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When to Buy Technology Goods?
inblosam asks: "I am about to make 'the switch', but the thought came to me that there may be a strategic time of year to purchase technology goods. Of course once you buy something it is nearly outdated already, but there must be some marketing cycle for lowering prices and releasing new toys. Anyone seen any patterns that may help? I do have one hypothesis: Companies push their products that have been on the market for 10-11 months during the holiday season (December), then afterwards drop the prices some and bump up the product with a new feature or size, etc. I believe this was the case for the iPod ($500 down to $300 ?), and even the Handspring Visor Edge was $300 when I bought it (November?) and then $169 three months later."
price drops 50%.
One thing to remember is that Apple tends to revamp a product category (consumer desktop/loptop, pro desktop/laptop) approx. every 18 months. This is by design. There are incremental upgrades during this time (larger iMac screen).
Gee, did I get a first post?
See how they're products are selling. Otherwise just wait until after christmas.
During the Christmas season, prices go up because retailers know people will pay.
:).
Go to Mac fan sites and find out when all the Mac shows are (obviously that's when the new stuff comes out).
Sometimes new stuff comes out before Christmas for the first reason I listed. Photokina (the big camera show) starts next week I think. The new models announced will probably arrive on store shelves at the end of October (can't wait for a Canon G3
When you're looking at Apple purchases, try and keep the MacWorld schedules in mind. Usually MacWorld NY offers the 'big' updates and price shifts, but the other MacWorld events do too. It's a good idea to buy right after one, because prices aren't likely to change for a while.
My own pointless vanity vintage computing page
If watching 18 month product cycles and waiting for the best time to save 100 bucks isn't your thing, you could always custom build a better system for 1000$ less (-:
For Apple products its always best to get wait for revision after a major product overhaul.
Early adopters get burned. Outside of the obviously faster chips, graphics cards, etc, which just goes with the territory of buying computers, with Apple you get the industrial design quirks that haven't been worked out properly.
In the original Titanium Powerbook the battery comes out if you twist the wrong way and the DVD drive can grind if the thing is at an angle at all.
If you are going to "switch," always take the second or third product revision from Apple. You end up better in the long run.
Most of the major retailers seem to raise their prices for the back-to-school rush of buying computers. If you have to have it soon, at least wait until mid-October.
But computers are considered an "immature" technology, so it's a safe assumption that you WILL save money if you hold out as long as you can until you buy. The prices aren't going anywhere but down.
Have you been stalked by Seth today?
my general rule is to buy tech at least 1 or 2 yrs after it hits the market. Since I'm a student, I don't have money for cutting-edge, but I get last-year's cutting edge for half price, the initial bugs have been worked out (somewhat), and I can avoid what's been massively rejected. It depends on a) how fast the turnover is for the particular tech B) how much disposable income you have c) intangible factors like status and style, and how important that is to you.
First of all, quiz me. Second of all, most people reading this probably aren't that familiar with a lot of techincal things, so of course that should come into play. Why would someone ask if they knew?
We now have confirmed reports from an informed Orange County minister that Ethel is still an active communist.
For microprocessors and motherboards, prices are tied to the linewidth cycle.
:).
A couple of months after a new linewidth becomes available, you get a few marginally higher-speed samples at a huge price.
Over the next six months, speed ramps up by a factor of 2 and prices drop on the older stuff. During this time any new chipsets introduced for the new hardware mature.
6 months after a linewidth switch, buy from the low end of the new speed grade range. You'll get a good price, and won't be obsolete for a year or more (as opposed to the usual 6 months).
There should be similar cycles for RAM (twice as fast, since they step lithography in cycles twice as fine), but in practice this isn't the case. Because margins are so thin, you get the occasional upset that drastically affects price (sometimes with help - the warehouse fire that quadrupled RAM prices a few years back only affected 3% of production capacity, according to rumour).
Processors are driven by linewidth, and motherboards are driven by processors, but most other things are market driven and so not as easy to predict. Other posters seem to have a better handle on this than I do
This reminds me of my old manager when I did computer sales, he was an old used car salesman and he would always say "it's ALWAYS a good time to buy a computer."
But he was full of crap. A good example was my PowerMac 8100/110. It $4500 (even at edu discount), it took 60 days to deliver the machine due to delays caused by some idiotic porny easter egg they found in the OS CDs and they had to master new CDs for ALL their stock. 2 weeks after delivery, they dropped the price $300. Mere weeks later, the machine was discontinued and replaced by far cheaper, faster models.
Another good example is my Powerbook G3/500, purchased 30 days before the G4/500 was released at the same price. But that one I don't regret, because I paid for the machine with the 30 days of work for one specific job.
So what you could do is just ask ME, and whenever I buy, that's the WRONG time to buy. FYI, I just bought a new dual-1Ghz machine.
I deal in the retail computer/technology world, mainly compaq, epson, HP, and Envision(AOC) monitors.
:)
Never fails, pretty much every 3 months compaq replaces their desktop line, and 3-4 months their laptop line(presarios and evos alike I believe... I work with both). Stocking them gets to be a bitch in a small market like ours... we order frequent small orders so not to get stuck with old models. So, if we hit it wrong, we're without computers for a week, because the old stock runs out, but the new stuff's still backordered.
Never fails, EVERY back-to-school season we run waaay short, especially on laptops(so figure your cycle starting end of august).
Epson and HP's printers keep a little more lifespan, usually 4-6 months, whenever the decide we need more faux-resolution increase, or a new type of ink/cartridge.
Monitors... a year or better product cycle, at least for CRTs anyway... havent changed much beside the (case) color in a while either.
I usually buy RIGHT at the end of product life.. get nice and cheap then.. but i hate it because the next product I see a week later is always sooo much cooler
Wait for Macworld San Fran (early Jan) or MacWorld NY (Mid July).
Although Apple is breaking out of this mould, somewhat, this is usually when they announce new hardware and discount the old hardware if it's still piled up in inventory. If the new hardware is significantly better than the old then you can fork out the extra $$ for the latest and greatest. If on the other hand the hardware is only marginally better than what preceeded it (like MWNY's new Powermacs), you can usually get some good deals on slightly out of date equipment.
This year represents an interesting twist. Since Apple announced that the next round of hardware will not be able to boot OS9, if you need a machine that can boot OS9 just buy something now.
Lately Apple has been announcing some hardware between the Big 2 Shows, but usually pretty close to one or the other.
Getting at your more general question, the answer is also now. You're always guaranteed that if you wait it will be faster and cheaper. So what? Then you don't get the use of the machine until a long time from now.
Find free books.
You cannot win. Just buy what you want.. with the money you are willing to spend and don't think about it too much. Look for deals and haggle if ya can.
Buy an electronics product when you need it, or when it would make a substantial improvement in your quality of life.
Yes, prices usually drop somewhat after the winter holidays, but prices on most of today's consumer electronics will continue to go lower and lower as eqipment bought a few months ago becomes obselete because of the latest "advance." The solution: wait until you need something and buy it then. If you become obsessed with getting the best price on something and timing the market, you'll either never buy or drive yourself crazy.
Apple typically lowers prices drasticly on the items they will be upgrading at a macworld expo a few weeks before the expo starts. After the expo, Apple will either phase out that hardware, or drop it's price even more. Example for the former: old iMacs. Example of the latter: upgrades to the professional G4 line.
Apple is very predictable about when it lowers prices and introduces new hardware. I say wait for an expo to role around and see what's new.
"Upon attaching the waterblock to my penis, I began to notice that I know nothing about computers." -- JRockway
I just did "the switch" at the begining of August because Apple was running a special. I bought the G4 933MHz system with 17" Apple Display and got a $400 mail in rebate.
The rebate was only good through something like August 20th. The reason for the rebate ( in my opinion ) was because the new G4s were brought out the day after the rebate ended.
So, I got the $400 discount but not the latest hardware ( the new G4s are all dual processors with DDR RAM instead of SDRAM ).
Discounts usually only come because the seller is trying to get rid of inventory to make room for something else.
Ergo the offtopic of my post. oh well, thats what you get when you rush because you might have a fp. and when? trashday. duh.
We now have confirmed reports from an informed Orange County minister that Ethel is still an active communist.
Buy when you need, not before, not after.
ayottesoftware.com
What is wrong with you? It seemed like an interesting question and all you can do is post flame bait.
Any self-respecting geek knows full well that whatever tech product you end up buying, no matter how well researched, no matter how "latest and greatest," will be instantaneously transformed into the lamest piece of outdated old fashioned stone knife and bearskin technology that even your grandfather wouldn't be caught dead using -- the *moment* you pay for it.
This is really somewhat understating the point. Several generations of product improvements are in the works typically before the latest gadget hits the market. This is reason for the pattern of precipitous prices drops a few months after a new toy is introduced (in addition to making money off of all the suckers that just have to have something as soon as it gets into the stores).
"player 4 hit player 1 with 0 stroms"
Actually, Apple hasn't dropped their prices right before Christmas since about 1996. These days, they'll toss in a rebate on a bundle, but not a price cut.
