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 Of course once you buy something it is nearly outdated already, but there must be some marketing cycle for lowering prices and releasing new toys.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."

Comments

18 month product cycle

[oaklybonn]

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?

MacWorld

[TellarHK]

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.

Dont' be an early adopter

[Zygote-IC-]

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.

The obvious - linewidth.

[Christopher Thomas]

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 :).

Re:The obvious - linewidth.

[Mr Z]

Linewidth is essentially that "0.13 micron" number and similar that semiconductor manufacturers quote when they're quoting the process node that their device is manufactured on. It's a size gauge used to advertise how advanced the process is. Smaller is better.

Semi mfgrs usually quote "L_effective", which is the "effective gate length of the smallest transistor". This is usually a bit smaller than "L_drawn" (the drawn gate length), and smaller than the line width. This page (down near the bottom) offers this blurb from a Motorola engineer:

In the case of line widths there may however be some legitimacy to the different numbers they feed you. Each company uses a different definition for this parameter, and within the same Company they may bounce between definitions to suit their purposes. One definition is the drawn width of the minimum poly-silicon feature. Another definition is called Leff ('L' effective), the minimum length of the electrically isolated region under the CMOS transistor. The value in this second definition is modulated by the drawn width from the first definition. It, however, is also modulated by diffusion of ions implanted into the silicon substrate which often makes it 15% to 40% smaller then the drawn width. This definition is also highly dependent on the algorithm and the equipment used to calculate the Leff parameter.

There is yet a third definition also commonly used for line-widths which is very similar to the first definition. This definition gives the average minimum width of the actual poly-silicon where it forms the gate of a transistor. Due to the polymerization of the masking resist during the poly-silicon etch and the magnitude of the exposure during the photo step, this value can be 10% greater or less than the drawn width.

--Joe

Re:The obvious - linewidth.

[jafuser]

I agree. It seems like games don't quite keep up with the CPU's these days, and I doubt they will, especially now that most of the work has been offloaded to the 3d accelerators. See this graph as an example.

now

[bcrowell]

This is an answer to your specific question, but not to the more general one: now is a good time to buy a mac. The reason is that the long-awaited MacOS X 10.2 (Jaguar) has just come out, and the next big (non-free) release is probably a long way off. (If you're like me and bought an earlier version of MacOS X for $130, then 10.2 is another $130.)

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.

My strategy

[xee]

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.