Henrico County, VA taxpayers to iBook bargain hunters: Stay home!

Last week, I casually mentioned that the Henrico County Public School system in Virginia was dumping iBooks for $50 each. Many of you made clear your plans to try for one, some of you even stating you were planning to drive from miles and miles away just to get a shot.

Turns out that's not such a bright idea, folks. As many readers pointed out, these iBooks are low-end 500MHz G3 models and they've been used and abused by high-school students for a whole year. Local technicians familiar with these machines have even chimed in to say that most of the 1000 iBooks being sold have logic board problems or worse. In other words, $50 for the iBook and another $50 in gas and tolls, for argument's sake, and you're probably already losing money. Any hopes you had of profiting on eBay should have been dashed when you saw that there was a one iBook per person limit – even if you live locally.  More after the jump...

And now, of course, we've all drawn so much attention to this event that the residents and taxpayers of Henrico County are mad as hell and they are not going to take it anymore. That's right... they've called an emergency meeting to try to change the terms of the sale of the
"I-books" so that only Henrico residents are elligible to purchase them, or at the very least get the right of first refusal on them.

According to a local news station, "it's expected that Henrico supervisors will hold a meeting Wednesday and vote on an emergency ordinance that will allow the county to offer the computers to Henrico residents first." Readers of the Richmond Times-Dispatch have quite a bit to say about this too.

I
hate to rain on everyone's parade, but they have a point. After all,
they did pay for those iBooks with their tax dollars and they ought to have an opportunity to get some additional value out of the poor,
discarded iBooks. Ultimately, however, I think the best solution would be to donate these iBooks to local libraries in Henrico County and surrounding areas so that the taxpayers that paid for them can continue to enjoy them for what little time may be left in them.