I'm considering trying this with the MacBook I bought a few months ago (to upgrade back to the 15" MBP that I miss), but to be honest, I've heard so many horror stories about trying to sell computers on Craigslist and eBay that I'm a little spooked by the prospect.
I suggest Amazon Marketplace. Prices are higher, but people who shop for used items there will pay a premium to have a smooth transaction and be done with it.
- Only buy good products, like the Air. If Apple releases a
lemon, it’s not going to hold its value well.
- Buy at the start of a release cycle. It’s unlikely Apple will
replace one of its own products within a year.
The problem with the above, is that it's harder to know if the product is a lemon if you buy too soon in the product cycle. I suppose someone could do an analysis of news articles and determine when you have a good chance of spotting a lemon. (People with SSD drives buying a new i5 or i7 13" Macbook Pro are an example of people bitten by an Apple-lemon.)
If you follow the rules to a T (ship only to confirmed U.S. addresses, ship with tracking, require a signature) you're covered in the eyes of PayPal.
I've probably sold 5 laptops and (easily) 10 phones for myself and friends on eBay.
Cover your bases, require PayPal and a confirmed address. Don't budge on these points and you'll be fine.
PROTIPS:
* Absolutely start with a $1 lowest bid, no reserve. The market will bring your laptop up to acceptable prices.
* Include as many words and pictures as you can in your description. I routinely just copy the specs from one of the tear-down sites for my exact model and paste them in. Buyers find comfort in knowing exactly what they're buying.
* Take as many hi-res pictures as you can. Don't worry about the scratch. Buyers find comfort in knowing exactly what they're buying.
* This is hugely overlooked: Make your auction end on a Friday or Saturday night around 11pm EST. This is when the nerds with money are sitting on their couch putzing around eBay looking for a new lappy.
For someone who has only sold two or three things, it is always awesome to hear this type of advice from experienced sellers.
Can you explain why you recommend passing on the reserve? Even if the product will sell for a price that the market considers acceptable 100% of the time, what is the harm in setting a reserve regardless?
Only because it turns some experienced buyers off. And your dream buyer is an experienced buyer.
A reserve means the seller can bail at any point up until that reserve is met.
Imagine that you're selling a laptop that's going for around $800 in other auctions. But you're not entirely sure you even want to sell your laptop. You put a $2,000 reserve on it just to leave the option to bail available at the end. An experienced buyer realizes this and will likely just pass on your item out of principle.
If it would make you feel better to place a reserve on your item, at least state right up front what your reserve price is and why you've placed it in the first place.
In my experience, however, I've never once been low-balled on an auction. There's a median price for your item in it's condition across the entire marketplace. If you're OK with that median price, don't post a reserve.
Spell your brand and product name correctly and you're virtually guaranteed to get close to that price in the end.
I've benefited before from eBay flukes so I always set a reasonable reserve price. I wouldn't suggest setting it too high but I think people understand there is a minimum price you're willing to sell at. I also usually set a buy it now price, requiring immediate payment, at about a 5-10% discount of other recently completed auctions for the same item. If someone is willing to save me the hassle of answering tons of questions, or re-listing the item when inevitably the first few buyers don't pay, I'm happy to give them a discount. In my experience with eBay in the last few years don't be surprised at all if you have to list the item several times before you find a paying buyer.
Are they really protips? When I started out on eBay I just looked at what the most succesful auctions did and the above points were all included. Granted someone with not a lot of time might find these useful. A nice line I like to drop at the end of the text is:"all fun-bidders will hear from my lawyer" (this is translated from German so it might not work as well in English)
This shows that you're serious and has raised the price people are willing to go for to about 90% of what I originally paid, which is pretty impressive when you consider that it's used.
Do NOT make your auction ends on Friday and Saturday night. I always list my auctions for 10 days (longest possible for private seller), starting on Thursday or Friday night, so they will end on Sunday or Monday, when people don't go out. With that I'm maximizing the number of people who look at my auction (potential bidders) and the number of people who is available at the time my auctions end (actual bidder).
