could say that there were an extra three months in there but that's still not much of an effect.

Furthermore, computer prices are declining, in addition to technology stagnating as Lat mentioned. You get more computer for less money than you used to (not just in absolute terms, but in relative terms as well).

[Lateralus]

pwn3d

[wallinbl]

What if it has more to do with the increase in sales (more used items now on the market due to higher sales of new items) than processor?

[The Godfather]

Originally Posted by Luca Rescigno 

Are you using a compound interest formula? Even then, your conclusion of 12% a year on the last one is utterly crazy, since you lost 25% of the value ($300) in one year. Okay, you could say that there were an extra three months in there but that's still not much of an effect.

Yes. The formula I used is compound depreciation, derived from this:

Where A=900, P=1200, n=1.17 (14 months).
It resolves r=22%
Ah. I see my mistake now.

[Kenneth]

Aside from the 'formula', I do have the feeling that Intel Macs don't hold their value.

[Goldfinger]

iBooks keep their value too well IMHO. The prices that are being asked for ibooks are beyond reasonable. That's why I went with a second hand Thinkpad X23 in december 2006 too fill my basic portable need. For the money I payed for it I could barely get a low end G4 iBook and lots of G3 iBooks. Both were not a serious option.

The Mac second hand market is out of hand (it has always been). It's great for the seller but buying a second hand Mac isn't always great. Especially for people like us who actually know the real value of the stuff we're buying.

[Eriamjh]

A better question would be do Intel Macs hold their value better than the equivalent Intel PCs?