Microsoft offers Apple users $650 off to trade a MacBook for a Surface | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft offers Apple users $650 off to trade a MacBook for a Surface

techcrunch.com

234 pointshackerkid114 comments

IMHO, this is a marketing attempt to get the word out that Surface Pro/Book are competing for the same market as the Macbook <whatever>. They could spend a lot of money on advertizing and try to reach end users, or come up with a scheme like this where they might not actually fork out too much money and let news media do the job for them. At the sortof discounts they'll actually end up giving on average, its a win for them irrespective of how many people actually make use of the offer.

(Quite clever, methinks)

Your opinion is spookily similar to the Techcrunch story we're discussing....

"Sure, it’s all promotion, but it’s the sort of gag that affords the company opportunity to showcase its perceived advantages over Cupertino as the company looks to appeal more and more toward creatives – a category long dominated by Apple"

You didn't read the article did you.

Shouldn't Microsoft have made the trade in page prettier if the goal is to get the word out that "Surface Pro/Book are competing for the same market as the Macbook <whatever>"?

Sure, but Microsoft isn't exactly known for fancy marketing.

These trade-in values are laughable[1]. You are better off selling on eBay. Microsoft does sure know their Apple laptop models though

[1] https://microsoftsurfacetrade.cexchange.com/online/home/inde...

Selling something on eBay can be such a huge pain in the ass. I wouldn't be surprised if people were willing to pay for the convenience of doing it through Microsoft.

Doubly true if you're the kind of person who owns a Macbook Pro and is considering buying a Surface.

As a seller, unless you're doing $1k+ business a year, you have next to no protections as a seller.

Was almost scammed trying to sell my MBP. Not worth ever selling anything of value eBay ever again.

Probably still much less pain in the ass than switching from MacBook to a Surface laptop.

If they just gave the cash it would be different but now you actually have to buy that.

> You are better off selling on eBay.

Great! Why don't you come here and do all that work for me!

(Sorry just a snarky lead in for my commentary).

I try to avoid selling at ebay if at all possible. I did just sell an iphone 6 and honestly if you don't sell regularly it's a bit of work plus you have fees and have to worry about the buyer complaining. In my case they wrote to me saying that they thought it was a 6 plus and would I take it back if they paid shipping? (No was no returns) So the withheld feeback and filed a complaint with ebay. It went in my favor (obviously it was listed correctly) however the entire experience I would have rather avoided and it took time and effort and writing to clear it up.

The advantage of a trade in program like this is if you are not trying to squeak out the last dollar in value you don't have to worry as much when you ship the item that everything is 100% perfect.

Edit: Of course the money does matter so I am talking in general about selling on ebay of course I'd see exactly what the delta was taking into account all fees and time involved.

I will never sell on eBay again and I don't even need to see what the delta is. Ebay is full of non-paying bidders and people waiting to rip you off. I sold a Thinkpad on ebay. I kept getting bidders from foreign countries even though I specified that I wanted bids from my country only. Why can't ebay screen these out?

One winning bidder emailed me and said "I don't want this anymore." Ok, you just wasted my 7-day auction, thanks. Another bidder simply did not pay.

Sellers get more on ebay because selling there is such a pain that a considerable premium is necessary to justify it. Maybe it's worth it for strange collectibles. For a commodity like an Apple computer? Never worth it. I would sell to Gazelle or MS and be happy with the huge discount.

I had a similar problem a few years ago selling an old trusty graphing calculator. It's still leaves a sour taste in my mouth. The auction was for the United States only, but I kept getting a guy from Russia he wanted to bid on it. So I made the mistake of letting him. And he won the auction. And he paid and I sent it to Russia. And then he claimed he never received it and eBay gave him his money back so quickly, and I never got my calculator back. I've done international shipments for many years all over the world, and this is the only one that got "lost". So you do the math.

EBay has so disproportionately put the bias in favor of buyers that it is a true market for scams.

In my experience, selling internationally means higher prices, which makes up for the occasional loss. It's like taking credit cards: You lose some revenue in fraud, and commissions, but make it back in additional sales.

I do choose which countries I sell to carefully, however.

My biggest "I didn't receive it" claim was from an American buyer, 3-4 days after the purchase.