Great advice! This is the same strategy that I have developed with my own auctions and have been able fetch top dollar every time. I would also add:
*Never sell anything as a bundle, always separate it out into different auctions.
eBay is indeed difficult, but Craigslist is easy. Only sell to local buyers for cash or a money order from a trusted establishment, and it's fairly low risk and effort. Shipping to people remotely through eBay and Paypal is sketchy as hell, and Paypal offers very little fraud protection for the seller.
Craigslist is fine with some precaution--meet in a public place and trust but verify. Do not just take their word, seek evidence like receipts etc. Also, cashier's checks/money orders are pretty cheap and would be relatively safe to accept. Amazon and eBay take a huge chunk out and you can still have the person reverse the Paypal transaction, so nothing full-proof and I don't think the added price is worth it.
The only way you can keep this with the numbers given here is if you buy near the start of a release cycle and always sell before it ends. In order to do both, you have to both predict the release schedule well AND spend a month or more with no computer while you wait for the new release.
The numbers in the long run are weaker, since some of your purchases will invariably cross release cycle boundaries. Buying a new one every year may in fact cost less than buying a new one every 2 years (depending on the resell curve, which you do not know in advance). Regardless, it's certainly not such a clear win that you can insult the intelligence of everyone that doesn't behave this way.
However, this works VERY well with iPhones. I have had every iPhone starting with the 3G, and have upgraded each year. Both times, I have sold my previous phone on ebay for at least $100 MORE than the subsidized cost of my new one.
> I have sold my previous phone on ebay for at least $100 MORE than the subsidized cost of my new one.
Are you paying the full price of the phone when you bought it? Or your cell plan paying part of it (subsidized)? In the later case, the sold phone is still being paid until the cell plan finishes.
Well aware of this (though I think it's actually $600 for the cheapest in the US). I'm simply pointing out that if you are planning to remain on a given network for a long time, there's no reason not to upgrade the phone every year to the newest available model AND make a little money.
US carriers do require this. After one year, AT&T usually lets you get the newest iPhone at the subsidized cost if you sign another contract. It still locks you in to two years from the date that you last bought a new phone.
But is the old contract still in effect ? If yes, then the profit selling his old phone probably doesn't cover the money he must paid for one year left of the old contract. That's why i'm confused.
Whether or not this experience works for everyone, I have found that Apple laptops/desktops hold their value much longer than their PC counterparts. I'm not sure if its because Apple tends to spec their machines more on the mid to high-end of capabilities that allow them to be used longer in a changing market.
It's because a Macbook is a Macbook whether its 2005 of 2011, but some HP-24x454 vs a MX311 is meaningless. That's why Motorola/Samsung are making their Droid/Galaxy lines.
The real issue is because HP may release the 24x454 at $2000, but in three weeks Dell releases the Latitude XY1 that is $100 cheaper with the same specs. Two months later, Acer has the same specs at $250 cheaper.
In the PC world your pricing competes against every manufacturer. So HP has to push their prices down on next rev.
Whereas no one else can make an Apple computer. They can set a price and keep it fixed for a year. There's no knockoffs that can undercut them.
Don't underestimate how many people want a Mac or want to try a Mac, but cannot or do not want to spend the 'entrance fee'.
From this perspective it's a shame that lowest-spec Mac Mini is more expensive than the previous generation. The 'white' Mac Mini sold for 499 Euro in The Netherlands, while the aluminum Mini is 699 Euro. This excludes many families with a lower income.
I used to think backing up was a chore and dreaded moving to a new computer.
after a while I spent a day improving the way I work, all of my code (and my configurations) are backed up to github as I work, I store personal stuff I actually want to keep on dropbox or an external drive
I stopped being afraid of moving computers (or more likely, my current computer dying), transitioning to a new computer would take me in the matter of minutes not days, and I dont have to worry about potentially losing files, now I regularly reformat my computer just to get the "fresh install" feel
Destroying your files is a single step, well-implemented in Mac OS, and you don't even have to do this if you simply install a fresh OS and use the right settings.
