[vsp]

Originally posted by richlevy
So for $422 plus shipping you get a 1ghz desktop with no OS or application software and no warranty, where for $70 more you can get a BRAND NEW 2.6ghz machine from a major brand with a licensed copy of XP home and basic application software.

Is Hewlett-Packard still considered a "major brand?" Their motto through the last half-decade seems to have been "At least we're better than eMachines and Compaq." (Plus, I have an aversion to buying prebuilt PCs off-the-rack at major retail chains, dating back to a gloriously uninformed purchase of a Packard Bell at Computer City many years ago, AND an aversion to sending any money in the direction of Carly Fiorina.)

Looking at Dell's ebay presence that I mentioned, I see a slightly inferior desktop (P3-933 Optiplex, 128MB, 20GB, 24x CD) currently going for ~$150 with an hour to go, a far cry from $422. I won't say that the Optiplex will outperform the HP across the board... but for a third of the price, it shouldn't.

I have an OS. I have application software if I want to install it there. I don't necessarily want to pay for components that I'm not going to use. I'm not averse to buying new -- in general, I prefer to do so -- but it's harder for me to justify double the expense for what'll essentially be a toy.

This reminds me of the time I went into an old mom-and-pop electronics store. The guy was selling LED calculators with no memory function for $30. This was at a time when you could buy one with an LCD display and memory for $15. When I mentioned this to him he replied that he paid so much for them and couldn't bear to let them go for less. He went out of business shortly after that.

We had a videogame store near here that ran (and ran out of business) on the same fallacy. If he paid $25 for it and it just sits on the shelf for years, it's not "worth" $25 -- it's worth $0, because that's the return he's getting from his investment.

Unfortunately, most small-business owners going head-to-head with the big boys (as this store owner did with Electronics Boutique) lose out on such margins. The game-shop owner tried to get $40 for games that even EB couldn't sell at $9.99, and was impervious to all such evidence presented to him. "Someone'll come in and buy it." Well, someone did, when the store was going out of business and the games were marked at $1.99...

There are a lot of stores selling used computers who do not appear to understand how much they lose their value. That $422 stripped desktop should be $150.

And, at least at the moment, this one is.

Note that I know better than to go to, let's say, somewhere like Second Source. They're the patron saints of overpricing older hardware.

Laptops are even worse. A new 2 ghz laptop from Toshiba can be had for $700-800 after rebates, but some sub-1ghz used notebooks are selling in the same range.

Not on the eBay store I mentioned. Two I was watching this afternoon both went for under $400 -- one P3-750MHz, one P3-650MHz with a DVD drive. Are they underpowered compared to a new $800 laptop? Yes -- but they don't sell new laptops in the speed range that would be sufficient for my needs anymore.

The best place to buy a used laptop is at a computer show, after they have plugged it in for you.

And what happens a month later, when the sale is over, the seller has moved on to a show in Hoboken and your laptop starts emitting sparks? (Not that eBay is better in that respect, but you don't have to pay an entrance fee to get into eBay.)