On The Cheap: An iPad2 For Less Than $105?

On The Cheap is a feature where we investigate low-cost solutions to staying high tech. It comes out every two weeks. Like a Paycheck. Aren’t we clever?

Would you like to own an iPad2 for less than $105?

Caught your attention there?

If you’re the sort of person who gets techcited, then you either hate tablets with a passion or think they’re “the new black”. I, for one, have been dying for a tablet for ages. The problem is tablets aren’t cheap. If you want an inexpensive tablet, your options are: some junky tablet barely running Android on what will turn out to be a resistive screen (2000 called, they want their iPaqs back), that you end up returning to wherever you found it, or get a small break on a 3G tablet when you tack it onto your cell phone contract, which causes you to then lose any money you would have saved when it’s

now taken from you month to month. There are a few reasonably affordable options, and far less when you hit the 10″ range (ViewSonic’s gTab being a rare exception). Those aren’t something

the average consumer would know about, and there’s certainly no way to save money on the market leader, the Apple iPad2.

Except you can. How? PowerMax.com.

PowerMax is an established Mac vendor, and one I’ve dealt with before. What’s unique about them is that they take trade-ins. You can actually send in your old Mac and get a credit towards any item on their site. I’d used this service way back when my daughter was a toddler and decided that the G4 iMac’s pivoting screen was a fun toy.

The trade worked out well, so I thought I’d try it for an iPad. As you might imagine, I’ve got a lot of junk laying about.

Imagine Getting this for $100 and change. Seriously.

The first step was to contact PowerMax. I gave them the details on my devices: a 20” G4 iMac, a G4 iBook, a  G4 Mac Mini, and a 17″ G4 Powerbook. They in turn gave me estimated values: $186, $167,  $219, and “no thanks, too beat up.” The Powerbook is now back to being hooked up to my HDTV (an article for another time), but an estimate of $572 (before being dinged for not having orginal boxes/disks) wasn’t bad at all. I had been considering being a good husband and getting two original model iPads (PowerMax does stock some, but they don’t list them on the site) to have one as an anniversary gift. Unfortunately, I was a little short.

Luckily, the twelfth anniversary is silk, not tablet.

Shipping the Macs to PowerMax was easy. For the Mini, iBook, and Intel iMac (which I had annoyingly just thrown out the original box for), I used packing materials I had around. For the iMac, I used PowerMax’s “Concierge” service. For a small fee (in this case $70), they sent me a box specifically for the iMac G4’s unique design and an air-bill for return trip. It’s a bit steep, but considering that model’s idiosyncrasies, I decided to spring for it.

Here’s my big caveat – this is not an instant gratification solution. I started the ball rolling on this on March 13 and my iMac box didn’t even arrive until March 27. It took until June 28 to have my quote confirmed and credit applied, and I didn’t get the iPad until July 6. So, patience is absolutely a virtue here.

In that way, the trade-in is kind of a trade-off.

With that said, PowerMax is great to deal with and make it totally worth waiting. When they contacted me on the March 28, my sales rep Gary let me know that they were out of the 16 GB WiFi-only models. Gary told me they did have a returned iPad2 32 GB going for $569. My final credit was $567. Gary then adjusted the price so it all added up, and ground shipping is free.

My only cost for the iPad was shipping, $103.37. Keep in mind I sprung for the special shipping, too. With a new 32 GB running for $599 (before tax), that means a savings of $495.63. Not bad at all.

If you need a 10” tablet on the cheap  and you absolutely need it right now, look into something by Archos or ViewSonic. But if you have patience and old Apple computers lying about (or know someone who does), this may be a viable solution for you.