Selling your old laptop is easy via Craigslist.
Copying files takes a few minutes with FireWire disk mode.
There is no separate step for "personal settings"; those are copied over when you copy your home directory over.
There is also almost never a new keyboard layout.
There is almost never a major hardware issue, either.
Destroying your files is a single step, well-implemented in Mac OS, and you don't even have to do this if you simply install a fresh OS and use the right settings
I don't think installing a fresh OS will remove personal data sufficiently. But maybe there is a setting to do a secure clean?
There's a secure wipe option. You can crank it up to some absurdly paranoid set of passes, although it takes a day or two to complete at that level given a reasonably large drive.
A day or two is fine. I had a friend who would go through old donated computers to get data off of them. I think the odds are pretty high that people will try on a given machine you give away.
There is no way to detect HD contents past the current write. It has never been demonstrated that anyone has done it, and data recovery companies will not recover your disk if you accidentally erase the blocks. The misconception that you can do that comes from a misreading of a paper by Gutmann that only applied to an obsolete disk recording method in the first place.
The reason people use methods other than 1-pass erasing is because of marketing thinking that more passes looks better on the product features. Or because the IT people enjoy buying heavy machinery so they can destroy stuff with it.
So my last 2 laptop upgrades I never even booted the new laptop as it was (though I did turn it on to make sure it worked). I took it and my old laptop apart and swapped the disks. Took about 5 minutes each time and I'm rewarded with a computer in exactly the same state as it was before the hardware upgrade. It also leaves the old laptop in a state that's perfect for selling.
Could be interesting if:
- you don't need a custom built laptop (ex: max out ram, replace the optical bay by a 2nd laptop, non US or non local keyboard)
- your time is cheap or you could not afford your laptop otherwise, because time is money even even if it take hours to set up, add that the time to make the transaction, sell, buy a new one, spend time without a laptop etc.
- you make sure you keep the laptop in a pristine state to maximize resell value - ie no tagging or engraving, which could be useful theft deterrent (I have a huge laser-engraved domain name on mine - bigger than the apple logo, because I care more about the data than the potential resale value)
Could be good for students. Not sure about anyone else. And it reeks of a parasitic mindset (suggestion to ask a student to do the purchase to take advantage of their discount or import a US laptop without paying duties/sales tax)
Funny story- I was on vacation and I had a software problem that caused custom made software crash. An urgent need for a big client made a trip to the applestore to buy a new laptop the most logical move- it was already installed. It took an hour for the purchase (trip included), 20 minutes to install the software, do what was required and provide the results. The client got its result 1 hour + 20 minutes after its call.
And that paid for this laptop and a good leftover, not including the great experience for the client who knows that wherever you are, you will deliver on time.
I'd like to offer a counterpoint to the author's suggestion that "you'd be an idiot not to buy [and dispose of] a new laptop every year." I'm a software engineer and put a lot on my computer's shoulders, running an entire cluster's worth of software as part of my development environment.
I value longevity and durability in products I buy. It's nice to pick a machine and stick with it. It's a long-term companion. It's about slowing "disposable computing's" cycle of production and obsolescence. It feels good to prove that, with a few upgrades over its lifetime, a well-engineered product can be useful -- even as a primary computer -- for years to come.
My Spring 2008 MacBook Pro (http://cl.ly/2H1l2X1Q2w181Z2P1Y3P) will be three years old this Saturday, and I couldn't be happier with it. My previous machine was a 15" PowerBook G4 purchased in 2004. Both have been fantastic primary computers. An occasional upgrade and maintenance can make all the difference in extending the useful lifespan of a machine.
A few months in, I maxed out the memory to 4GB, which is still sufficient despite running our entire stack and an IDE or VM. Last summer, I replaced the 7200RPM drive with a 160GB X25-M. A few months ago, I added a second 48GB SSD drive via the ExpressCard slot to regain a bit of the storage sacrificed by choosing a faster drive. Over the three-year lifetime of the machine (so far), these upgrades cost about $625.