When you want it. You will almost always get screwed on the price. Then there's that rare gem you walk into.
:) Heck I am still amazed at the amount of folks who think monochrome PDA's are cool.
A good example is the iOpener thing. Here was a full PC being sold for 99 bucks. You will never beat it....well, at least not for a while. Not saying it was a great deal, but the form factor is what really made the price and feature set work.
I bought a Toshiba e740 right when it first came out (like with in a day of release) and then like a month later, the e550g came out (no huge deal there...I still had wireless and it didn't) and then CompUSA ran a deal for a few weeks where you got a free WiFi card too (DOH!). Oh well. The e550g is wonderfully done and by far the best of the XScale PocketPC's. Even better then the 3900 iPaqs. They are WAAAY over priced by HP....no matter how good that screen looks....plus no integrated CF or PC Card slot kind of sucks cuz now your on the acessory train. Buy a sleeve, then crap to put in the sleeve, then another sleeve if what you want to work in it doesn't work in a cf sleeve (Toshiba 2 GB PC Card drives). Then a NexiCAM sleeve and then and then..... Since they have no integrated CF slot, they should REDUCE the price if you ask me. The screens Toshiba are using aren't that bad. I am still waiting for someone to bring out a HAST screen in brightness, but with it viewable in sunlight (Casio always had great screens). NO the 3900 series isn't as bright as a CASIO screen. Sorry for the rant, but Pocket devices are going to be the way alot of folks access the internet. Better hope for the best!
Anyway, if you can afford it, buy it. Don't wait for the price to come down...you'll be waiting forever and still get bit.
Gorkman
If you don't like it start your own website so others can post to it and say it fucking sucks.
Always buy whatever was really, really cool two years ago. When you get it it might be a little out of date compared to whatever is really, really cool right now. But the price will be less than half of what the early adopters paid and the drivers/software/etc. will finally be working right.
Jack William Bell
- -
Are you an SF Fan? Are you a Tru-Fan?
I hate that commercial. "The switch to Mac". It's like leaving our world and find heaven, where everything "works" and doesn't crash.
Well, all I say if Mac is this "heaven", I would never buy it. I take parallells to real life, where people would loose interest in their life if everything was perfect.
I fear this will be the product of Mac users. Finding a PC that is this "friend" that Mac describe, is like finding the very end to resistance. And as we all know, no resistanse, no progress. I've allready started feeling this Windows XP Pro not crashing, giving me a strange feeling of not being in existence, never actually feeling the power of "look, it's crashes! I know why. I, the physical self, do not crash. I am superior to the computer!"
The very end must be Windows XP on a Mac. Too much of what is not. Too little of the resistance that we all should feel. Look. I typed this with no feeling. Perfect. It works. Simply the best. The missing link. Your own center. Go where you wanna go. It's built for the internet. It's beautiful.
I stand on my ground.
If you watch the Mac sites (MacNN, MacOS Rumors, Macintouch, Apple Insider, MacAddict) you'll find that they usually post info on when a given model is reaching what Apple calls End Of Life, i.e. they're about to discontinue that model. That is reliably a good time to buy as you'll avoid getting the bugs of a 1.0 product and usually get some good toys as Apple tries to clear out their inventory. ;->
Remember, Apple is massively paranoid about excess inventory since they were so imfamous for having it in the bad old pre-Steve days.
Of course, you would be even better advised to buy a used Mac at a site like smalldog, macresq (where I bought mine), PowerMax, or the Powerbook Zone. Keep in mind that the useful life of a well cared for Mac (5300s and such notwithstanding YMMV) is about ten years.
Buy a model about a year old, max out the RAM, get a copy of Virtual PC, and score some two-version-old legit copies of your apps on eBay or the used mac sites, and you'll be stylin' on far less cash then you'ld think.
Speaking as both a former IT director in publishing and somebody who has set up stacks of machines for starving artists, that's what I'ld recommend.
Of course you could always drop by the Computing links section of my site and get even more advice
Rustin
Data is the lever, rigor the fulcrum, brains the force that drives it all.
I now ask people to wait to give me things for my birthday. Why? It's in mid july, in Late July apple has their MacWorld Expos, and twice, I could've gotten better things for the same money (Well, other people's money).
July birthdays suck that way, but you do get an even distribution of presents between Birthday and christmas
"Oh no, 3 horny women and only 2 condoms...Thank god I read slashdot"
Oftentimes with a new version/generation of a product is being introduced (i.e. with a new OS, features, form factor, etc) you can usually get the previous version/generation at a really good price.
This is why I prefer to wait and buy older PC games and hardware (usually stuff that is a 1 generation behind the latest stuff). The added advantage of doing so is that the product tends to be more refined/less buggy.
With specific regards to Apple, right now is a good time to buy a system that DOES NOT have Jaguar on it. I recently picked up an iMac with OS X (for my wife) and, compaired with to the plain-jane iMac, we got it for $200 cheaper (Canadian $) plus ours came with a CD burner and an extra 128 MB or RAM.
Obviously, they were trying to get rid of their non-Jaguar inventory at my local BMac store. We also got a coupon so that we can buy Jaguar for $30 CND (it should arrive any day now).
Several people have written and said that you should buy systems 1-2 years after they're first released to maximize reliability.
I've bought lots of Macs over the past 20 years, and since '95 or so I've seen a pattern develop. Here's my theory: buy the most expensive brand-new system you can afford at the instant you're ready to buy.
My first Mac laptop-- a PowerBook 160-- cost me $3,000, and I used it every day for five years. It was my primary-- only!-- machine until I bought my iMac. I regret that purchase, but only a little bit. Both of my iMacs were great, reliable little machines, and I never had a complaint about either of them, but I often wished I had bought machines with more oomph.
When the "speed holes" machines came out last month, I bought again. I found a friend who was willing to give me a few bucks for my iMac, and I plopped down $3,500 on a dual processor 1 GHz with a 17" studio display. It's fast, really fast, and it's got room to grow. I'll keep it for at least three years, I imagine.
But I know, and I accept, that Apple will release faster and better machines eight months or a year from now. It won't be too long before my top-o-the-line machine looks a little pale by comparison to the newest machines shipping. But that's not the point. The point is to get the very best system you can when you're ready to buy, and then be happy with it for as long as it takes to justify the purchase in your mind.
I think the release of trillian needs to be posted too, just because it isn't bad news about windows doesn't mean it isn't good news.
Sig: I stole this sig.
Who gives a shit about trillian, though? Only Mozilla, the linux kernel, and the major linux/bsd distributions get articles for every single x.x.1 increment. And most of us don't care about the articles for any of those, either.
Wait five years then get it cheap on E-Bay! (I just got a Newton Messagepad 2100 for $72 that's become my new favorite toy.)
-- It only takes 20 minutes for a liberal to become a conservative thanks to our new outpatient surgical procedure!
I buy right after something big hits the market. I'd get a 2 GHz processor right after the 2.2s come out. A GeForce 3 right after the GF4 comes out. This gives you a good balance of near-cutting edge for a fair price. Your hardware stays up to date longer, and doesn't cost as much as the top of the line.
Oh shit! I forgot to click "Post Anonymously"...
Desktop: .. or even the DUAL 1GHz (If you have the cash) ...
... it has the Rage Mobility video card built in, so I don't imagine it to be a very solid "game machine" ....
... I would suggest waiting if you've got your eyes on the Powerbook ...
PowerMac DUAL 867 just got released, I imagine in 6 months apple will have another unit out, but until then, the Dual 867 is VERY AWESOME
Notebook:
Well, if you need a notebook I have recently purchased an iBook which is a G3 700MHz, but ya' know what, it runs great for applications (photoshop, final cut pro, office X, etc..)
The Powerbooks are very expensive for just an 800MHz
In fact you could purchase an iBook for $1499 on an apple loan for $30 a month and have plenty of money to buy a Dual PowerMac 867MHz.
He asked about buying a mac. Your post doesn't even have the words apple or mac in them. Somebody explain to me how the fuck that got modded to 2?
Never but anything from Apple right BEFORE a Mac Expo. You will be green with envy.
the road is there, what u want is also, whether to close or to far it is always there
the price and quality are what I consider paying for. I still haven't bought a LCD flat panel monitor because I haven't seen any that have the resolution at the price I want to pay. If that means I wait 4 years; so be it. It doesn't really matter the time of year. It may be after Christmas or it could be in early October. So really, when to buy technology products is when you feel it is justified no matter when somebody else says it's a good time to buy.
I bought my eMac at CompUSA. The next time
I went into the store the price had dropped by $100. I brought in my sales receipt and they gave me $100. Their policy is that if the price of what you purchased decreases within two weeks after your purchase date then they will refund the difference.
Last year Best Buy sent my friends and I (ultimate electronic consumers) coupons for various percentages off items. Thinking the the stores out of stock during the big "coupon sale", our plan was to go the day before the sale, buy the item, and then return the following day and do a price adjustment with the coupon.