I haven't sold on there for a while, but it sounds much worse than it used to be. Can't you filter by number of positive reviews?

Worth pointing out two things:

- Sellers cannot leave negative feedback on buyers

- A common fraud technique is for a scammer to take over the account of someone with a good history (i.e., hack into it)

Not very well. I wish I could restrict my items to users with 50+ feedback, but I think Ebay fears everyone would do that.

Ebay's solution to non-paying bidders is to allow sellers to "Require immediate paypal payment to purchase".

And you can restrict your shipping options on a (mostly) country-by-country basis. Though that hasn't stopped me from getting queries about shipping to high-fraud countries.

Items typically sell for more on a fixed-price basis, don't bother with auctions unless you need the money fast.

I restricted my shipping options. Still got bids from other countries.

I required immediate Paypal. There is nothing to enforce this. Got two nonpaying winners.

Ebay auctions are completely worthless. Ebay could fix these problems: actually screen bids by country. Take a bid deposit. They obviously do not care about fixing it.

If I were to sell on ebay again, I would never use an auction. But even without auctions, people can still run scams. Forget it. For a small seller ebay is not worth it. Maybe businesses find it worth it to deal with all the crap on ebay.

> I required immediate Paypal. There is nothing to enforce this. Got two nonpaying winners.

If you do a "Fixed price" listing and choose the "Require immediate Paypal payment" setting, the listing doesn't end until payment is received. This has been possible for years. `

They do not require auction winners to pay immediately. Thus, as I said, auctions are the problem.

I see all this dislike of ebay. Maybe Facebook marketplace is an option. I have great pretty good things.

you are also better off selling your old car yourself instead of taking the dealer's trade-in offer. That doesn't stop a lot of people from doing things the easy way and potentially missing out on hundreds/thousands of dollars.

Hey, no dealership is going to call you back in a couple weeks talking about lemon laws and demanding a refund.

I don't think anybody can if you sell a used car as its owner. As far as I know, used car lemon laws apply only to cars sold by used car dealers.

I don't know the details of the law but I was under the impression that you can be sued as a private seller for misrepresenting the car in a negligent way (and obviously "negligence" can be in the eye of the beholder). I guess "lemon law" is not the term to use.

Anyone can pick up a phone.

$50 'coupon' on trading in 13" Macbook Pro in working condition (!).

They sure do hold their value:

I'll be parting out my 2011 Macbook Air, and I'll only be out ~US$200 after purchasing a new 2015 Macbook Air.

Details: 3 months ago, I bought a new Macbook Air to replace my mid-2011 for CAD$1300 incl taxes (Approx US$1000).

They had an academic discount-promo for a free-pair of Dre Beats BT headphones, which I promptly Ebay'd for CAD$230.

I'm parting out my mid-2011 Air now on Ebay for CAD$950 total, and that's excluding a $40 part I broke, a worn-out battery, and a destroyed power adapter.

So, after 4 years, I practically traded in my old Macbook for a new one for $100 (excl Ebay and shipping costs, but still).

They hold their value, and people bother to repair broken 5 year old models.

OK, you have me intrigued. How do you part out a MacBook air?

With a few Torx screwdrivers and a Pentalobe screwdriver I bought from Ebay for $2 from Hong Kong.

Easiest laptop I ever took apart. Very intuitive. I could put the whole thing back together if I wanted to, which is nearly impossible with non-Macs once taken apart. It took 3 hours to take it apart and list everything, and I was doing other tasks at the time. Since all the parts are specially designed for Apple, they design for easy assembly, and therefore easy disassembly. They're not trying to hodge-podge a commodity SSD into their system by putting it in a housing held by 4 more screws. 1 screw for SSD. 10 for case. 1 for wifi. 6 for logic board. 6 for LCD. 3 for fan.

Since Macs are popular, there are lots of guides on ifixit, down to the "Take out this cable by lifting up this part, then pulling it out in this direction", along with high-res photos. A popular system also means a liquid market for spare parts. Apple has high standards and is notoriously incompatible with non-approved parts, so repairers prefer buying a used Apple component instead of 3rd-party parts when available.

