I'm not sure why anyone buys anything other than a home when accounting for resale value unless they're just trying to pull a pump-and-dump.

For laptops, at least, I buy them and use them until they die.

I've only owned three laptops in my life.

I'll usually buy a mac Apple refurb that's 9-12 months old (they're indistinguishable from new), then sell it a couple of years later. E.g. my 2010 MBA I bought for $900, then sold for $450 after two years. I'd rather do that than buy one new and use it for 6 years, which would cost about the same.

For a long time a 3-year-old laptop struggled to run the latest eclipse (this may well still be the case). So at that point I'll sell them on to someone with a less intense workload and buy a replacement.

> a 3-year-old laptop struggled to run the latest eclipse

There's a whole world of bad software engineering in that observation!