Much to my surprise, the price on the item I purchased had been raised 10% for the sale and conveniently enough my coupon was for 10%. Nice trick. I felt like an idiot for waiting in line to get my non-existant cash back.
And yes, shortly after Christmas the price dropped even lower than the price I paid to make room for the the new model which (I think) arrived in the spring.
But, since you asked...
The entire technology industry monitors your activities. As soon as you purchase a product, we lower the price. Dramatically.
Again, I'm very sorry.
Username taken, please choose another one.
...I strongly recommend that you wait for Greenspan to give another stimulating speech to Congress. I mean, doesn't the economy start to shine everytime the great man opens his mouth?
Yes, a G4 tower refresh is in order for January Macworld, considering that Apple announced that OS 9 would not run on shipping systems starting in January.
Typically what Apple does is they will stop production of a model and let the retail channels empty out in the couple of weeks before a new hardware introduction. They don't want the overlap, though usually there are tower systems available for a while after the MacWorld introduction.
This coming MacWorld, however, I predict that there will be a run on G4 towers before the new models are introduced, because, for the people who aren't ready to switch to OS X, this is their last shot at buying a new G4 system. I predict that Apple is going to cut production beforehand, as usual, and the increased demand will dry up the channels rather quickly.
My advice is to either buy just before MacWorld, or call your MacWarehouse rep on a daily basis to guage their inventory and buy shortly after.
Define what you need. Don't settle for the advertised price, recognize the concept of mark-up. Be willing to pay good money for good gear, and don't always go with the prices offered at the first store you come to.
It helps to buy somethings over the summer when everyone's on vacation. Prices can be lower, the store more quiet and the sales people more relaxed and less stressed.
"There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness."- Friedrich Nietzsche
I feel knowledgeable enough to say:
Last month.
No, I'm not being fecicious here, but I have seen, and experienced the best prices in July/August. Memory is cheap, and parts are cheap.
My guess is because people and companies just aren't buying much during the summer.
Whatever you do, avoid buying near Christmas. Even if you get a good deal, the extra strain on a dealer to work through Christmas will lower the quality of service, and possibly quality of parts you get.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Slightly off-topic, but since you are thinking of switching, I encourage you to read about my experience and why I eventually switched back. Hopefully you won't run into the same situations I found myself in.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Usually I will buy on the trailing edge of technology for video cards, CPUs, motherboards for my primary system. This ensures that all the bugs are worked out, and the novelty markup has eroded.
For hard drives, DVDs, and CD writers usually its best to buy what is at the time the most bang for the buck.
For cool items, I'll typically take note of what's cool 3-4 years ago, and then buy it at a used computer parts store for $10-20. I also tend to buy games this way as well.
So then you can play sinistar unleashed on your voodoo 3 p3 450 system with the vortex soundcard
and 32X cd-rom drive.
Although some items it is possible to drop the ball on, and then they become expensive replacement parts. Such as 72 pin EDO memory sticks, AMD K6-3 450 CPUs, etc. And then your only source of these items is after they have been pounded on and thrown out by other surplus PC Parts store shoppers. And by that time technology has moved to far on for you to really care.
The question just cannot be answered. There is no single 'BEST' time to buy technology, no matter how quickly price drops off with time.
Instead, when you 'should' buy a technology depends on the tradeoff between how badly you 'need' that technology and how badly you need to save money. For some people, waiting 1 week or even 1 day for the end of the next MacExpo might be too long to wait to buy the latest/greatest Mac.
Do you HAVE to have the fastest computer out there because you're doing rendering or financial modelling or something really CPU intensive ? If your time is worth enough $, then maybe the time to buy the latest/fastest/greatest AMD/Intel chip or whatever is now. If, on the other hand, you're a hobbyist, then maybe you can make do with a slower CPU or the penultimate video card instead of the ultimate until prices drop.
My new computer's got the clocks / it rocks
but it was obsolete before I opened the box
That's my view on it.
I'm the Devil the Windows users warned you about.
Let's keep this short and sweet.
There is nothing wrong with buying things many times throughout the year.
But keep these few things in mind.
1. Never buy anything (tech related or not) first generation. They invariably fix bugs, both big and small with the second generation. second generation items are still very popular and more fairly priced.
2. Always check online before buying in the store. I have found brand new items 25% to 40% cheaper online then buying them in the store at the same time.
3. Never buy during the holidays. Commerce rule #1: Charge what the market will bare. Meaning as long as people keep aying that price, they will continue to charge that much. Or when people stop buying because of price they will lower it until people start buying again.
4. Even if you do have the money, ask yourself two questions. Is this the best I can do?, and do I need this right now or can I wait a littel while?
If you remember these simple things you can almost never go wrong.
I waited two months and bought a $1200.00 switch for $300.00 dollars used. I got it and found out it was still under warranty.
Depending on which box you're planning on, you may want to wait for a graphics hardware rev from Apple. The new ATI 9700 isn't yet available for Mac, but will probably be coming out soon. Given the performance step these cards offer over the current generation, you may want to hold off (either to buy the new card, or buy the discounted older model.) NVidia will also be shipping a next-generation card (Nv30) sometime Q4/Q1.
OS X is great - especially coming from the dark ages of old Mac OS. My wife has an iMac, and a friend of mine has an iBook - both are pretty nice systems.
My only gripe with Apple is that Mac's CPU and chipset is still behind the times. I've heard rumours of OS X running on Intel hardware - now, wouldn't that be a kick in the head?
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo. -- James Klass
Let me suggest making your purchases...
NOW!!!
PLEASE!!! JUST BUY SOMETHING!!! A TV tuner, a new video card, a new cell phone, whatever, but dear God, man, think of the plummeting NASDAQ and spend money!!!
I just wait for the rebate ;-)
;-)
I'll drop by CompUSA occasionally; for those of you not in the US, CompUSA is a huge computer store where everything is really overpriced. Every once in a while they'll put up a bunch of rebate offers, and then I'll buy something. (ex: last week I bought a RAM upgrade, a network card, and an ethernet switch; after tax and rebate it'll come to $20 total). As a side note, if you need more blank CDs, go there....I've been to a couple of the sales and both times you could get a stack of CDs for free after rebate. What can I say, I'm cheap
(Obviously the discounts on expensive stuff aren't as big as a percentage, but you can save a few bucks...I know I saw an 80 GB hard drive for $80 installed after rebate)
Twenties Retirement
even though you have bought an overpriced desk lamp, you to can rest assured your Mac is still somehow "better" than any PC running windows or Linux
...and so do PCs. The only time you have hardware/software incompatibilities on the PC are ironically, when the drivers for the hardware are poorly written. Macs aren't immune from this problem either.
Wow, the moderator that modded the parent up must have had ball balls, cause that remark could certainly ruffle some feathers.
If you like the styling of the Mac, OS X, or the feeling of being part of a more "unique" group of computer users, the Mac may be worth the extra money. Unfortunately, Apple's "switch" campaign is more like propaganda. While it may have been accurate 10 years ago, it most certainly isn't the case about PCs now.
The Mac... It just works
It doesn't crash
Yes it does. So does Windows XP and so does Linux, *BSD, Windows 3.1, DOS and every other OS out there. If you're TRYING to crash an OS, there's always a way to succeed. If you're just using OS X or Windows XP or Linux and not trying to crash it on purpose, they can be equally stable.
Simply the best in digital music
The PC was first with software Layer3 encoding/decoding. On the PC, there's a dizzying array of available codecs, editing tools, mixers, audio hardware, etc, etc, etc. Yes, you can listen to MP3s on the Mac. Professional audio production? Just like on the PC, you're going to need a better sound card.
The missing link in digital photography
Ironic they'd call the Mac the "missing link" because there really is nothing "missing" from the PC in the area of digital photography. Your results are really more dependant on the quality of your digicam than your computing platform of choice.
Your own digital entertainment center
I have to hand this title to the PC, sorry Apple. I've tried the DivX player on the Mac - it wasn't pretty. If making MPEG1/2 files, DivX and timeshifting TV is your thing, the PC is the only choice. If you own a DV cam and want to do Apple's iMovie thing, Apple's great, otherwise you'll be disappointed.
Goes everywhere you go
Umm... Apple... There are small portable PCs too. Where's my cluestick?
It's built for the Internet
So was Windows 98. 'Nuff said.
Office is Office and then some
Yep. There's MS-Office for the Mac. Basically, if you're into Microsoft software and you switch to the Mac, you can keep supporting the worthwhile cause of making Bill Gates's wallet fatter.
Works effortlessly with PCs
Unless you want to access Samba/Windows shares. Then you need to buy 3rd party software called Dave and it's buggy. No, this isn't Mac bashing, it's from experience.
It's beautiful
We'll sue any PC manufacturer that tries to copy the look-and-feel of our hardware, because Microsoft already succeded in copying the look-and-feel of our software.