Since Apple keeps a tight control on its suppliers, often the only spare parts are available from donors. For non-Apple systems, you can often find a manufacturer still selling new replacement parts, but not so for Macs. Lots of people out there will buy broken systems and then buy a replacement LCD or trackpad or logic board to bring it back to 100% and profitably re-sell it.

Rough Ebay value of each part: Logic board - US$200 SSD - US$80 LCD assembly - US$300 (even with a few dents/scratches, people break these things and replace. Even if you can buy the LCD panel itself, buying the whole assembly makes repair so much easier) Palmrest/KB/touchpad assembly - US$50 (same story: easier to buy the whole assembly rather than replace just the trackpad) Bottom case - US$20 Wifi card - US$15 Set of screws - US$9 1 flex cable - US$7 Total: US$681

Actual selling prices may end up being 10-20% less, but I like to start my prices high, then lower it every few weeks until sold. As I said, price would be higher if battery wasn't dead, I didn't break a part off the power board and if the power adapter wasn't fraying).

Wow! That is amazing. Thanks for a detailed write up and for opening my eyes to this possibility. I have a bunch of old MacBook airs so it's not just academic to me.

No problem. Please wait a bit for my parts to sell before listing yours ;)

maybe they mean part with not part out?

No, part-out, just like most laptops, there is a liquid spare parts market for people that fix units with a broken this or that. People like to drop/spill on their laptops, and metal isn't very forgiving :)

See my post above.

It's just Microsoft-branded CEXCHANGE.

50 dollars for my Macbook Pro Retina?! No thanks. I must be worth more than that.

Quick clarification, it's not $650 off it's "up to" $650 off based off the Apple laptop's trade in value.

Very misleading headline from TechCrunch.

True, but that's kind of what TC does...

They wanted to give me US$100 for my 2008 alu MacBook. I bet they're going to flip them on fleabay!

To be fair I wouldn't pay 100 bucks for a 2008 MacBook.

Is there that healthy a market for second-hand computers that are nearly a decade old?

For a 2008 Macbook, $100-$200 on fleabay.

I have been looking at 2008-2009 27" iMacs, and they still go for US$700-800. Since OS X has to be built for underpowered laptops, it should still perform well on desktops for a while longer.

And apparently my 2015 Retina MBP is worth $50 according to their page...

Ah, the fine print. So refreshing.

As always, I'm creeped out by the fact that Microsoft is tracking how often everyone uses touch input. Are they tracking what app the user was interacting with? Exactly where/how they touched? What was under the touch? I'm just not comfortable sharing that information with anyone. If they were to provide a complete opt-out of all information sharing I'd definitely consider it, but until then I'm out.

This is in response to the giant quote box they have in the article on the actual blog post.

"97% of people that have a Surface Pro 4 or Surface Book use on-screen touch input regularly."

That has to be one thing Apple has going for then, security. They don't often talk about it on stage but the thought and work that goes into protecting users looks pretty strong.

The touch ID in the new Macbook pro actually uses an apple watch chip with security enclave on it, and the web cam is routes through there too so the CPU doesn't have direct access, making it harder to hack.

I'm not sure I've heard Microsoft talk about protecting users or avoiding exploiting their data...

Upgrading to Windows 10 enterprise/Pro allows turning off of such creepy telemetry.

I understand they probably want to understand how users are using touch that they may not have taught yet but it should not be forced on regular Windows 10 users.

Still, on regular windows 10 home devices, tools like Spybot's anti-beacon seem to be at least somewhat effective in minimizing such calls home.

https://www.safer-networking.org/spybot-anti-beacon/

> Upgrading to Windows 10 enterprise/Pro allows turning off of such creepy telemetry.

Isn't this option enterprise only? And it doesn't disable everything

I don't know what's the situation now but when I checked what a W10 enterprise installation leaked in a VM I was really shocked. Even after using a few tools, and the policy editor, I remember that even explorer.exe (the file manager I mean) was making network calls.

Not trying to spread FUD about MS, I'm tired of ALL telemetry, from apps to Apples. I would love to see some privacy advocating foundation or public service that released constant unbiased reports about what each OS version is collecting from you.

And, like I said before, if MS wants me to consider using Windows (outside of my daily job, that I have no other option), they should offer a PAID option with ZERO data collection. I don't care if you offer Windows for free in exchange for the user data, but I don't want any of it. And you can have my money for that.

