Apple Will Buy Back Your Old PCs, iPhones or iPads

Hoping to buy a new iPhone 4S or 5 or whatever Apple plans on calling it, or a rumored iPad 3, next month or the month after next (depending on whose rumors your believe)? Why not sell an old computer, laptop (regardless of manufacturer) or iPad to help finance the Apple object of your desire?

Apple is working with recycler PowerON, which instead of disassembling your used gear (it still has to operate) will refurbish and resell it, extending its life and forestalling its eventual recycling fate (assuming the next/last owner disposes of it properly).

Once you tell Apple the make, model and condition of your gear via its Reuse and Recycling Web page, you'll get a preliminary price quote. You then send that which you waited in blistering heat or pouring rain for three hours to acquire to PowerON (Apple pays for packaging and shipping) so it can make sure you're not fibbing or exaggerating your computer's condition.

Once everyone is happy with PowerON's final appraisal, you'll get an Apple gift card.

If your PC has no worth, Apple will still offer to ship it to PowerON for recycling, for which Mother Earth will be grateful.

Selling alternatives

Apple, of course, is not the only buy back place in town. As I noted in "Pssst! Hey, you – wanna buy a (used) iPad?" recycler NextWorth will buy back some gear (and will pay for shipping) as well.

From whom will you get more? It depends.

For a 16 GB Wi-Fi-only iPad 2, for instance, Apple will give you $235, NextWorth $195.30

But for a Wi-Fi-only 64 GB iPad 1, NextWorth will give you $274, but Apple only $210.

Perhaps like the diamonds in Casablanca, Apple considers the first iPad a glut on the market.

Through NextWorth, Target also will buy back your old gear, also for in-store credit. But you'll have to schlep your electronic jalopies to one of the 1,450 participating Target trade-in stores. But then Target sells a lot more electronics than Apple stores, including the iPod Touch.

In either event, both Apple and NextWorth make it a mite easier to justify a new toy purchase.