The Impact of Time on Computing Devices: A Guide to Upgrades and Depreciation

As a general rule of thumb, when it comes to upgrading your computing device, three years is often considered the benchmark for depreciation. This timeframe allows us to factor out inflation and get a better understanding of the actual cost of upgrading individual components. By using a three-year-old device as our baseline, we can estimate the value that remains after upgrades are made.

For example, if you purchased a base model 2018 15-inch MacBook Pro for $2,400, you could find similar models selling for around $1,200 on eBay today, which is almost exactly 50% of its original value. This means that over the course of three years, you have effectively spent $1,200 on upgrades, while retaining only 50% of the device's original value. However, if you opted for the higher-tier model with all the bells and whistles, your costs would be significantly higher, with a price tag of $3,899. In this case, the device still sells for around $1,600 on eBay, which means that you're not only paying a premium for the upgrades but also paying for the depreciation that comes with them.

It's worth noting that the cost of upgrades can vary depending on the specific model and components involved. For instance, if you purchased a MacBook Air in 2018 for $1,000, you could potentially sell it for around $600 after three years, which is nearly 60% of its original value. This highlights the importance of choosing the right device to begin with, as cheaper models tend to retain their value better over time.

However, there are exceptions to this rule, and one notable exception is the Mac Pro. The 2019 Mac Pro does not follow the same depreciation curve as other devices, likely due to its low volume and high-end market position. As a result, buyers of new Mac Pros may need to consider alternative strategies for upgrading individual components.

For those who regularly buy new computers every few years, one potential strategy is to upgrade individual components rather than purchasing an entirely new device. For example, instead of spending $400 on a faster SSD, you could purchase an external SSD that would carry over onto the next device, saving you both upfront costs and depreciation. This approach may not be suitable for all buyers, however, particularly those who require specific features or configurations.

It's also worth noting that the rate of depreciation can slow significantly after the initial three to four years. If you keep a computer for six years, for instance, your average rate of depreciation becomes much slower, making it more manageable for budget-conscious buyers. For those considering buying a used Mac, choosing the highest-spec model at the lowest price point can be an effective strategy, as this will allow you to advertise upgrades that will increase its value when you sell the device in the future.

