It’s white, it’s intel-based, and it’s still sitting in my basement running an rsync script to grab backups of Macgasm nightly. I picked it up in 2006 to use as an SVN repository, and it’s outlived my 2008 Mac Pro. My Mac mini is easily the longest running Mac I’ve ever purchased. Strangely, I can still get a couple of 50 dollar bills for it. But why?
The fine folks over at Macminicolo have put together a fantastic article with some insights on why the Mac Mini retains its value for so long after the initial point of sale. They should know too, they sell thousands of these things…
First, the Mac mini is small and easy to ship. This keeps the “potential buyer” market high. Personally, when I sell an old iMac I usually try to find a local friend or family member that is looking to upgrade. Sometimes I will use Craigslist. But I never list the large Macs on ebay because I just don’t want to deal with shipping a big, fragile box.
You can probably guess the other reasons (naming convention, kids), but it’s worth checking out the graph included in the original article. I had no idea that the Mac Mini depreciated so slowly.