"Buy a new computer if you needed it yesterday"
Expressed, shall we say, interestingly? This is the second strangest post I have ever seen on slashdot. The strangest ever had been replied to, "Did anyone else read this as 'colorless green ideas sleep furiously'?" This is a reference to Naom Chomsky, who constructed that sentence to prove that is was possible to create language that was syntactically correct and meaningless. This however, is much more surreal than that. "Too much of what is not?" Right, a buddhist walks up to a hot dog vendor, and says "Make me one with everything." The hot dog vendor complies, and says, "That will be $5." The buddhist hands him a twenty and takes his hot dog. Then he waits for a while. Finally he asks, "Where is my change?" The vendor intones, "Change is within." The buddhist nods and walks away. THAT is too much of what is not, my friends. This is SO getting modded down... I wish I had some links to that other post that was really strange. By now this post is becoming a candidate for a pretty strange post, all by itself.
uhhhh.... they just 'updated' the G4 towers dude...
and, OS9 will still 'run' on new hardware, but it won't be installed on it from the factory. ie, no more silly dual-boot.
with Apple's move to LCD, the availability of machines through outside sources (macmall ec) has much less meaning than it did a few years ago. Mr Jobs is trying to avoid predictability... in an effort to make himself look more valuable to the company.
your end advise sucks. buy when you are happy with what can be had. if rumors persist of 'something new due soon' than wait. besides, regardless of what or when you buy, it will be out of date in less than 6 months.
First, I know this is off-topic, so, feel free to mod me down. Check out the operating environment temperature of your iMac. It is convection cooled so any problems you are having might be caused by your ignorance of the proper operating environment. I too have replaced several PAV (Power Analog Video) boards as a repair tech for a decent sized university. Most from abuse and others from people who operated thier computers outside of the recomended environment (above or below recommended temps. or humidity). Check out the specifications on your machine either in the manual or here.
1. Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball. 2. Do not eat iPod shuffle.
i dont remeber if it was around november or whenever you bought it, but a little while ago the prices for handsprings all droped dramaticly when they were getting the warehouse ready for the neo and that other one. it was crazy, i know like 5 ppl who bought prisms within a few weeks...
is the best time to buy a Mac Plus. They originally sold for $2600, and you can get them for $10 or less now. That's 99.61538% off! show me a better deal than that!
must... stay... awake...
I upgrade my computer (usually a new video card, motherboard, RAM and CPU) every time a new game comes out that runs like shit on my current system. GTA3 is really starting to put the upgrade pressure on me. It's a good thing I didn't hold out for Duke Nukem Forever or I'd still be using a 166MHz Pentium MMX.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
I've been waiting for the NV30, but the time to buy a computer is when you need it. For the record, I'm getting a Shuttle SS51. I've been impressed with the little boxes younger brother and have over about fifteen at work now. Disconnect drive cables, undo two thumbscrews, slide drive out. I wish there were an AMD nForce2-based version out right now. <wah>
Like the parent post says (most funny, deserves a mod up):
Any self-respecting geek knows full well that whatever tech product you end up buying, no matter how well researched, no matter how "latest and greatest," will be instantaneously transformed into the lamest piece of outdated old fashioned stone knife and bearskin technology that even your grandfather wouldn't be caught dead using -- the *moment* you pay for it.
This equation says it all. I bundle both want and need into desire. All that is left is accounting for how these numbers are likely to change over time. See? If your desire for an improved computer will rapidly go down as still better ones are introduced, you should keep your current one (level of consumption) in order to increase your happiness. Eventually, it is likely that your desire will increase as vastly better machines with new features, etc, come out and at that point you will have to make a purchase to increase your happiness, or maintain the same level. Ultimately this all depends on the individual. This is probably not the specific answer the questioner sought, so I would also advise Thursday as a mighty fine technology buyin' day.
A PDF or postscript version can be downloaded from here. An HTML version is online here.
While the paper is written more as an exercise in humor than as a serious scientific endeavor, all of the math is correct. The authors calculate that the optimal strategy for quickly finding the solution to large computational problems with a fixed budged is: defer your purchase of a computer until you can purchase a computer that will solve the problem in about 26 months. As a corollary to this, any calculation that currently takes less than 26 months will finish earliest if started immediately.
Please, when did this topic turn into a big Apple circle-jerk, people? The poster also mentioned Handspring, and a large fraction of people don't own Apple products. Apple people, shut up already, let's hear some OTHER NEW information, the reason most of us mean to read /., not to hear Apple people pat each other on the backs.
performed in the spring. That switch reallly does you good.
Accept a few basic things:
1) If you buy something 1 - 2 years old, it will depreciate slower.
2) Resale value should never be taken into account when buying computer equipment.
3) 1-2 year old equipment and it's associated drivers are less broken than cutting edge tech.
4) Only get power/stuff that you are going to use - it hurts very much to see unused stuff that you can't resell depreciate like computer equipment does.
http://pcblues.com - Digits and Wood
You should purchase your computer like you would buy a car. They say that you should buy a car after it's been used for 2-4 years because that way the price has depreciated the most that it ever will.
Thus I'm currently surfing the web on a trusty 486. Can you believe that it only cost me a mere 25 cents!?!?! And this post has only taken me a mere half an hour to do. Now that's using your money wisely! ;-)
The only thing that will stop you from fulfilling your dreams is you. - Tom Bradley
I think its follows a well know algorythm wich is called Murphy's law when you buy something it always the bad time.... (its a joke but in fact in think there is no real good time as there is no middle between inexpensive and aboutto be outdated and overly expensive ) so choose between your backpocket weight or your self esteem weight ( hey i just bought a new p4 3.0 ghz i think im the best :-) )
Overuse of the Pumping Lemma causes blindness
You can get the big, refrigerator sized SGI's for fractions of a penny on the dollar
Though I doubt you'll find deals on a mac, Thanksgiving is probably your best bet on
a tid=4 0
finding hot tech deals. Last year I got a 5400 RPM 60 gig
WD harddrive for $50.00 after rebates. Here
we are a year later and I still haven't been able to match that deal.
For keeping an eye on the day to day bargains,
try keeping an eye on:
http://forums.anandtech.com/categories.cfm?c
and
http://www.gotapex.com/deals.php
for good product reviews and comparison shopping, try:
Epinions
and the old standby for price comparisons,
Pricewatch
Typically, if you can beat the pricewatch price, it's a good deal, Like these in Tomorrow's Best Buy ad:
256 megs of 2100 DDR ValueRAM (by kingston) $40 after rebates.
48x12x48x Memorex burner $45 after rebates.
40x12x48x Digital Research burner $30 after rebates.
Mintek brand DVD/CD/MP3 player $56.92
For new products, wait until the "replacement" has been released, and get the old one shortly thereafter.
By the way, get a dual processor machine if you can. I run a dual PII-450 box and it is still really great and totally usable. Dualie machines hold their usability a lot better, they don't really run much faster than a uniprocessor box, but they never seem to get bogged down, so you get a consistently fast machine. I guess Sun's and SGI boxes are more scalable so 2 cpus = 2x speed. One of these days I'm going to upgrade to dual 1GHz PIII's though. Luckily my mobo can handle it. (Tyan Rules!)
Clickety Click
Tech companies make their biggest margins off the newest, top of the line stuff. Unless you need the absolute fastest/best, buy stuff that is further down the curve.
Think how much more performance/capacity the money you save is going to buy in 18 months.
Nope, the top says Slashdot....
So many mac fans, I feel my pccentric slashdot has been slashdotted!
Anyway, to adress your question, Buy top of line when you're ready to pay. Break the time/money down into "time I would have waited vs money I paid per day" and see that for a buck or two a day, you really can have the top of line for a lot longer than if you would have waited.
- Yo Grark
Canadian Bred with American Buttering
Canadian Bred with American Buttering
The best thing to do is to not to buy the latest thing on the market. For example the latest P4 cost heaps, but if you wait atleast 1 year to 6 months it will be 1/4 of the price. So buy more older computers. Buy a computer that is no more than $2,000 than you can buy one in two years rather than buy one that is $4,000 and have a real old computer in two years time.
Christmas clearly captures vendor interest. Students going back to school, and school administrators equiping their instutions with new hardware and software to start the year must also put some money in the bank. I know software vendors who target educational markets try hard to make sure they get a new release out in the summer to temp people into upgrading. I don't know much about the operation of federal and state government, but I've heard say that when the cycle's about over, and you still have cash, you better spend it.
If these represent peak demand times, then you might expect to see higher prices. But I really have no idea if there's any validity whatever to my armchair economics.
--Lawrence Lessig for Congress!
This has nothing to do with Apple. WTF? ...And we all know that Apple makes the Handspring Visor.
Re-read the question.
The best time to buy most technology goods is after the manufacturer discontinues the model you want. For example, the Minolta Dimage 7 digital camera came out at a price near $2000. It now sells on uBid for $600-700.
PC's are a little tougher because of their realtively short lifetime, but the rule there is to plot performance vs. price for the part you are looking at.When you do so it will immdiately be obvious that there is a 'knee' where the bang per buck drops off remarkably.
Right now, those dual 867's look like an incredible value.
My 17" iMac arrived the week before those came out, and I was beyond peeved - for just $200 over the price of the iMac I could have gotten a machine with twice the processing power!