During that time, the manufacturer has also done a great job standing behind the laptop, replacing the keyboard/top case, one battery, and one power adapter. I'll take it in for one last servicing before the warranty runs out (to fix an unreliable Caps Lock key and clean the DVD-RW drive I never use), and may purchase one more battery at some point. Aside from this, it's in perfect condition and plenty fast enough for Java/Scala/Python/Ruby/Android development and testing.
This computer's followed me from the week I graduated college as an aspiring freelancer through three years of building a career in software engineering. It's got some life in it yet.
As much as I agree with you about 'disposable computing', he's not really advocating disposing of the computer - he's selling it to somebody else. In the process, he's allowing somebody who couldn't otherwise afford it to buy a long-lasting machine like yours.
It may even be true that he's helping the environment by allowing more people to buy longer lasting machines.
Apple makes it VERY easy to migrate your entire system across machines, thus lubricating this entire process.
That combined with resale make this kit very attractive to their customer base who can instantly choose to be in your camp or the author's camp.
On the other hand, the market probably doesn't value modifications or add-ons as well, so re-selling my year-old MBP with optical replaced by SSD, 750GB 7200RPM rust platter, and 8GB RAM would probably not be "cost effective".
Lucky for you that that RAM, SSD, and additional drive in the Optibay are fairly standard and can follow you to the new system unless Apple uses different RAM in the next rev. I am in a similar boat and the only thing that gnaws at me is that when I bought the 8G of RAM it was around $600 and now you can get it for close to $200 -- the RAM has depreciated faster than any other part of my laptop.
Hate to add to your pain, but I actually bought my 8GB (2x4GB) kit for $80 (was about 2 months ago).
Aside from an MB Air I bought for my dad (non-upgradeable RAM), I always tell folks to go minimum on RAM spec and find suitable add-on RAM, often 3-6 mo later.
Indeed, my experience is the same. Years ago I tried to sell my 1.5 year old MacBook white (back when it was still the regular consumer model). I could only get a bit more than half of the purchase price. The trick in the article may work sell before the end of the cycle), but I don't want to align to Apple's cycle. What if the cycle is probably going to end, and you have some deadlines?
I concluded that the resale price is too low for such good-quality and durable hardware that I decided I'd rather give my older hardware to family or friends for free or a small compensation. Making someone happy with a good MacBook or Mac Mini is worth more.
I'm not quite sure the every year upgrade makes sense, for all the reasons others mention. But I have seen that if you upgrade on a 2 year, 3 year or 4 year cycle, in South Africa at least, it costs you about the same in the long term.
Historically, I've updated my Mac every time a new release comes out (mostly of Macbook Pros). I've been doing this for about the past eight years.
About a month ago I broke from that pattern and bought an 11" Air (right after the new Macbook Pros came out, and pretty far into the current cycle for the Air's). It was the first time that the new machine was way less powerful than the old one (also, so far, the best machine I've ever had).
Usually I'd sell my old laptop for about 66% of the price of the new one. Originally, I sold them on Ebay, but it got to be a pain in the ass dealing with people there (I had one guy complain after buying a Macbook Pro from me that the screen had smudges on it. Not marks mind you, but "easilly wiped off with a rag smudges".)
After that I started selling them either to friends or on craigslist.
I've always considered laptops to be disposable computers.
Are the people buying used, at a student discount price, really getting a machine of that value? If it's out of warranty, any small hardware problem means disposal.
Apple certainly has a strong brand with high perceived reliability. That's not value. Here's the rub: Warranty extends to the expected life of the machine, set by the producer of said product.
I could be wrong, but I don't think there's anything illegal about having a student buy a laptap and then immediately resell it to you. (On the other hand, it might be illegal to directly claim that you are a student when you really aren't.) Whether you think that's immoral probably has to do with how moral you think price discrimination is in general.
Require as in "we hope you do what we ask" or require as in "you've signed a legal document"?
