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Jim Paradise · Jul 10, 2004, 12:57 PM

I'm thinking of selling my 15 inch ghz Tibook to buy one of the new Albooks. How much in Canadian $ could I expect to fetch for a ghz Tibook with 60 gig, Airport, two batteries, one 512 dimm of RAM, and the Radeon 9000? I'd throw in iLife and some other programs/games with it. If the difference between what I'd get for the Tibook and what I'd pay for the Albook is too much, I won't bother selling it so I'm just trying to get a general idea of what I could expect for this laptop.

*edited* Does Apple Canada have a trade-up program?

VertigoBob · Jul 10, 2004, 01:02 PM

not sure of what you could get for a used TiBook (maybe try looking on eBay and see what used TiBooks are fetching on there?) but I do know the average price for a well configured 15" AlBook is around $2,600 USD (you can get it for cheaper if you are a college student or work for the gov't though

)

Jim Paradise · Jul 10, 2004, 01:35 PM

Originally posted by VertigoBob:
not sure of what you could get for a used TiBook (maybe try looking on eBay and see what used TiBooks are fetching on there?) but I do know the average price for a well configured 15" AlBook is around $2,600 USD (you can get it for cheaper if you are a college student or work for the gov't though )

Yeah, I'll definitely get it with the student discount as I did with the Tibook. I can't quite tell, but it seems the current Albooks are cheaper than the old Tibooks. I looked on eBay but most of the Powerbooks being solder there are the newer ones.

Mitser · Jul 10, 2004, 06:11 PM

A freind of mine sold an 867 TiBook about 2 months ago for a good 1300usd so I would think you could probably get 1300-1500usd without too much trouble. I am just estimating though by what my buddy sold his for.

TailsToo · Jul 11, 2004, 09:32 AM

I think it's worth about $1600-1700 US.

Just a question - why are looking to replace it? The speed of the newer models for day to day use is not that much faster than what you have now.

Jim Paradise · Jul 12, 2004, 08:53 AM

Originally posted by TailsToo:
I think it's worth about $1600-1700 US.

Just a question - why are looking to replace it? The speed of the newer models for day to day use is not that much faster than what you have now.

Ehh... not looking to replace it for too much of a good reason.

I was sittin' 'round thinking that maybe if the selling price was right, that I could do a slight bit of future-proofing and grab one of the new Albooks even if for something like having the Radeon 9700 for CoreImage/Video. (That and the silver keyboards have grown on me a bit...) But as I said, it's all depending on how much I could snag for my current Powerbook. I mean, if I were to sell it, better sooner than later.

iREZ · Jul 12, 2004, 11:22 AM

I think you could get around the 1300-1400 range on ebay, but if I were you I would just keep it and upgrade on the next rev of G4's, or if the G5 comes out you could get a new G5 or a Rev C for lots less.

Synotic · Jul 12, 2004, 12:01 PM

I was in the exact same boat as you... I had a 1GHz Titanium PowerBook and although I had no specific problems, I wanted to upgrade to the AluBook to protect myself. It was just a collection of little things like fan noise, weak hinges etc... I decided to sell it on eBay although I was a little unsure because I had never used it before. Anyways, I offered a mint condition TiBook with a gig of ram, 60GB hard drive and no extras app or accessory wise. I included Jaguar and OS 9 discs with it. I sold it a few months ago and got, I feel, a very good price of 1,830. Of course a bit of was luck a gig of ram and the time I sold it (although it was months after the AluBooks were released). If you do decide to sell your computer, make sure you take good pictures, and make your page nice and clean. Pay a few extra dollars/cents for little things like bolding your topic, putting it near the top etc... I think are worth it for such a high priced item anyways. Also make sure you put the word PowerBook in there instead of TiBook like I did. A search for TiBook revealed my listing and a bunch of rubber feet

Also make sure you respond quickly to e-mail, although in my case, I responded too late from someone offering me 1,550 + fees (which at the time I felt was more than I would get otherwise) to end the auction who ended up buying one from a store... luckily my delay in responding gained me an extra 300 dollars. The guy also paid for shipping. I don't know if there's anything you can learn from that but I figured I should mention it. Anyways, you might already be perfectly acquainted with eBay, but I thought I would share my experience