Ultimately, understanding the impact of time on computing devices is crucial for making informed purchasing decisions. By keeping these factors in mind, buyers can make more strategic choices about which components to upgrade and when, as well as how to manage depreciation over time.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: entoday i want to talk about buying macbooks whoa shocking he's never done that before no but seriously what i want to talk about today is why i almost always buy the cheapest configuration of any of the new macs that i review on this channel there's a number of reasons why i do it and why you should probably do it too if you can so today we're going to talk about it if you're going to buy a new mac you probably want to make sure it's protected with today's video sponsor total av an award-winning anti-virus and malware detection service with advanced protection from online hackers and scams such as those endlessly annoying phishing websites you know when you go to download something and there are like 50 neon colored ads with huge buttons that are like download some sketchy software yeah those things are super annoying but fortunately total av has got your back when you download something like that accidentally total av will scan that in the cloud to avoid using system resources and with 99.9 accuracy can detect if malware is involved which it probably is total av offers real-time protection meaning continuous monitoring to protect you against malware viruses hackers and other cyber threats but they'll also notify you if your personal information gets leaked in a data breach total av is rated excellent by customers on trustpilot and is compatible across a wide range of personal devices when you download totalav you can secure up to three personal devices to make sure that your mobile online banking passwords login important files are secured from online threats right now you can snag their impressive nineteen dollar antivirus package which is a remarkable eighty percent discount from their normal rate by checking out totalav.com lukemiani or heading to the link in the description below so when you're buying a macbook there are or at least there were a lot of options to choose from certainly in the old intel days you could change everything from the processor to the graphics to the ram to the storage but if you've been following the channel for a little while you may have noticed that i don't often times buy the super high spec fully loaded machines now one of the reasons that i do that is because i want to get coverage of a device at the price that it starts at so if i'm reviewing an m1 macbook pro i want to review it at that 1300 starting price rather than take a look at a two thousand dollar one and say what a great thirteen hundred dollar device you know what i mean it's a little bit of a semantic difference but i like to experience the entry level model and especially talk about whether or not it's a good value however what i want to talk about today is why buying base model max is such a smart idea it's not just something that i do for youtube reviews or to save money when i make a video it's something that i do because it's the financially smart way to buy a mac let me explain this is the only mac that i have bought in the last two or three years that i actually specced up it's my 16 inch macbook pro now the 16 inch starts at 2 399 this one was specked up to like 3 200 i think it's the higher end configuration with the 2.3 gigahertz core i9 the eight gigabyte radeon pro 550m graphics it's got 32 gigabytes of ram and a one terabyte ssd so the graphics and the ram were the options on this thing i didn't do the upgraded cpu and i didn't upgrade the storage but even so this computer costs significantly more than the base model 2399 16 inch macbook pro now there are a lot of people that will use a computer into the ground that will buy something new and use it until it is basically gone eight nine ten years later however a lot of people don't do that a lot of people upgrade every three to five years and will sell the computer and basically trade it in for a new one so realistically when you buy a computer like that which is probably the majority of people it's kind of like buying a car right you're not paying the full thing and that's just it it's gone you do get some of the residual value of that thing back when you're done with it and so like with buying a car we have to consider the residual value that's something that i think a lot of people overlook when buying a computer you look at an imac and you see okay it starts at thirteen hundred dollars that's how much it costs but you also just like buying a car should maybe consider taking into account what the cost of ownership over the period of time that you plan on owning the device will actually be and this is where it comes in handy to consider the benefits of base model max so if we go back to the 2019 16-inch macbook pro this is a computer that is still on sale right now so depreciation hasn't really set in yet because there's no newer model for people to upgrade to however if you go back a few years in this case we'll talk about a 2018 15 inch macbook pro that's about three years old it's right around the point where people tend to start upgrading granted three years is still not a super long time people will easily own a computer for longer than that but if we use a three-year-old device as the benchmark for this discussion it allows us to not really have to factor in inflation because the the currency is so close that it doesn't necessarily have that much of an impact and it also just gives us a pretty good idea of what we're talking about so if you went on ebay right now and you bought a base model 2018 15-inch macbook pro you could find those pretty easily for about 1200. which is almost exactly fifty percent of its original value so if you paid twenty four hundred for that in 2018 you have effectively spent twelve hundred dollars over the course of those three years and you have fifty percent of the value remaining however if you went for the higher tier model with all the bells and whistles then you would have spent three thousand eight hundred and ninety nine dollars and yet those machines still sell for around fifteen or sixteen hundred dollars at best on ebay so that means that not only are you paying a lot of money for those upgrades but