Considering I was a big Apple fanboi when I was in college and I've never signed a legal document in an Apple store, my guess is that it's the first one.
I have worked at an apple store, we only require proof that you are a student(student id, transcript, staff paycheck) and a drivers license #.
There is no check for the student pricing. You are however limited to buying one computer a year with the discount. So if you try to buy another computer within a year using an education discount with the same DL, you will be denied the discount.
Putting "From the Apple Sales and Refund Policy… Purchases from the Apple Store for Education Individuals are not for institutional purchase or resale" in a refund policy or anywhere does not mean Apple has the right to restrict resales.
It doesn't say Apple can prevent the resale, it says the buyer is not entitled to the educational pricing if they are buying the machine for the purpose of resale. The fraud is for the student to buy a machine under the pretext of using it himself, knowing full well that he is buying it for resale.
I'm sure it's either in, or incorporated by reference, that text that people don't read about accepting conditions of a sale.
In practice, Apple can't afford to sue every weasely kid who thinks he's entitled to free money for being clever. So they also restrict it to one computer a year and take their losses on the young criminal masterminds.
Apple's Computers are getting faster and cheaper with every release. Almost as fast as the competition, in some cases faster. The difference is, that used Apple products don't loose their value as fast.
I got my first Mac this year and I have to acknowledge, this company earned their high profit margins very well.
Oh, and I agree with the other posters. You can not, as the author suggests, sell before a new release, if you need a computer all the time. He switched the product line, from a Pro to an Air, so this might be the reason why he has overseen this problem.
Interesting. A friend of mine used to be an amateur cyclist, at the highest (non-pro) level. Through his club he could buy a bike for very good prices. So he'd buy it for 2.5 grand instead of 5, use it for a year, and sell it half price...so 2.5 grand.
It's a one-off big investment, but from then on he had a new bike every year, practically free.
72 comments
[ 0.24 ms ] story [ 93.5 ms ] threadIf you follow the rules to a T (ship only to confirmed U.S. addresses, ship with tracking, require a signature) you're covered in the eyes of PayPal.
I've probably sold 5 laptops and (easily) 10 phones for myself and friends on eBay.
Cover your bases, require PayPal and a confirmed address. Don't budge on these points and you'll be fine.
PROTIPS:
* Absolutely start with a $1 lowest bid, no reserve. The market will bring your laptop up to acceptable prices.
* Include as many words and pictures as you can in your description. I routinely just copy the specs from one of the tear-down sites for my exact model and paste them in. Buyers find comfort in knowing exactly what they're buying.
* Take as many hi-res pictures as you can. Don't worry about the scratch. Buyers find comfort in knowing exactly what they're buying.
* This is hugely overlooked: Make your auction end on a Friday or Saturday night around 11pm EST. This is when the nerds with money are sitting on their couch putzing around eBay looking for a new lappy.
Can you explain why you recommend passing on the reserve? Even if the product will sell for a price that the market considers acceptable 100% of the time, what is the harm in setting a reserve regardless?
A reserve means the seller can bail at any point up until that reserve is met.
Imagine that you're selling a laptop that's going for around $800 in other auctions. But you're not entirely sure you even want to sell your laptop. You put a $2,000 reserve on it just to leave the option to bail available at the end. An experienced buyer realizes this and will likely just pass on your item out of principle.
If it would make you feel better to place a reserve on your item, at least state right up front what your reserve price is and why you've placed it in the first place.
In my experience, however, I've never once been low-balled on an auction. There's a median price for your item in it's condition across the entire marketplace. If you're OK with that median price, don't post a reserve.
Spell your brand and product name correctly and you're virtually guaranteed to get close to that price in the end.
This shows that you're serious and has raised the price people are willing to go for to about 90% of what I originally paid, which is pretty impressive when you consider that it's used.
The only way you can keep this with the numbers given here is if you buy near the start of a release cycle and always sell before it ends. In order to do both, you have to both predict the release schedule well AND spend a month or more with no computer while you wait for the new release.
