s/h laptop prices

michaelab

michaelab

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I'm selling my 1yr old Dell Latitude C400 laptop. It's a PIII 1.2Ghz with 512Mb RAM, 20Gb HDD, built in LAN + 56Kbps modem and external DVD drive.

The equivalent spec Dell D400 laptop (the C400 is no longer made but the D400 is pretty much identical apart from newer faster processors) would cost about £1700 from Dell (roughly what I paid for mine new) so I thought £1K would be a fair s/h price.

I've now looked on eBay and found D400s (even higher spec) going for £640 :eek: WTF?? :confused:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3446184619&category=3713

How can an essentially brand new laptop that retails for £1700+ be on eBay for just £640 (and it was a £30 starting bid with no reserve :eek: ) ???

I have 2 or 3 potential buyers in Portugal who are willing to pay close to £1K but as they're all friends of mine I'd feel pretty sh*t doing that knowing they almost certainly paid way over the odds for it. Dilemma.

Michael.
 
The price of laptops have plumited in the last year due to massive decrease in the cost of power efficient TFT screens and other laptop conponents. I paid £170 for a P233MMX laptop 6 months ago, I've seen PII 300's going for that now.
 
Michael,

Laptops aren't upgradable, if you buy a second hand tower/desktop you can upgrade the processor, ram, etc ... quite cheaply, the only thing you can upgrade in a laptop is the RAM which is very costly.

Anyhow back to watching the 3rd of the Ring DVD's, I was told I'd s*&t myself but not so far.
 
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Yeah thats also apart of the problem, a PIII 1.2ghz is more than enough now but in 3 years time it won't be able to run the latest operating system that will be out by then.

At least with desktops all you need to do is replace the motherboard/cpu and maybe RAM every few years. I am still using my old 15gb hard drive and a CD-ROM I bought in 1998.
 
Originally posted by michaelab
I have 2 or 3 potential buyers in Portugal who are willing to pay close to £1K but as they're all friends of mine I'd feel pretty sh*t doing that knowing they almost certainly paid way over the odds for it. Dilemma.

Michael.
Click to expand...
Take heart and think of it this way. Your friends are buying a known machine from someone they can trust, not some dodgy internet deal where your cheque is cashed before you see the goods.

Also, the seller in the ad you pointed to would only ship in the UK. That's no good for your friends, is it?

It's true that computer goods have titanic depreciation, but if you are offering you friends a good deal on some high quality product that you know will be reliable then go ahead and sell at the price you can get. :)

On the other hand, if you feel guilty then how about also parting with those Dyns? I'm sure I saw some go for £5 on Ebay - so how does £6 sound? ;)
 
I sold a 386 SX20 in March 1997 for £350. I basicaly just put "family computer for sale, in new condition, over 400 games........." it was worth around £200. I told the person the exact spec and that it was not modern but he said well its a new computer for 1/3 of the price.

Basicaly it was in brand new condition even though I owned it for 4 years before. I was amazed when he offered me £300.

Me and my mate sold a load of 486 dx2-66 boxes at high prices too. A lot of it isn in the wording. If you just say.

AMD Althlon 2000, 512MB RAM, 40GB HD etc then it will mean nothing to most people.

Write a load of woffle. Then after you said all the good bits write the specificaion down.

Also Micheal I am assuming the laptop comes with a licence for the operating sytsem if it does mention it. I sold a a few months ago, it was P100, 16MB RAM, I got £100 for it. I basicaly said legal version of windows 95, most laptops on ebay or sold with an ilegal operating sysem etc.

I think it increased the value by mentioning the fact it had a licence.
 

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