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Mad rush for $50 iBook firesale

updated 10:30 am EDT, Tue August 16, 2005

iBook mad rush

A mad rush during Henrico County School�s and are only allowed to buy one computer per person.

by MacNN Staff

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himself
Mac Elite

Joined: Jan 2002

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08/16, 10:55am | report spam | close Reply |
too bad...

Henrico County will have to pay people to take those Dell's off of their hands.

driven
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Joined: May 2001

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08/16, 11:14am | report spam | close Reply |
dell

I was thinking the same thing ....

testudo
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Joined: Aug 2001

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08/16, 12:18pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: too bad

You must be kidding, there'd be this mad rush to get $50 dells too. A laptop is a laptop, a $50 computer is a $50 computer, esp. if you're just looking for a secondary computer, one for the kids, etc.

spacefreak
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Joined: Feb 2002

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08/16, 12:20pm | report spam | close Reply |
Morons on School Board

Why wouldn't they raise the price to $75 or $100 in light of the strong demand?? I'm sure the school board could use the extra cash, and it could have shown their students (who should have been offered the iBooks privately in the first place) the fundamentals of supply and demand.

So they price the computers at such a low price as to cause a panic-inducing scene. Real smart. The entire board should be replaced.

himself
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08/16, 12:24pm | report spam | close Reply |
hey tetsudo...

It's called a "joke."

eswinson
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Joined: Jul 2002

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08/16, 01:32pm | report spam | close Reply |
Aren't these G3 iBooks?

Are these the iBooks with the logic board problems? It would suck to wait all night get roughed up trying to get through the door, shell out $50 and the thing c*** out the very next day.

Foe Hammer
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Joined: Feb 2005

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08/16, 01:35pm | report spam | close Reply |
Fifty Bucks ...

... ought to be enough to pick up the entire lot of Dells that become available.

sammaffei
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Joined: Sep 2004

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08/16, 01:47pm | report spam | close Reply |
Idiot parents

What idiot willingly brings a 1 year old child to a mob a scene?

PBG4 User
Senior User

Joined: Feb 2001

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08/16, 02:16pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: Morons on School Boar

I believe the students had first crack at the laptops, IIRC. I'm almost positive I read that in the article from Henrico.

coldfusion1970
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Joined: Nov 2004

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08/16, 02:27pm | report spam | close Reply |
Magic price

It looks like Apple have found the magic price point.

If they pitch all their iBooks at 50 quid, then they'll fly off the shelves.

macbarry
Junior Member

Joined: Aug 2002

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08/16, 02:36pm | report spam | close Reply |
"4yr old iBooks?"

This report says the iBooks were 4 years old. That may help explain the $50 price? Still no excuse for the mob scene:

http://www.startribune.com/stories/789/5563247.html

ibugv4
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08/16, 02:38pm | report spam | close Reply |
hmm

Well, lets see what happens next time. We've changed our vacation plans to not vacation in Virginia in a protest of sorts over their stupid political move to only sell the iBooks to Henrico residents -- that was just stupid. At least let the WHOLE STATE buy them.

krez
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08/16, 02:52pm | report spam | close Reply |
gollly

Whose the genius running that school system? Dell laptops..... yikes... who wants a POC for $5.00? Short line that'll be.

ronjamin
Baninated

Joined: May 2002

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08/16, 03:36pm | report spam | close Reply |
Did you notice...

Did you notice the total lack of manners in this group.

These people who rushed the school acted like starving refugees attacking a rice truck.

Shame!

I've noticed this type of behavior in people especially on "Day after Thanksgiving" sales, where greedy people fill their carts up with goods that are onsale, leaving nothing for anyone else. I remember last year at Wal Mart ppl fighting, literally fighting eachother for a $25 DVD player.

The is just another example of the social decay worldwide. These people should have all been arrested and fined the maximum amount and forced to attend a manners class. Obviously their parents failed at that job.

Makosuke
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08/16, 05:39pm | report spam | close Reply |
"We Told Ya So"

I remember several commenters here, including myself, wondering why on earth you'd A) Open up the sale to people outside the tax base who'd originally bought the things (the county, that is), and B) You'd price them so low as to cause a frenzied buyoff instead of a little below the going market rate to produce more profit for the taxpayers while still ensuring that you got rid of all of them.

As it turned out, they eventually figured out that "A" was a good idea (really, if there are 1000 willing local buyers, where do you get off letting people who didn't pay for them in the first place buy them?), but "B" was proved to be just as bad an idea as it sounded.

Not that anytime you offer folks a really good deal there won't be some who get overly worked up and flip out, but seriously, if people are standing in line for hours, beating each other with lawn chairs, and peeing themselves to buy what you're selling, YOUR PRICE IS TOO LOW!

I'll bet if they'd been $150 iBooks they'd still have sold every one, and nobody would have gotten trampled. Probably an even stupider move than switching to Dells.

Makosuke
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08/16, 05:59pm | report spam | close Reply |
For Reference

A peek at eBay shows that a working iBook of this era and roughly these specs will cost you $250-350. Even machines listed as "good for parts" (working but with major problems, which probably describes a lot of these battered machines) sell for $150+. Heck, a pulled motherboard alone sells for more than $50.

Even Dell Inspirons of about the same age go for somewhere around half that, which is still several times more than $50.

jayparry
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Joined: Aug 2005

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08/16, 07:03pm | report spam | close Reply |
Deal

Wasnt a condition of the deal that they were to be sold for $50?

Makosuke
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Joined: Aug 2001

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08/16, 09:10pm | report spam | close Reply |
RE: Deal

"Wasnt a condition of the deal that they were to be sold for $50?"

What deal? The school district leased the iBooks with an option to buy them for $1 each at the end of the lease period, which they did. I don't know what sort of deal would have forced them to sell at drastically under market value.

If you think it has something to do with a deal with Apple it'd be quite the opposite--Apple had no say in any of this after the iBooks were sold to the school, but if they had they'd certainly have been pushing to get them sold for at least market value if not more, so as not to undercut their own sales.

MacWizard x
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Joined: Aug 2005

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08/16, 10:13pm | report spam | close Reply |
Good Move...

why not switch to dells when a massive virus just shut down PC's across the planet.... someday people will realize that OS X is worth as much as the dell factory.

TRRosen
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Joined: May 2002

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08/17, 04:15am | report spam | close Reply |
ebay

lets see less than 24 hours later there are already 4 are listed on ebay.

billearl
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Joined: Oct 2000

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08/17, 12:23pm | report spam | close Reply |
What about a lottery?

A lottery could have avoided the whole mess. Send in your name & phone number then, if your name is drawn, drop in to pick up your iBook. Simple.

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