If you are buying servers, and rack space is expensive, of course you buy the best. But most workstations and home computers should probably be bought on the knee of the curve.
That is, you make a very simple graph of speeds and prices. There is historicaly a point on the graph where it changes from being relatively flat to relatively verticle. Buy the system in that spot.
Speaking as a former Distribution Rep, the lowest prices that are offered to Retail and VAR/LAR customers tend to come at/near the end of the summer. Right now is the best time to purchase.
It's actually the best time to purchase, better than post-Xmas.
pi=sigma{n:0-infinity}[(1/16)^n][(4/(8n+1))-(2/(8n +4))-(1/ (8n+5))-(1/(8n+6))]
Why not buy used?
A lot of used items, some of which can be as old as two years or as young as two months, can be found for extremely low prices either on the internet through auction sites/used retailers or better yet, through friends. I have been using used hardware for the better part of my computer career simply because, as a student with little or no income, I have not had the opportunity to buy the latest-and-greatest. I cannot say that everything I own is used, but nothing I own I bought when it just came out onto the market.
People I know are usually against the idea of buying outdated technology, but I look at it this way: If I cannot come up with a justifiable cause for buying the latest technology, why buy? Why not get something half as fast or one generation older for about half to less than half price? Here is an analogy: if you plan to buy a car to commute to work, would you buy a brand new car? Would you buy a BMW or a V8 Mustang? NO, you would probably buy a used economy-class vehicle, something like an older Toyota Corolla or a Honda Civic.
Again, if you plan to surf the web, listen to music, word process and do basic computer tasks you don't really need a dual gigahertz G4, you need an iMac. But if you plan to edit video, work with graphics, play games only then is getting a faster machine a reasonable decision.
Buying anything is a matter of buying what you need at the price you want to spend. Now buying what you want...that is a different story.
Before you switch to Mac, you should ask yourself: Do I really need a Mac? Or does my PC do everything that my future Mac can do plus more? *evil grin*
Of course, this assumes I'd be caught dead giving any money to Best Buy.
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
While many of the Apple rumors sites are filled with made-up information and idiotic speculation, if you sample a good cross-section, you'll find that in terms of predicting *when* new models are released, but not the *specs* of new models, those sites are pretty much right on. Things to look for: models beign listed as "end of life," vendors having low stock of certainmodels, new model numbers showing up. Macrumors does a pretty good job of collating the more substantiated rumors: http://www.macrumors.com/
Wordnik, a dictionary project which aims to collect
Its obviously different on the empty side of the fence, but in the pc world, if you are halfway smart you can get a blazing system cheaply if you do a few simple things.
Plan on it taking a while and build it from parts.
Buy a case*, mobo+proc, ram*
(if your old stuff wont work)
Make sure you shop around some.. dont just pop in local computer shop and start buying..
Use your existing video card and harddrive and go to work for a couple more weeks.. watch the sales and the hot deals forums on anandtech and such..
Then spend another couple of weeks pay checks getting top of the line stuff at half retail value because you shopped around and got a deal.
No, your post makes sense in an odd, almost perverse, meta-sensical sort of way. I think I like it.
funny munging
It all depends on the item you're looking to buy. With apple, the best time to buy is right after a new hardware release. If cost is an issue, the machine that was TOL as of 24 hours ago sundenly becomes much cheaper and is still a good machine. If cost isn't an issue, right after a new product release get's the the biggest and best with the most life time.
As for currently, I would not buy a TiBook or an iBook from Apple yet. They haven't had a serious update in nearly a year now, which means they're due for one soon. Powermacs and iMacs are the products to buy currently.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
I'm in the same boat as you, and I'm waiting for Apple to come back with the deal where they reduce the price on an iPod or something if you buy a G4. The best time to buy is when you can get the most for your money.
:)
I've noticed recently, though, that it doesn't matter anymore what you have. Most people only do a limited amount of stuff. The computers that Apple is selling should be good for a long time to come. They'll be good forever for Word Processing and watching DVDs and listening to music - the things we do most. Up until now, that's been sort of touch and go with some machines, but we've hit a time where our machines can do almost everything we need, with no need of future upgrades except to satisfy our egos and materialist imprintings.
He's so good he is auto-modded to 2.
Who the fuck cares about buying a Mac? Everyone knows when the best time of year is to buy any sort of hardware.
As far as I am concerned his post was +5 Insightful.
Fucking morons.
Check the product pricing curve. For example, look at CPU's. We all woo at the higher-ghz offerings from AMD and Intel. However, those CPUs tend to have the worst price/performance ration. For example (looking at http://www.anandtech.com/guides/showdoc.html?i=169 7&p=2), the Athlon XP 2200+ is $147. The XP 2100+ (only 66 mhz slower) is $117. The XP 2000+ (133 mhz slower then the 2200+) is only $92. Comparing the 2000+ (1.67Ghz) to the 2200+ (1.8Ghz), you are paying 60% more money for an 8% increase in speed. Wouldn't that extra $55 be a lot better if spent on memory or a faster HDD?
A lot of hardware tends to be priced this way. You pay a premium for 'cutting edge'. You are paying more to be the first guinea pig to test their product. In a working environment, do you really want to do this?
Speaking of which, know what you are buying. Don't buy junk, it will come back to bite you. Buy from quality manufacturers who have a history of supporting their products. For windows machines, go with companies that release stable drivers. Also, try to figure out where you need the speed. Do you need fast HDD access? Maybe a Gigabit network. Or is it raw computing power? Read the reviews of the hardware, and check usenet to see if anyone has had any problems.
In short, do your homework, buy quality, and avoid the high-priced bleeding edge hardware.
Just my $.02
Actually this isn't uncommon practices for stores and is in fact quite legal. They can charge you whatever the hell they feel like. Is 10% off really a good deal in the first place? Best buy may have something for 60 but have a 10% sale, whereas Mr Joe's Small Computer Shoppe may have that same item at a normal price of 50. The average sheep-like human being will go 'Oh! a 10% off sale! they must have the cheapest price in town on stuff! there's no need for me to shop around now!' OK, I think this is starting to turn into a rant about stupid people, so I'm just going to stop now.
Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.
that my not be such good advice. usually when apple release a new range of machines they drop the MSRP on the older machines at the same time.
Nah, the SS51 has an AGP slot. LOL. This is my new gaming box - I'm putting in a GeForce4 Ti 4600 w/128MB RAM, with VIVO (TV in/out & stuff). I'll get all the goodies. :-)
I've noticed that hardware prices are extremely cheap durning the Christmas season. Last year I built a cutting edge system with all the bells and whistles hell it even came with chicks for under a grand. At the moment I am doing my own part and price hunt to build me a dual athlon with over 2gig of ram and 480gig's of hd, and the prices are looking great. But maybe thats just for PC prices not mac.
I bought my ibook just before jag, thus I had to pay for my upgrade, albeit a student discount. Jag is awesome. I was hesitant at first to upgrade to jag since my ibook seemed to work very well with its stock 10.1.5 but some very minor nuisance's convinced me to shell out for the student price to upgrade to jag.
My ibook is awesome!!! While its not a top of the line G4 powerbook, it does everything I need it to to do and so far probably better than any windows laptop. The only reason that I can see that anyone uses windows nowadays is soley for office applications which I have no need. AppleWorks works just fine for me.
I've used linux for years and I'm not a programmer so tweaking my system to get it to work for a user friendly experience has been quite a chore. I've learned quite a bit about how computers work and even some rudimentary programming skills. But is all that necessary just to use a hammer or screwdriver?
My 'switch' to apple from linux is very positive!
Of course there is a best time to buy new technology- as soon as the new credit card arrives, and before you've run up a tab on it.
Never trust an atom. They make up everything.
A high end Mac is going to cost more than $1000, but a high end AMD-based home-built machine will probably cost less than $1000. Intel-based machines are not viable for the price conscious buyer. Intel chips cost too much--they have relatively lousy price/performance ratios and offer few or no additional features beyond AMD chips.
You will, for many reasons, probably pay more for the software on your Mac than for the equivalent software on a Windows machine (especially when taking into account how often you may get a copy of Windows software from a neighbor). I am not going to speak about Linux because most would-be Mac users are uninterested in dealing with Linux. Also, I do not know anyone who uses Linux on the desktop simply to use traditional desktop applications.
If you are interested in a modern desktop with unix available underneath, Cygwin on XP or Win2K is a good approximation.
That's about it for rational and practical reasons not to use a Mac. Many people have other reasons to use a Mac. I, personally, am never convinced that any of them are practical. On the other hand, if it makes you happy, without undue harm, to own one then by all means plunge right in. But, if you do, don't worry too much about the cost.
amen to tha! - the best time & place to buy is on eBay 3 or more years after the thing came out! I love my $250 Indigo^2 (originally $37K) and $190 Sun UltraSparc 170e Creator 3D ($32K)
Are you sure you're ready for the switch?
My SIG is a SG-552 Commando
I believe the phrase your groping for is not "Tatoo. Verada. Nickto." It is KLAATU BARADA NIKTO.
