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Gifts and Toys You Should Pass on This Season?
poincaraux asks: "So, Christmas is rapidly approaching, and with it comes a horde of sales. But, of course, new technology is "almost ready" as always. For instance, there's always the hope that if I wait a little longer, I can buy a laptop that's faster and has a better battery. I'm certainly going to spend some money on fun electronic toys this Christmas, but what *shouldn't* I buy? What's going to be so much cheaper a month or so after Christmas that it's really worth waiting for?" What is out there that you can pass up on, maybe because it's just not worth it...or it will be cheaper in due time and a better buy then? With economies the way they are these days, anything you can put off until later may be a good thing.
I think that y'all should avoid buing the X-Box, the Cube and the rest for now. Right now, there are relatively few games out for any of them. It would be best to wait until one of them becomes dominant over the others. Remember VHS vs Betamax? If you chose betamax, you might as well have thrown your money out. It was a great piece of hardware, but you couldn't watch anything on it. Wait a couple months, prices will drop, and you will be better able to pick the system that's gonna last.
I just get the feeling that the laptop market is getting ugly. Companies aren't buying them and there are a flood of off-lease and refurbs. They're getting close to a good price point for consumers. When Dell cuts a quality laptop to under $1,000, I think the pricewar will really heat up. I wouldn't be suprised to see decent laptops going for under $800 by March.
Boxes like the ever-popular Linksys Cable/DSL Router will probably continue to fall. Siemens had a two-port for $29 after rebate. I would expect Linksys to ride out the holiday season, maybe with a few rebate offers, then cut prices.
On the other hand, I just don't know what memory is going to do. Most people I know with a modern desktop now have more memory than they can use. If things were bad 3 months ago, they've going to be jump-out-the-window brutal after Christmas. How much cheaper can memory get? It's not like they can keep offering more for the money. Not a lot of market for a $50 2 gig DIMM, if that's even possible. I don't even think many machines can take a 512 meg DIMM.
I'm also waiting for every one of you satellite-stealing-mother-f'ers to buy your used slim-line PC with 2 serial ports ("perfect for emulation") so the price goes back down on those boxes. I need to build some firewalls and other appliances and you guys are driving the prices up.
Apple has a history of announcing speed bumps, lower prices, and/or new products in January and March. Rumor has it that there will be speed bumped G4s or possibly even G5s real soon now. Since the iBook and PowerBooks got a speed bump recently, don't expect anything new in the portables except maybe a slight price drop. I would think the iPod will get a price reduction once the Christmas buying rush is over.