{"id":3053,"date":"2011-08-11T09:15:50","date_gmt":"2011-08-11T14:15:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techcitement.com\/?p=3053"},"modified":"2011-08-11T11:59:30","modified_gmt":"2011-08-11T16:59:30","slug":"on-the-cheap-trading-on-trade-ins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/hardware\/on-the-cheap-trading-on-trade-ins\/","title":{"rendered":"On The Cheap: Trading On Trade-ins"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the inaugural On The Cheap<\/a>, I told you how \u00a0to get an iPad 2 for less than $105 via PowerMax. However, they just deal with Macs. What if you want to save on something else? Let\u2019s check out some options. To figure pricing, I\u2019m going to use that same iPad2 and the items I used to get it.<\/p>\n

Best Buy has a Trade in site<\/a> that I can plug in the stats on the items I traded in to PowerMax, and they valued my stuff at a total of about $80. That\u2019s a huge difference of $500! My iPad, according to them, is worth a $320 gift card or a $208 check. This is clearly not an awesome deal for trading. However, the option of getting a check instead of credit makes this an option worth holding onto.<\/p>\n

Radio Shack<\/a> has no interest in my iMac G4, but the Mac Mini and iBook net about $150, altogether. That’s better than Best Buy, but nowhere near as good as PowerMax. And while Radio Shack values the iPad 2 at a lower price of $350, the store doesn\u2019t offer checks, as near as I can tell. So, if you’re out for cash, Best Buy is the best option. If you plan on upgrading a phone, keep Radio Shack in mind. A while ago, they gave $100 off the price of an Evo3D for the trade-in<\/a> of an EVO or EVO Shift. There were even scattered reports of people getting as much as $158 off when they brought the original boxes.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Missed Connection: We locked eyes as I admired your RAM.<\/p><\/div>\n

In New York City, there’s a place called CEX<\/a>, a sort of tech-focused pawn shop. The advantage this place has over Best Buy and Radio Shack is that the asking prices for what you\u2019d buy are generally lower. However, they also accept less. There was no quote online for my iMac or iBook, and the Mac Mini was worth about $105. CEX does have the best price for the iPad 2, quoting me $585, an actual greater value than my \u00a0original trade-ins (but not shipping). This is likely due to how in demand the device is now more than anything else.<\/p>\n

None of those are really good enough deals to warrant going to the bother, if you ask me. There\u2019s another option though, and that\u2019s a true trade-in: barter. If you bypass the sites and go right to your fellow man, you can generally get a pretty good deal. The easiest way to barter that I\u2019ve found is Craigslist<\/a>, but you have to be very careful of frauds. Do everything in person, and only meet in public places. You can also try Freecycle<\/a> for trades, but you\u2019re likely to be less successful than Craigslist.<\/p>\n

Maybe trade-ins and barter aren\u2019t for everyone or for every situation. Still, it really can\u2019t hurt to try. Now if you\u2019ll excuse me, I have to go finish boxing up an old PowerBook.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the inaugural On The Cheap, I told you how \u00a0to get an iPad 2 for less than $105 via PowerMax. However, they just deal with Macs. What if you want to save on something else? Let\u2019s check out some options. To figure pricing, I\u2019m going to use that same iPad2 and the items I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,512,38],"tags":[140,997,998,999,996,655,182,105,1000,576,510,671],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3053"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3053"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3137,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3053\/revisions\/3137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}