you're also paying for extra depreciation because it's only worth about 40 of its original value compared to the base model which is worth 50 and that's just if we're talking about the 15-inch macbook pros if you bought a macbook air in 2018 you spent a thousand dollars on it then and if you keep it in good condition have low cycles on the battery or at least just normal battery wear and keep it with the box and accessories you could pretty regularly get almost 600 dollars for it which is nearly 60 percent of its original value so basically the cheaper you go on the new max scale not only does it become cheaper because you're spending less money but you're getting a greater percentage of the money you spend back when you're done with the machine now there are a few exceptions to this rule the biggest one is the mac pro the 2019 mac pro does not play by these rules because for one it's not old enough to have a lot of depreciation and for two because it's so low volume and high end that it doesn't have as broad a market as a macbook air for example so the big takeaway here is if you are someone who buys new max on a somewhat regular basis every couple of years and you sell your previous one to help offset the cost of the new one you might want to take a closer look at some of those upgrades maybe instead of spending another 400 upgrading the ssd you could buy an external ssd that would then carry over onto the next one which would save you the upfront cost of adding it to the macbook as well as saving you from having to essentially pay for the extra depreciation that that upgrade entails and of course this isn't a rule that's going to apply in all cases if you need a 16-inch macbook pro then you need a 16-inch macbook pro maybe you need two terabytes of internal storage that's fine another way that you can get around this increased depreciation is to hold your computer for more years than you ordinarily would because if you let's say you lose 50 of the value over three years you're not necessarily losing the same amount of value every year the most amount of depreciation comes in the first three or four years after that it becomes a lot slower so your average rate tends to flatten out if you keep a computer for six years compared to three so these are really important things that you should keep in mind if you're buying a new mac but i would actually say the opposite is true if you're buying a used mac if you're looking at a 2018 macbook pro for whatever reason you should try to find the highest specked one for the lowest amount of money because then at the very least when you go to sell that computer a few years later you can advertise it as having upgrades which will inflate the value a little bit like obviously the core i9 2018 macbook pro with 32 gigs of ram is worth more albeit not by as much as when it was new compared to the base model so when you're buying used go for the high spec when you're buying new try to go for the low spec if you can that would basically be the tl dw of this video i'm very curious to know what you guys think of this do you buy the lowest end mac that you can or are you someone who likes to hold a mac for a long time and really spec it out when you buy it so let me know all of that stuff in the comments below and as usual don't forget to like comment and subscribe and i'll see you guys in the next video so youtoday i want to talk about buying macbooks whoa shocking he's never done that before no but seriously what i want to talk about today is why i almost always buy the cheapest configuration of any of the new macs that i review on this channel there's a number of reasons why i do it and why you should probably do it too if you can so today we're going to talk about it if you're going to buy a new mac you probably want to make sure it's protected with today's video sponsor total av an award-winning anti-virus and malware detection service with advanced protection from online hackers and scams such as those endlessly annoying phishing websites you know when you go to download something and there are like 50 neon colored ads with huge buttons that are like download some sketchy software yeah those things are super annoying but fortunately total av has got your back when you download something like that accidentally total av will scan that in the cloud to avoid using system resources and with 99.9 accuracy can detect if malware is involved which it probably is total av offers real-time protection meaning continuous monitoring to protect you against malware viruses hackers and other cyber threats but they'll also notify you if your personal information gets leaked in a data breach total av is rated excellent by customers on trustpilot and is compatible across a wide range of personal devices when you download totalav you can secure up to three personal devices to make sure that your mobile online banking passwords login important files are secured from online threats right now you can snag their impressive nineteen dollar antivirus package which is a remarkable eighty percent discount from their normal rate by checking out totalav.com lukemiani or heading to the link in the description below so when you're buying a macbook there are or at least there were a lot of options to choose from certainly in the old intel days you could change everything from the processor to the graphics to the ram to the storage but if you've been following the channel for a little while you may have noticed that i don't often times buy the super high spec fully loaded machines now one of the reasons that i do that is because i want to get coverage of a device at the price that it starts at so if i'm reviewing an m1 macbook pro i want to review it at that 1300 starting price rather than take a look at a two thousand dollar one and say what a great thirteen hundred dollar device you know what i mean it's a little bit of a semantic difference but i like to experience the entry level model and especially talk about whether or not it's a good value however what i want to talk about today is why buying base model max is such a smart idea it's not just something that i do for youtube reviews or to save money when i make a video it's something that i do because it's the financially smart way to buy a mac let me explain this is the only mac that i have bought in the last two or three years that i actually specced up it's my 16 inch macbook pro