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When to Buy Technology Goods?

Posted by Cliff on from the finding-the-sweet-spot-in-the-product-cycle dept.

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 Of course once you buy something it is nearly outdated already, but there must be some marketing cycle for lowering prices and releasing new toys.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

2 of 276 comments (clear)

  1. MacWorld by TellarHK · · Score: 5, Informative

    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
  2. The obvious - linewidth. by Christopher+Thomas · · Score: 5, Informative

    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 :).