You're welcome.
This may be an new economical theorem you've come up with.... Let me see if I've got this straight:
When the demand for products is high the price tends to go up.... When the demand for products is low the price tends to drop... Holy shit!! Do you realize how this can change the face of economics today? Someone get a hold of nobel... I think we got a winner.
The switch, eh? And when it breaks down and as an Apple tech I can confidently say when, you're going to have fun find Apple authorized repair techs. On a side note, considering 'the Switch' and all; Apple hasn't been exactly helpful in repairing their new Flat Panels and EMacs as of late. I can site three instances where the Mac was dead strait out of or days out of the box and Apple normally stonewalls the owners into sending it to us. Of course, I immedietly recommend if it's having problems strait out of the box, it should go strait back to apple, but normally the buyer buckles and the process just gets worse form there. I know, some of you have had your apple since 1904 and it hasn't once crapper out on you and admittedly, when Apple Care is good, it's really good. But when it's bad, it's super bad. have fun replacing, say, the motherboard outside of warrnety as well. They're pains. Let em go.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
If there is something you want this Christmas season but can afford to wait, buy it in January or early February. That's when it will see a decent price drop and you won't feel too bad if it drops a few percent more a couple months later. As opposed to buying it for Christmas and seeing it drop by 20% or 30% afterwards.
*chuckle* It goes for normal PC parts too.
;)
Look at the prices of Intel or AMD's 'top of the line' processors. The higher up you get, the more you're paying, for a smaller increase in processing power.
Of course, if I would've waited a few years, I would've been able to get a 486 for $10 instead of nearly $2k back in the day, but hey.
>If you can't use the instant messenger client the service wants you to use and support them by viewing their ads, you should try setting up your own instant messaging service and paying for the bandwidth
Good Idea
>Fucking freeloader.
Fucking lazy bastard.
if you have unlimited money, then this question isn't important to you, but the answer is simple. But what you need to get your job done. I do 3d animation, and i have 200 bucks. the display looks chunky, so i buy a geforce 3(this was a while ago) same thing goes for things you can't afford. I had constant headaches from my CRT, but i didn't have enough to buy an lcd, then that magic number roled around( for me it seems to be about 200-300 bucks) and now i have no more headaches and a 15 lcd display. so, trust me, nothing is more satisfying than having just what you need. there is no guilt about buying at the right time, because I can look back and say, "yea, that geforce 3 droped 100 bucks the day after I bought it, but now I have my work done, and the money really, really doesn't matter".
-and occasionaly a giant moose.
Interesting that shops can raise prices just before the sale - there is a law in the UK that says an item must have been on sale for some period of time at the pre-sale price before the shop can claim it is in the sale. It's a bit more complicated since chains could probably do this in just one obscure location, but it helps to stop this sort of thing. Of course, there are probably other scams that are just as bad...
I tend to buy the latest neatest motherboard available and the cheapest processor it supports. Then a year or two later I'll buy the fastest processor supported by the same MBD and maybe some more memory. This way I get a system that's reasonably fast all the time and upgrades are much more affordable (never get to buy $300 CPUs).
Explains why yer at 0 though.
Funny how nearly all the comments is about Apple. What was the procentage again? Seems to me like 75% of all slashdot readers are Mac users... :)
First, a caveat. I'm not a current Mac user, I just started doing some serious window shopping and wishful thinking when they introduced the dual processor PowerMacs. What I found after I researched some prices is that you'll probably want to get your RAM elsewhere. $400 for -one- stick of 512MB PC2700 DDR SDRAM is a bit much, IMHO. I was able to find the same thing (checked for Mac compatibility as well) advertised on pricwatch.com as well. Didn't check streetprices.com or any others. Laptops of course are an exception to this and either the iMac or the eMac says it has one easy to reach DIMM slot and another not as simple. Also... From what I saw you probably want to get a combo drive from somewhere else as well. Can shave $100 or more off. Now, as to whether all of this is a -good- idea, I couldn't tell you. I know they must make a lot of money on RAM to charge what they do. One might also order one stick of RAM and take the system apart to see what brand, etc. it's from and search specifically for that. :) Hopefully I'll be joining you as a new Mac user in the next few months.
FYI, I would've bought already and probably missed noticing the things mentioned above except that I don't have the money yet. But I can't complain... Not having enough money showed me how to buy the best PowerMac widget and save myself around $900.
Though I don't have a good explanation for this , I find May to be the best month for buying a new computer. Since it is a few months after the holiday season , most of the parts drop in price , and you can buy an entire computer ( I build my computers myself) for around 1500$ which has a CPU that is one or two models slower than state of the art one ( for example a 2Ghz Pentium currently).
A wise support guy I used to work with said: "You don't buy a computer, you rent it." Determine how long you expect the keep the item and divide that into the price. Then decide -- is this worth $x per month to me?
I'd like to replace my current machine, but instead of getting either today's top-of-the-line or a year old system, I'd like to construct a system that allows as much upgradability as possible.
It's obvious that a monitor, for example, is an important investment and can easily outlast many upgrades. But what about a motherboard? What should I invest in, to get something really upgradable? What about a case? Stuff like that.
Any sites out there that guide you what to get today, to get the ability to upgrade it tomorrow, and without forking out the sum of a new machine?
The best value is almost always to be found in commodity hardware for which there are many competing suppliers. In the world of personal computing, that means 80x86-compatible.
Of course, if the things you value include things like "cool", image, computer-as-furniture, computer-as-fashion-accessory, etc then that doesn't apply. But in that case, it's a bit pointless to ask a bunch of nerds for their opnions, isn't it?
Plot a graph of price against performance (ie benchmark, not ghz), and buy in the elbow of the curve. I got my athlon 1800+ a month ago, because the 1700 was only £5 cheaper, but the 1900 was £10 more expensive.
Any product that is so much of a commodity as a cpu will have a fairly continuous release schedule - I believe that it's better to choose a product from the range today, when you need it, than it is to wait until some magic date to buy top of the range.
Of course, that's PCs. As for macs, just buy whatever Steve says is the future ;-)
Adjusting the price up 10% from the previous day's price when a 10% off sale starts is fraud, pure and simple.
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
If you need computing power, get a cluster. Prices/value is much higher :)
Software should be free as in speech, but if we also get some free beer, all the better.
First of all, quiz me.
OK, you failed.
Second of all, most people reading this probably aren't that familiar with a lot of techincal things
Twice now.
Just after the post-Christmas price crash.
By then the [insert real cool technology] will be availible, or you'll get your top-of-the-line thing today cheap, and so on. But if you ask for my recommendation, this is it:
For the people who do rendering or video editing or some other activity that *always* need more power, figure out how much you're willing to spend over the next, say 3 years. Are you better off buying a new CPU/GFX card once, twice or three times over that time period? Say you have 300$. What is the better choice of:
a) 300$ card now to 2005
b) 150$ card for 1,5 years, then a new 150$ card
c) A $100 card every year.
And if you're a gamer - actually buy when the game you like chokes on your hardware (which may be sooner or later than you planned) - but your price point you should determine in the same way.
Buying at a specific time of the year I don't buy into. Various components change pricing rapidly and often independantly so that for a complete PC it evens out (at least compared to the steady decline you'd get by waiting until you actually need it), if you're interested in a specific component that is mainly decided by launch of new models (own or competition, typically gfx cards) or over/undersupply (typically RAM), not time of year. Of course summer vacation and Christmas affects demand, but usually they plan for this so there's not any big drops in price.
Of course this assumes that:
You have as much to spend now and in the future. If you're studying now, but in a job in a year or two, things are different. You have expectations of the technological advancement they're *going* to make. Tough one, but look at the roadmaps (but add some mark-up due to delays, things rarely happen when the roadmaps say they will) and you'll have some clue.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Having worked with Sony companies and products for an extensive period (approx 2 years). I know they introduce a new line every 3 months, prices start dropping from that point and continue to drop until the line is sold out. This applies to laptops and digicams mostly. Good luck in getting support for outdated products though. Especially batteries and ram for laptops are hard to get.
My strategy is simple. When I need to run a particular app and it is not performing well enough for me on my current machine, then I upgrade my hardware. The hardware I buy is typically is NOT the most expensive but a mix of performance per $ and my opinion of the technology. I usually end up paying 50 to 60% of what a bleeding edge system costs at the time. BTW, I have not thrown away an old system since I discovered FreeBSD in the mid 90s.
When I made the 'switch' I used a strategy not discussed here:
Top Product Line - Least expensive offering
Instead of buying a tricked out iBook, I bought the low end PowerBook G4. That way, I am in the product line with the most features, but I don't pay a significant percentage premium for Mhz, etc.
I used a car example to convince myself. (if you don't agree with the makes I choose, pretend I choose two you do like) I can buy a top of the line Honda with leather and such for about the same as a BMW 325i without talking navigation and expensive sports packages. For the money I would have wasted on so-so Japanese Leatherette, I could have German engineering under the hood. Get it?
