I paid some huge cash for the privilege of getting an Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional brand-new in February. All-in, with optical inserts and taxes, I financed slightly over $3,900 for the 256GB model of the headset. A day or so in the past, I made a mistake that I’m certain many early adopters are conversant in: I appeared up how a lot it’s been promoting for on eBay.
On Wednesday, a 1TB Imaginative and prescient Professional, full with all of the included gear, Apple’s fluffy $200 journey case, $500 AppleCare Plus, and claimed to have been “worn possibly about an hour” bought for $3,200 after 21 bids. The listed transport estimate was $20.30. Model new, that mixture is $5,007.03 on Apple’s web site for me. One other eBay itemizing, this one with my headset’s configuration (however sans optical inserts) went for simply $2,600 — once more with most, if not all, of the included equipment. A number of different 256GB and 512GB fashions bought for round that quantity this week.
This, in fact, is how the story goes for early adopters, particularly whenever you’re shopping for very costly tech earlier than the mainstream catches on. Apple’s pricing doesn’t assist issues, particularly when the following closest competing headset — the Meta Quest 3 — is simply $500. It’s a bummer even when they’re finally not all that comparable, no less than by way of their focused audiences and objectives for his or her platforms.
However it nonetheless stings, doesn’t it? Realizing I might have saved a number of hundred {dollars} and gotten the very best storage configuration, AppleCare Plus, and a storage case is especially painful. I just like the Imaginative and prescient Professional a lot — possibly greater than another author at The Verge — but when I hadn’t missed the return window, I’d ship mine proper again to Apple in a heartbeat simply so I might get one in all these offers. Fortunately, after I’m sporting the headset, no one can see my tears.