The numbers in the long run are weaker, since some of your purchases will invariably cross release cycle boundaries. Buying a new one every year may in fact cost less than buying a new one every 2 years (depending on the resell curve, which you do not know in advance). Regardless, it's certainly not such a clear win that you can insult the intelligence of everyone that doesn't behave this way.
However, this works VERY well with iPhones. I have had every iPhone starting with the 3G, and have upgraded each year. Both times, I have sold my previous phone on ebay for at least $100 MORE than the subsidized cost of my new one.
Are you paying the full price of the phone when you bought it? Or your cell plan paying part of it (subsidized)? In the later case, the sold phone is still being paid until the cell plan finishes.
Buy iPhone 3GS June 2009, Contract ends in June 2011. June 2010, sell 3GS, buy iPhone 4 and now contract ends 2012.
It is an early upgrade which requires you to sign a new two-year contract.
Or have a desktop computer too.
In the PC world your pricing competes against every manufacturer. So HP has to push their prices down on next rev.
Whereas no one else can make an Apple computer. They can set a price and keep it fixed for a year. There's no knockoffs that can undercut them.
From this perspective it's a shame that lowest-spec Mac Mini is more expensive than the previous generation. The 'white' Mac Mini sold for 499 Euro in The Netherlands, while the aluminum Mini is 699 Euro. This excludes many families with a lower income.
- backup my files / projects
- destroy my personal files
- sell my old laptop to someone and hopefully get my money
- copy files to the new laptop
- set personal settings ( wallpaper, mouse speed etc )
- and optionally : get used to new keyboard layout
- hope for a fix if there is a some hardware/design error.
for programmers, i think old but working laptop seems fine to me.
after a while I spent a day improving the way I work, all of my code (and my configurations) are backed up to github as I work, I store personal stuff I actually want to keep on dropbox or an external drive
I stopped being afraid of moving computers (or more likely, my current computer dying), transitioning to a new computer would take me in the matter of minutes not days, and I dont have to worry about potentially losing files, now I regularly reformat my computer just to get the "fresh install" feel
Selling your old laptop is easy via Craigslist.
Copying files takes a few minutes with FireWire disk mode.
There is no separate step for "personal settings"; those are copied over when you copy your home directory over.
There is also almost never a new keyboard layout.
There is almost never a major hardware issue, either.
I don't think installing a fresh OS will remove personal data sufficiently. But maybe there is a setting to do a secure clean?
And of course erasing an SSD is near-instant.
The reason people use methods other than 1-pass erasing is because of marketing thinking that more passes looks better on the product features. Or because the IT people enjoy buying heavy machinery so they can destroy stuff with it.
1) Swap in your old hard drive into the new machine
2) Copy hard drive over (dd even) and format
Could be good for students. Not sure about anyone else. And it reeks of a parasitic mindset (suggestion to ask a student to do the purchase to take advantage of their discount or import a US laptop without paying duties/sales tax)
Funny story- I was on vacation and I had a software problem that caused custom made software crash. An urgent need for a big client made a trip to the applestore to buy a new laptop the most logical move- it was already installed. It took an hour for the purchase (trip included), 20 minutes to install the software, do what was required and provide the results. The client got its result 1 hour + 20 minutes after its call.
And that paid for this laptop and a good leftover, not including the great experience for the client who knows that wherever you are, you will deliver on time.
I value longevity and durability in products I buy. It's nice to pick a machine and stick with it. It's a long-term companion. It's about slowing "disposable computing's" cycle of production and obsolescence. It feels good to prove that, with a few upgrades over its lifetime, a well-engineered product can be useful -- even as a primary computer -- for years to come.
My Spring 2008 MacBook Pro (http://cl.ly/2H1l2X1Q2w181Z2P1Y3P) will be three years old this Saturday, and I couldn't be happier with it. My previous machine was a 15" PowerBook G4 purchased in 2004. Both have been fantastic primary computers. An occasional upgrade and maintenance can make all the difference in extending the useful lifespan of a machine.