Jim Paradise · Jul 12, 2004, 02:23 PM

Originally posted by Synotic:
I was in the exact same boat as you... I had a 1GHz Titanium PowerBook and although I had no specific problems, I wanted to upgrade to the AluBook to protect myself. It was just a collection of little things like fan noise, weak hinges etc... I decided to sell it on eBay although I was a little unsure because I had never used it before. Anyways, I offered a mint condition TiBook with a gig of ram, 60GB hard drive and no extras app or accessory wise. I included Jaguar and OS 9 discs with it. I sold it a few months ago and got, I feel, a very good price of 1,830. Of course a bit of was luck a gig of ram and the time I sold it (although it was months after the AluBooks were released). If you do decide to sell your computer, make sure you take good pictures, and make your page nice and clean. Pay a few extra dollars/cents for little things like bolding your topic, putting it near the top etc... I think are worth it for such a high priced item anyways. Also make sure you put the word PowerBook in there instead of TiBook like I did. A search for TiBook revealed my listing and a bunch of rubber feet Also make sure you respond quickly to e-mail, although in my case, I responded too late from someone offering me 1,550 + fees (which at the time I felt was more than I would get otherwise) to end the auction who ended up buying one from a store... luckily my delay in responding gained me an extra 300 dollars. The guy also paid for shipping. I don't know if there's anything you can learn from that but I figured I should mention it. Anyways, you might already be perfectly acquainted with eBay, but I thought I would share my experience

No, I actually haven't sold anything on eBay yet, so this is great advice. Thanks a lot!

Is there a reserve that if it isn't met, I can decline to sell my Powerbook?

In response to your comment, iREZ, my current thinking is that if I were to sell my Powerbook this summer, I could probably fetch a better price for it than if I waited around for the next revision of either a G4/G5 Powerbook, and since I'm not counting on Apple replacing the G4 chips in the Powerbook until at least early next year, I'd rather just upgrade to a 1.5G4 with a better graphics card in the meantime.

SketchPad · Jul 12, 2004, 02:42 PM

Originally posted by Jim Paradise:
Is there a reserve that if it isn't met, I can decline to sell my Powerbook?

Yes there is. You can manually set the "Reserve price" before you
submit your auction. That usually means that people won't have
the rights to purchase your powerbook unless they've met your
minimum reserve. If they do however...then you'll have to sell.
So make sure you set a reserve that you can live with.

Take care,
/SketchPad

Synotic · Jul 12, 2004, 03:40 PM

Originally posted by SketchPad:
Yes there is. You can manually set the "Reserve price" before you
submit your auction. That usually means that people won't have
the rights to purchase your powerbook unless they've met your
minimum reserve. If they do however...then you'll have to sell.
So make sure you set a reserve that you can live with.

Take care,
/SketchPad

Keep in mind that the amount of your reserve is directly proportionate to the amount of fees you pay. But again, in relation to the entire sale, it's not much. Overall, including the listing fee, reserve fee, picture fee (something like 20 cents a picture), bolding my message, it came out to 30 bucks.

Person Man · Jul 13, 2004, 11:37 AM

Originally posted by SketchPad:
Yes there is. You can manually set the "Reserve price" before you
submit your auction. That usually means that people won't have
the rights to purchase your powerbook unless they've met your
minimum reserve. If they do however...then you'll have to sell.
So make sure you set a reserve that you can live with.

Take care,
/SketchPad

Also, make sure you REALLY want to set a reserve price, too. The few times I've sold items with reserve prices on eBay, I ended up not selling any of them. But the moment I listed the same thing as starting at 1 cent, I started getting tons of bids.

Many people are scared away from bidding on reserve auctions, I guess.

Oh, and in each of those cases I ended up getting more than my reserve.

Synotic · Jul 13, 2004, 01:58 PM

Originally posted by Person Man:
Also, make sure you REALLY want to set a reserve price, too. The few times I've sold items with reserve prices on eBay, I ended up not selling any of them. But the moment I listed the same thing as starting at 1 cent, I started getting tons of bids.

Many people are scared away from bidding on reserve auctions, I guess.

Oh, and in each of those cases I ended up getting more than my reserve.

Are you talking about starting bid or reserve? I agree that setting a high starting bid is a bit ridiculous, even unnecessary. I started mine at $100. As for a reserve, I'm not sure I totally agree with your statement. I don't think that the very existance of a reserve drives people away. Just don't put the reserve price too high.