Most likely, they do surveys.

that could just be from a survey?

$50.00 for a working MacBook Pro retina 13", I guess it's just a joke, even they don't believe anyone would trade a MacBook for a Surface-thing.

Really? They're offering me $400 for my 256gb / 2.4ghz late 2013 retina model. Pretty bog standard and 3 years old. That's enough to make me seriously consider it, since I've been eyeing the surface book for a bit. Mainly I need to figure out its Ubuntu compatibility now.

If you're seriously considering it, you'll get way more than $400 selling your MBP on your own.

An old Apple MacBook Pro A1150 MA463LL/A 15" 1.83GHz Core Duo gets $150 in trade value so maybe yours is a mistake. Or maybe you meant to type $500?

I would in a 1-to-1 deal. They are both overpriced hardware for what they bring to the table, but at least the SPro has a Wacom touchscreen which makes it a great little thing for taking notes and on-the-go whiteboarding. I would've loved one for my daily commute when I had 30-45 mins to kill on the bus. An MBP offers me nothing valuable over laptops at ~half the price.

My 2009 13" macbook pro is offered $75, so I'm gonna guess something is wonky on your end.

My question is: How is Microsoft going to dispose of these MacBooks?

My follow-up question is: How do I get in on that action?

This is nothing new and Microsoft has had programs like this in place from time and time (including trading in old versions of Surface / Surface Pro).

As someone pointed out, it's just a re-branding of am existing third party "trade in" company.

Here's one for the Xbox https://microsoftconsoletradeca.cexchange.com/online/home/in...

Any way I could trade my Surface Pro 3 for an old MacBook? I'm tired of MS breaking it every 2nd week with 'updates'.

Sounds like you have a lemon then and should have it replaced. I'm on a SP3 right now that I bought two years ago... since then upgraded to Win 10 and then to the Anniversary Update. Other than the battery drain issue that struck earlier this year, it's pretty much been flawless and I bang on it every day. I for one am sold on this form factor.

Highlights how much Apple and Microsoft are targeting the same market with very different products, which is good for consumers.

Unfortunately consumers can also be the casualties. Less popularized "specs" would be the manufacturing and software issues that have plagued windows devices like the surfacebook being extremely buggy at launch and the del XPS 13 completely lacking drivers when launched with win 10... Apple seems to have a but better of a job at hardware and software integration.

Yeah, the Surface Pro 4 was pretty buggy at launch too, but it's since improved. I use it as my primary personal laptop. Good screen. Plenty fast.

That is very true, I've never had a Macbook that the OS didn't know how to drive, but the early flakiness of the detach/attach with the Surface Book was very maddening (and the crappy WiFi). Since that time and post "anniversary" update it has been rock solid for me but that was nearly 9 months after I originally purchased it.

But it was clear from both the Surface Book original announcement and Wednesdays thing that Microsoft considers the Macbook the "only" competition it wants to compare itself too.

I've had to RMA it twice, but otherwise my surface pro 3 has been the most reliable computer I've ever used. My only machine for work and play for the last 2 years, and right now it looks like a Surface will replace it.

> I've had to RMA it twice, but otherwise my surface pro 3 has been the most reliable computer I've ever used.

That's... a pretty major "otherwise".

Well, my only problems were ones where I got a quick replacement. Day-to-day it simply worked well.

How can you consider something reliable if you had to RMA it twice?

or it was just broken at the beginning and been working fine ever since?

Well, the RMAs were for major issues, and MS had a new device in my hand within 48 hours. But day to day, the Surface has simply done everything I want my computer to do, requiring little to no effort on my part to keep it performing excellently. I will say that Windows 8 was pretty bad, but I got into 10 early, and it's been smooth sailing since then. In contrast, recent Macs I've used and older Windows machines would hit glitches regularly, where some aspect would stop working, or some mysterious set of conditions would cause a crash. The Surface Pro 3 has been a machine I can carry everywhere and do practically anything with (coding, project management, media, light gaming). Fan is a little louder than I would like, and battery life wasn't superb to start, and has gotten worse.

xcode is pretty buggy

My answer would be "No, thanks."

Even though the new MB pro has the weird strip and lack of function keys, the OS is still better. Windows 10 has more quirks.