A few months in, I maxed out the memory to 4GB, which is still sufficient despite running our entire stack and an IDE or VM. Last summer, I replaced the 7200RPM drive with a 160GB X25-M. A few months ago, I added a second 48GB SSD drive via the ExpressCard slot to regain a bit of the storage sacrificed by choosing a faster drive. Over the three-year lifetime of the machine (so far), these upgrades cost about $625.
During that time, the manufacturer has also done a great job standing behind the laptop, replacing the keyboard/top case, one battery, and one power adapter. I'll take it in for one last servicing before the warranty runs out (to fix an unreliable Caps Lock key and clean the DVD-RW drive I never use), and may purchase one more battery at some point. Aside from this, it's in perfect condition and plenty fast enough for Java/Scala/Python/Ruby/Android development and testing.
This computer's followed me from the week I graduated college as an aspiring freelancer through three years of building a career in software engineering. It's got some life in it yet.
It may even be true that he's helping the environment by allowing more people to buy longer lasting machines.
Only very slightly. He's selling it for almost the same price he bought it for, but happens to have a student discount that makes it 15% cheaper.
That combined with resale make this kit very attractive to their customer base who can instantly choose to be in your camp or the author's camp.
On the other hand, the market probably doesn't value modifications or add-ons as well, so re-selling my year-old MBP with optical replaced by SSD, 750GB 7200RPM rust platter, and 8GB RAM would probably not be "cost effective".
Aside from an MB Air I bought for my dad (non-upgradeable RAM), I always tell folks to go minimum on RAM spec and find suitable add-on RAM, often 3-6 mo later.
I concluded that the resale price is too low for such good-quality and durable hardware that I decided I'd rather give my older hardware to family or friends for free or a small compensation. Making someone happy with a good MacBook or Mac Mini is worth more.
Load it up with expensive software and you will earn a higher resale value.
About a month ago I broke from that pattern and bought an 11" Air (right after the new Macbook Pros came out, and pretty far into the current cycle for the Air's). It was the first time that the new machine was way less powerful than the old one (also, so far, the best machine I've ever had).
Usually I'd sell my old laptop for about 66% of the price of the new one. Originally, I sold them on Ebay, but it got to be a pain in the ass dealing with people there (I had one guy complain after buying a Macbook Pro from me that the screen had smudges on it. Not marks mind you, but "easilly wiped off with a rag smudges".)
After that I started selling them either to friends or on craigslist.
Are the people buying used, at a student discount price, really getting a machine of that value? If it's out of warranty, any small hardware problem means disposal.
Apple certainly has a strong brand with high perceived reliability. That's not value. Here's the rub: Warranty extends to the expected life of the machine, set by the producer of said product.
Everything else is brand loyalty.
Edit: Added after the jrockway and tylerhowath replied, but didn't want to reply to both:
From the Apple Sales and Refund Policy… Purchases from the Apple Store for Education Individuals are not for institutional purchase or resale.
I presume the same applies to the in store discount. Apple has enough lawyers to cross that "t".
Considering I was a big Apple fanboi when I was in college and I've never signed a legal document in an Apple store, my guess is that it's the first one.
There is no check for the student pricing. You are however limited to buying one computer a year with the discount. So if you try to buy another computer within a year using an education discount with the same DL, you will be denied the discount.
I'm sure it's either in, or incorporated by reference, that text that people don't read about accepting conditions of a sale.
In practice, Apple can't afford to sue every weasely kid who thinks he's entitled to free money for being clever. So they also restrict it to one computer a year and take their losses on the young criminal masterminds.
I got my first Mac this year and I have to acknowledge, this company earned their high profit margins very well.
Oh, and I agree with the other posters. You can not, as the author suggests, sell before a new release, if you need a computer all the time. He switched the product line, from a Pro to an Air, so this might be the reason why he has overseen this problem.
It's a one-off big investment, but from then on he had a new bike every year, practically free.