It's the old 80/20 rule
As in many things in life, 20% of the work yeilds 80% of the results. In the same way, my Powerbook G4 has 2 FireWire ports, built in Airport dual head capability, IR port, and a much larger screen - all things you cann't add on to a "Top of the Line iBook" at about the same price point. I didn't pay 20% more for a faster processor, and I got 95% of the same stuff.
"Yeah Baby, you're really switched on!" - Austin Powers
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
i agree that a store can charge pretty much whatever the hell they want (you have to qualify that because i recall on 12 Sept 2001, many gas stations were selling for 4-5$ and upwords per gallon . fortunately :), our attorney general was around to save the day.
anyway, nearly anything that bestbuy sells "normally" for 60, joe's sells for 72$. joe doesn't have 100,000 sq. ft. of floor space that he can stock movies, dvd's, cd's, refridgerators, stereo equipment, etc. joe just sells computers, though he might repair them too. the advantage of going to joe's place is that for your extra 12$ you'll be pretty sure that when you ask joe if the printer can print under linux and if the color print cardridge is refillable (no microchip inside), joe will be able to give more than a "huh?!?, doh, i dunno."
Just my personal opinion.
At introduction, you are most apt to have frustrations with long delivery times, limited selection of configurations, and various teething pains because, for some reason, in the computer marketplace, ALL products are rushed out slightly before they're ready.
Also, at introduction, the only reviews you can find are from magazines that are beholden to the vendor, have received early models that may not match the production version, and are written by reviewers who barely have time to confirm that the whizzy features are THERE and haven't had time to wring them out and see whether they actually work. And will usually belong to the "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all" school and won't mention a problem IF the manufacturer claims that it will be fixed in the production version.
About six months is the sweet spot.
The machine is still more or less "new." New enough that it has most of it's useful life ahead of it--where "useful life" means the new software works with both the old OS and the new OS, the new OS works with the hardware, your model is one of the ones the SQA teams are actually testing with, etc.
The machine will have been out long enough that you can read newsgroups and vendor's forum sites etc. and find out whether people are experiencing frustrations (like the Cube "cracks") and what they are.
In all likelihood, what you see on the Web site you're ordering from will actually be available, and you won't have to agonize over having to to take a high-end bundle in order to get one high-end component.
The worst of the teething pains will be over. You won't find that the box has a slightly old set of OS CD's in it and a coupon to get the up-to-date ones... the most urgent bugs will have been found and patches available for them, etc.
Since the machines will be in reasonable supply, dealers will be dealing and the "street price" will have reached some reasonable equilibrium.
Oh, and six months is _probably_ soon enough that you won't find a MAJOR new model or SIGNIFICANTLY better deal being announced IMMEDIATELY after you commit to the purchase.
One other thought. The normal pattern for a well-managed product is for the overall value to get smoothly better with time. By "overall value" I mean that at first you pay list price, then you pay list price but they throw in some extra RAM, or a good deal on a display you actually were planning to buy anyway... then maybe a small price cut... the maybe an incremental model upgrade with a new model name or number and a slightly faster processor, etc.
While the product is in that "smooth" phase, it doesn't matter enormously when you buy.
Conversely, a SUDDEN, SIGNIFICANT drop in price (or increase in overall value) is usually a signal that a firesale is in progress to clear out old inventory. IF THAT'S WHAT YOU WANT, that's a good time to buy. But, the likelihood that you'll feel some remorse when you see the new model is high. And it's also the point at which the "useful life" of your machine has decreased noticeably.
If you WANT a firesale bargain, one strategy is to be poised to be immediately after the new models are introduced--because a) you'll at least know exactly what you're missing out on, and b) you can USUALLY find the old models, usually at the best prices they'll ever have, at least for a short while after the new models come out.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
I had been bugging the wife since January to let me buy a mac. First an iBook and then I got greedy and started pushing for a Titanium powerbook.
She did not budge for months.
Then two weeks ago she made me an offer I could not refuse: I could either:
1. Buy an iBook now, and later, "maybe", she would get me the Ti Powerbook. Or,
2. Not buy an iBook now, and later, "big maybe", she would get me the Ti Powerbook.
My reply was "duh."
I actually lucked out big time. I got a 600MHZ iBook with a retail copy of MS Office V:x (over $400), 256 MB ram (that's a $70+ factory upgrade) and Airport ($100) for $1450. And the seller was nice enough to pay for the 2-day air shipping. The laptop was pristine and I absolutely adore it. And I am the guy that usually starts his rants with this disclosure: I am a card-carrying Microsoft-dot-whore.
Yet I am having the time of my life. The laptop is tiny and really light, so I don't feel it on my backpack. The Airport card works great with the D-link AP I picked up on eBay for $80 the same day. I also got an iPod, which rocks for my daily metro rail commute.
Later I bought BBEdit Pro ($79) to help me with one of the last things that keeps me tied up to Windows: my addiction to EditPlus.
The 12-in screen is perfect, and at the office I just plug it into a 19-in monitor, so no complaints here (even at 12-in the screen is plain beautiful, much nicer than my last two ThinkPads).
Of course, I am looking forward to the Titanium Powerbook, but I am having the time of my life with my iBook. Had I dediced to buy it retail (which would be 700 MHZ instead of 600 MHZ) I would had paid $1500 just for the laptop with 128MB of ram. I would have had to buy Ms Office for about $450 (I am still shocked that it was an original, I expected the guy to screw me and send me a CDR) and the Airport card for $100.
I can only tell you to forget about the obsolescence threat. Macs retain their value really well. Notice how you can buy a $15,000 Dodge and after 2 years its value drops by half, but a VW may lose only a couple grand in the same amount of time. Macs are built very nicely, I installed Jaguar on a blueberry mac G3 and it ran just fine. It was not a scorcher but it was more usable than any windows PC that was built at that time and is still lying around.
The most pleasing part of having the mac is not having to thinker with it. Even as solid as XP is when compared to 98 (yeah, it is very relative but you have to acknowledge XP only sucks half as much as 98), I always felt like XP is a tweak in progress. Its like having a kickass muscle car that you have to go every morning, open the hood and check the carbs for minor adjustments. The mac runs like a car with a solid state ignition. It just runs.
I submitted my switch story to Apple. I told them I still sleep 4 hours a night, because the hours I used to waste keeping my PC running are now spent doing stuff on the mac.
Get your mac, use it for 6 months and if Apple has issued something better then decide if it is worth the trouble to grab the new one and sell the old one. I will not be selling mine when I get the Powerbook, since the wife is already starting to show interest in the iBook, and once my little boy starts school I might get him an eMac.
Here's a different perspective on planned obsolecence:
I bought a Sony DSC-S70 Cybershot digital camera in Summer 2000. At the time it was the best (screw you Nikon) 3.3 megapix camera, and it had a Carl Zeiss lens that was just beautiful. A month or so ago I realized my trustworthy camera is already 2 years old, which would make it a dinosaur. Or not? 2 years later I still have people praise my photos, and the automatic reaction to my photos is always "what kind of camera did you use? These pictures are really sharp!"
I toyed with the idea of upgrading to the DSC-S85 but realized my camera is just great and there is no reason for me to upgrade. Maybe you will get your mac and like it so much that when the next one comes up you won't feel like you were left behind. Just buy the fastest one you can afford and do not pay Apple prices for ram, that is what eBay is for! I got my 256MB stick for $46 instead of the $150 Apple wanted.
Pedro
----
The Insomniac Coder
I'm also a Mac IT guy buying a large amount of hardware from Apple.
The comment was almost there,
'if it's still piled up in inventory'.
I'll call my vendor about the current stock of
say XX machine.
Unless it just came out, there should be stock.
When the stock is low and there is no ETA for new, you came bet an update is weeks away.
I.E. there are small amounts of Tibooks in stock right now.
That would definately explain it. Breaking out of the mould.
We all know that stock gets mouldy..
This is just my personal take, but I expect many people will upgrade march 2003 when doom 3 is released and people realize the best cinematic experience is the one where they can control it. also see movie studios mimic lucasarts and extend storylines into computer games.
"Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards." -Aldous Huxley
Salespeople who are just short of their targets will be under imense pressure to sell so will be more likely to discount.
Read the rumor rags like mosr.com, etc. Whenever most of them start agreeing a new model will be coming out soon (hints like supply shortages in the chain...), do not buy anything. This just means that for the same money you just spent, you'd have gotten much more sometimes just days later.
NEVER buy just before one of the big Mac expos.
I have to say, I've kinda stopped trying to keep up with the "latest and greatest" technology.
Back in 1989 I had bought a PC/XT for $200 or so (30MB RLL hard drive), so I could write C programs, and design PAL's for some hardware projects (CUPL software). The 30MB drive filled up, so I bought an 8-bit SCSI controller and an 80MB Seagate SCSI drive (5-1/4", 1/2 height) for $350. Then I filled that up, so I bought a 2nd drive 6 months later for $325. Oh... and a 14" Hitachi SVGA monitor (does 1024x768, and *still* works to this day) for $540.