So put OSX on the Surface ;)

Is that even possible?

Yes just not legal (well it is sort of legal if you consider the EULA is not a law just don't advertise you are doing it).

On the other hand, OSX would be the worst OS to install on a convertible tablet/laptop - you're better off with Linux.

The trade-in value is really low. They offer UP TO $650, but most models are valued lower. Not a good deal for consumers.

Some people here are complaining about the trade in value, but Microsoft's quote for my 2011 Macbook Pro was pretty close to what I could get for it on eBay.

However, I would not expect the resale value on any Surface product to be very good at all.

One of the nice things about owning Apple products is that you only pay full price for the first one -- when you replace it, you can trade in or sell the one you have for a lot more money than any non-Apple product of a similar age.

Well, it looks as though they are striking while the iron is hot. There is enough disappointment by people wanting a serious unixy workstation who have been using the Mac for that purpose that if MS puts serious effort into their Windows Subsytem for Linux and pushes hard enough, they may well seriously grab developer market share from Apple.

I wonder if Apple would even notice.

It's a good question. Apple$ iPhone business alone is bigger than all of Microsoft.

Uh, isn't Apple's Iphone business most of Apple's business?

do you have proof of this? microsoft is the second largest company in the world behind apple so it's hard to believe

"Up to $650". You plug in your exact model and get a value thats <= $650 based on resale value, similar to value to just selling to a service like Gazelle. Smart marketing though.

They really blew a good oppportunity. The values they are offering are laughable.

And by $650 you mean "up to $650"... I have a MacBook Air that was appraised at $260. Screw that...

If they were serious they would make it 1000. Or even refund almost new prices. It would work. Ms in the past was very aggressive when they put their minds to getting market share. Remember when they offered web browsers for free. Bye Netscape. They offered 30pct a few years back on everything on eBay, these were compelling deals.

I do not like iPhone but sorry iPads are nicer than surface tablets. They should go hard if they really want to displace iPad. As a tablet surfaces are a little too heavy and expensive.

I was open to trade my Mid 2012 (upgraded RAM and HDD to SDD), but they offer me $350. I just bought a new charger for $80 dollars (you have to include it in the trade to be eligible)...

Surfaces, to be fair, aren't really direct competitors with iPads. iPads run a mobile OS, surface run Windows. You're using Photoshop, Flash, Illustrator on a Surface, not iOS apps.

They aren't trying to displace iPad...

Clever marketing, but very misleading and trade in values are mostly nowhere $650.

Went browsing apple.com macs after seeing all their $2k+ prices on surface books...

Does it run Linux?

Clearly a ploy by Microsoft to snag some decent hardware for their own staff on the cheap.

Nice try, slugheads!

But, can you install Linux on it?

Realized I forgot a out these day after they were presented. Perhaps because they're not even possible to buy here in Sweden...

Too bad, because they look mighty fine.

I traded in my broken mackbook air for a surface pro 3. Microsoft sent someone to film me because of it. I think not a lot of people made that deal.

Reminds me of Bing Rewards. They should probably refrain from offering people money to try their products because it devalues their own brand.

What Apple does with purchased MacBook?

It will be funny if Apple puts ban on reselling these devices and disable their iTune accounts.

If they would have actually given me $650 off I would have done it, but since they are only offering $150 for my model and I wasted my time looking into it, I feel an even stronger dislike from Microsoft than I felt before.

Nice work Microsoft marketing team. Very shortsighted.

You should channel your dislike towards Tech Crunch who wrote the headline...

I partially agree, but: 1. Microsoft has a huge PR division and had at least some influence on this article. 2. The entire promotion from Microsoft is meant to be click-bait because they aren't providing any value I couldn't get already. There are already resale markets for used Macbook pros that provide the same pricing.

My experience with Techcrunch is that you write the article and pay them to publish it.

Surface is nice, But would i trade my Macbook for it, No!

US only unfortunately.

Damn. US only.

Agree... No love for EU users :/

Title is misleading. It should be "up to $650". The trade in values are ridiculous, though and on par with pawn shop quotes.

No thanks!

Of course: The Surface is WORTHLESS!

That's a great deal for Microsoft.

It only takes a kernel patch to gentoo for it to run linux!

Desperado...

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