Laptops are a bad investment in the strict sense: they all lose value. But they don't lose it at the same speed, and the gap between brands is large enough to change what a laptop really costs you.
How fast laptops depreciate
Swappa, a marketplace for used tech, published resale figures in June 2026 based on 2025–2026 resale reports:
- Apple Silicon MacBooks (M-series) lose about 15–20% of their value per year, and keep roughly 40–60% of it after three years.
- Windows laptops average about 30% depreciation per year. Consumer models can lose 50–70% in their first year.
- Premium Windows ultrabooks from Dell, HP, and Lenovo hold up better, keeping about 25–40% of their value at three years.
Swappa describes these as editorial market observations rather than guarantees, and any single model can do better or worse.
What that means in dollars
Take a laptop that's worth $1,000 today on the used market:
| Years from now | At 15%/yr loss | At 20%/yr loss | At 30%/yr loss | |---|---|---|---| | 1 | $850 | $800 | $700 | | 3 | $614 | $512 | $343 | | 5 | $444 | $328 | $168 |
The difference between a 15% and a 30% annual loss is about $270 after three years on a $1,000 machine. That's a real part of the cost of owning it.
Why MacBooks hold up
A few reasons come up again and again: Apple's long software-support window, consistent build quality, a narrow product line that makes used models easy to compare, and strong demand for used Macs from students and creatives. Apple Silicon laptops in particular have aged well because the chips are still fast years later.
When to sell
Depreciation is steepest early and when a successor launches. If you upgrade regularly, selling a year or two in captures more of the value than holding until the machine feels slow. Keep the charger, box, and accessories: complete listings sell for more.
Check a specific laptop
Our item value pages, like the iPhone 15 Pro Max, track recent eBay sale prices for specific models and project them forward with published depreciation figures, publishing a model once it has enough real sales. For anything else, upload a photo to the photo analyzer for an estimate of what it's worth now and later.
Don't guess. Just Predictye.