Wanting to be more cutting-edge, I bought a tower case for $240, a 386/33 motherboard for $700, the math coprocessor for $500. Put my two 80MB drives in there (oh, bought an adaptec 1542 SCSI controller for $200 or so), and had that for several years... except that the two 80's wasn't enough, so I looked at the price point and bought a 670MB (5-1/4" Full Height) Hitachi hard drive (still works!) for $1100.
6 months later, the same hard drive was around $600. A year later, I had filled that, and my girlfriend had filled her 200MB drive on her MacIIfx, so I bought two 1GB (3-1/2") hard drives (one for her, one for me) for Xmas, at $930 each. 6 Months later, those drives were selling for $600 each.
Since then, I've given up on riding the price-point/cutting edge. I don't play a lot of games, I generally do some programming, web design, some engineering apps... I had a 486/100 for several years, 16MB mem, it was fine for several years. I eventually wanted a CD-writer, so I bought a 4x SCSI (ok... $400 at the time for SCSI external.. but not cutting edge. 8x's were coming out at even more outrageous prices), and found the 486 wasn't fast enough... so I upgraded to a P/200, even though 350's were average and 400's were 'cutting edge' at the time. It was enough.
Since then... well, up until about 2 years ago, I was using a P/350 I got "free" from work (224MB RAM). We've been getting more machines back, so now I'm running a P3/550 as my desktop. Runs fine for everything I need to do.
I think we've hit the point where people are realizing.. what do I do? I type some letters, maybe make a spreadsheet, draw some stuff... do I really need a faster machine? What does XP buy me that my Win2K doesn't have? Is it that important to me? I'm not playing games (well.. I do have quake3 and half-life, but I don't play very often), so I don't need the latest GeForce 25000+++ video card, I really don't need a 37Ghz machine to read my email and type a letter (at least, not until Microsoft's time-bomb on Win2K times out and I have to upgrade to WinXP/ZP/2006, which of course won't run on less than a P8/27GHz with 1TB of disk and 2GB of RAM).
Why do you think MS has changed their licensing stuff recently?? Its because people are less interested in the 'upgrade of the year' plan than they were, and *that* is their cash flow.
More accurately, when you buy a computer, it is already outdated. At that point, manufacturers have already gotten "their" money from you and are striving to get the next customer's money -- even yours again.
My strategy is this:
1. Buy immediately if you want to maximize the time the technology you own is current.
2. If you want the technology but don't want to pay the high price, wait till the discount.
I've sold computers for a good time, and bought my own for many years, and in my experience, these are the only two "best times" to buy for different needs. Both are based on simple logic.
When a new piece of technology first comes out, it is at that point the time at which a buyer will be able to obtain the device for the longest period of time before something else significantly better one-ups it.
If you like the features of a device but don't want to pay the high price, you wait. This means sacrificing obsolescence for the obvious price benefit. With these items, you make sure you like the features before you buy. There will always be more features and speed, but so long as you can do your work with the technology you want, it is all you need.
Lastly, if you want a mixed alternative, don't buy the absolute best device on the market, buy one or two steps down. Companies typically charge a premium for their top-of-the-line devices, so buying a few down saves the premium, plus the difference in component prices, yet still allows you to buy something brand new and faster than the device in its price point from the previous generation of the device.
I have to agree with the parent. My first computer was a 16 Mhz 386sx (1991). That lasted me from my senior year in high school through my third year in college. At that point, I upgraded to a 40 Mhz 386dx(1994). After I finished college, when Pentiums were still the new kids on the block, I upgraded to a 66 Mhz 486dx2 (1996?). When the Pentium II rolled out, I got my first 100 Mhz Pentium machine. I've been using my current machine for almost 3 years now: A 366 Mhz Celeron w/ 256 MB RAM. It does what I need when I need it done.
Never. The things you own end up owning you.
</fightclub>
Anyways, the best time to buy new stuff is not during a major sale, amazingly enough. If you track a tech product from release to deprecation/obsolecense [I probably just spelled both of those words wrong], You'll see that the lifecycle goes like this:
1) Introduction - high price
2) Slight price drop, to account for novelty factor
3) Steady price for most of the rest of its life at the top
4) Rebate, or sudden price drop to make room for the next product
5) Price drop as a new product to replace it is released.
The best time to buy, if you're really set on one model, is at stage 5. The new thing is out and the older one is dropped somewhat in price. If you buy during stage 4, as many people do, you'll probably get burned, because it can drop an additional $100 or more (depending on its original price) between 4 and 5. Look at what happens with the G4 towers: You get discounts for a while, then a new one comes out at (usually) somewhere close to the original price of the previous model. The previous model drops a few hundred dollars. Rinse and repeat.
Also, when a new model comes up, look on eBay. You can get a good deal on a slightly used one, because the techies who want to upgrade and have the latest one will be putting their stuff up to finance the purchase.
Every cloud has a silver lining (except for the mushroom shaped ones, which have a lining of Iridium & Strontium 90)
Now that's a SlashDot-ism I've never seen before. Definately.
facetious
Do you check a dictionary when unsure? Why Not?
One simple rule for its versus it's
If you're going for a PowerBook G4... WAIT!
New ones are probably going to be here by the end of september.
otherwise, go for it. all of apple's product lines are extremely mature right now, so reliability should be high.
-raejae
Did you mean this post?
;)
If so, I apologise
and you want to do it on the cheap (but not too cheap), you should get on older/used G4 DP "dualie." See Everymac's G4 List for the low-down on the various G4 systems Apple has produced.
In practice, I wouldn't buy any lower than a 7410-G4 (the 466Mhz model), and ideally I would have a DP 7450-based oldster.
http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/A ppleStore.woa/22/wo/MXDi61dDSKewQp3ZJr/0.3.0.3.34. 7.0.SpecialDealsFrontPagePromo.0.0.0.0.3.1.1.0
Apple's Special Deals page has fairly good deals on refurbished products.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
Don't get me wrong, it eventially gets fixed or replaced.... Normally after wasting everybodies time when apple should have said "DOA? Send it back in and as soon as we recieve it, we'll send you another one AND extend your apple care for a year."
And granted, I am apple authorized, but as soon as I crack it open, it gives apple even more excuses on what could possibly be wrong. At least if I just build my PC, I can warrenty the individual parts manufacturer or easily find another source to buy from. Oh well.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
His explanation was that things would max our around Christmas then oversupply would kick in as summer came by. By the end of the summer, prices would bottom out and the cycle would start again for Christmas.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Most of the time, people aren't running huge number-crunching applications that max out the CPU for long periods of time. In such applications, assuming the application itself dos not take advantage of two CPUs (not many do), a single CPU running at 2X MHz would be twice as fast as a dual CPU running at X MHz.
However, a much more common situatuion is to max out the CPU for short periods - you're doing something for which you expect a response very soon. When this happens on a single CPU machine, the machine effectively becomes unusable - it has no CPU left over to do anything else. Sure, your OS is supposed to take care of timeslicing multiple tasks in a well-behaved way, and for the most part, it does, but nevertheless, when there's a task trying to use 100% of your CPU, you're going to know about it in terms of the responsiveness of your machine.
Unless, of course, you have two CPUs. Now, when some CPU-hogging task maxes out CPU #1, all that happens is your OS runs other tasks on CPU #2 - you effectively have a hardwired throttle that prevents any single app from slowing your machine to a crawl. Suddenly, the fact that most apps don't exploit dual CPUs is a positive advantage - it means your machine almost always has capacity to spare.
As a result, the dual CPU running at X MHz, other things being equal, will seem faster and more responsive overall than the single CPU running at 2X MHz. With most usage patterns, it is.
Besides, in the exceptional cases where you're using long-running intensive number-crunching apps, it's often possible to find a version which supports dual CPUs, thus eliminating any advantage which the single-CPU machine might have.
An analogy I've used for non-techies is to engines: think of a single-cylinder engine compared to a two-cylinder engine, each with the same overall capacity. Assuming you know anything about engines, which would you rather have in your car? It's not a perfect analogy technically, but it does communicate the flavor of the difference that dual CPUs makes.
Of course once you buy something it is nearly outdated already, but there must be some marketing cycle for lowering prices and releasing new toys. Anyone seen any patterns that may help?
I worked Best Buy selling computers and peripherals through part of high school and all of college. There is one gentleman I remember very well, he came in every Saturday evening asking what the next day's ad held. At first we wouldn't tell him, but eventually we just caved in. Every week he would say that he was buying a computer "soon". He said he was waiting for the market to stabilize, and that everytime he decided on a computer, something better came out or a higher-end model dropped in price. He just couldn't make himself buy a computer and risk it being cheaper or discontinuted in a month. His visits became less and less frequent, but he never bought a computer that I'm aware of. He worried and fretted over price and technology. My optinion is that he would have been happier just buying something and not looking at the Best Buy ads until he was ready to purchase again.
Apple has a press release regarding this. The original poster is correct the new line of Macs coming in Jan 2003 will not be able to boot to OS9 at all.