now the 16 inch starts at 2 399 this one was specked up to like 3 200 i think it's the higher end configuration with the 2.3 gigahertz core i9 the eight gigabyte radeon pro 550m graphics it's got 32 gigabytes of ram and a one terabyte ssd so the graphics and the ram were the options on this thing i didn't do the upgraded cpu and i didn't upgrade the storage but even so this computer costs significantly more than the base model 2399 16 inch macbook pro now there are a lot of people that will use a computer into the ground that will buy something new and use it until it is basically gone eight nine ten years later however a lot of people don't do that a lot of people upgrade every three to five years and will sell the computer and basically trade it in for a new one so realistically when you buy a computer like that which is probably the majority of people it's kind of like buying a car right you're not paying the full thing and that's just it it's gone you do get some of the residual value of that thing back when you're done with it and so like with buying a car we have to consider the residual value that's something that i think a lot of people overlook when buying a computer you look at an imac and you see okay it starts at thirteen hundred dollars that's how much it costs but you also just like buying a car should maybe consider taking into account what the cost of ownership over the period of time that you plan on owning the device will actually be and this is where it comes in handy to consider the benefits of base model max so if we go back to the 2019 16-inch macbook pro this is a computer that is still on sale right now so depreciation hasn't really set in yet because there's no newer model for people to upgrade to however if you go back a few years in this case we'll talk about a 2018 15 inch macbook pro that's about three years old it's right around the point where people tend to start upgrading granted three years is still not a super long time people will easily own a computer for longer than that but if we use a three-year-old device as the benchmark for this discussion it allows us to not really have to factor in inflation because the the currency is so close that it doesn't necessarily have that much of an impact and it also just gives us a pretty good idea of what we're talking about so if you went on ebay right now and you bought a base model 2018 15-inch macbook pro you could find those pretty easily for about 1200. which is almost exactly fifty percent of its original value so if you paid twenty four hundred for that in 2018 you have effectively spent twelve hundred dollars over the course of those three years and you have fifty percent of the value remaining however if you went for the higher tier model with all the bells and whistles then you would have spent three thousand eight hundred and ninety nine dollars and yet those machines still sell for around fifteen or sixteen hundred dollars at best on ebay so that means that not only are you paying a lot of money for those upgrades but you're also paying for extra depreciation because it's only worth about 40 of its original value compared to the base model which is worth 50 and that's just if we're talking about the 15-inch macbook pros if you bought a macbook air in 2018 you spent a thousand dollars on it then and if you keep it in good condition have low cycles on the battery or at least just normal battery wear and keep it with the box and accessories you could pretty regularly get almost 600 dollars for it which is nearly 60 percent of its original value so basically the cheaper you go on the new max scale not only does it become cheaper because you're spending less money but you're getting a greater percentage of the money you spend back when you're done with the machine now there are a few exceptions to this rule the biggest one is the mac pro the 2019 mac pro does not play by these rules because for one it's not old enough to have a lot of depreciation and for two because it's so low volume and high end that it doesn't have as broad a market as a macbook air for example so the big takeaway here is if you are someone who buys new max on a somewhat regular basis every couple of years and you sell your previous one to help offset the cost of the new one you might want to take a closer look at some of those upgrades maybe instead of spending another 400 upgrading the ssd you could buy an external ssd that would then carry over onto the next one which would save you the upfront cost of adding it to the macbook as well as saving you from having to essentially pay for the extra depreciation that that upgrade entails and of course this isn't a rule that's going to apply in all cases if you need a 16-inch macbook pro then you need a 16-inch macbook pro maybe you need two terabytes of internal storage that's fine another way that you can get around this increased depreciation is to hold your computer for more years than you ordinarily would because if you let's say you lose 50 of the value over three years you're not necessarily losing the same amount of value every year the most amount of depreciation comes in the first three or four years after that it becomes a lot slower so your average rate tends to flatten out if you keep a computer for six years compared to three so these are really important things that you should keep in mind if you're buying a new mac but i would actually say the opposite is true if you're buying a used mac if you're looking at a 2018 macbook pro for whatever reason you should try to find the highest specked one for the lowest amount of money because then at the very least when you go to sell that computer a few years later you can advertise it as having upgrades which will inflate the value a little bit like obviously the core i9 2018 macbook pro with 32 gigs of ram is worth more albeit not by as much as when it was new compared to the base model so when you're buying used go for the high spec when you're buying new try to go for the low spec if you can that would basically be the tl dw of this video i'm very curious to know what you guys think of this do you buy the lowest end mac that you can or are you someone who likes to hold a mac for a long time and really spec it out when you buy it so let me know all of that stuff in the comments below and as usual don't forget to like comment and subscribe and i'll see you guys in the next video so you\n"