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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 Of course once you buy something it is nearly outdated already, but there must be some marketing cycle for lowering prices and releasing new toys.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."
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.
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.
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.
- The Apple Expo in Paris was held this week, but there was really nothing new there (in the past, Apple had used it as a supplemental stage to introduce new hardware in the fall between MacWorld NY and MacWorld SF -- and MacWorld Tokyo in the spring).
- This summer's MacWorld NY introduced... what? Jaguar? Nope, it wasn't even ready until a month later, we knew it was coming before MacWorld began.
- This last spring's MacWorld Tokyo gave us... (drumroll, please) a different size Apple LCD monitor? Woo-hoo...
- When did Apple intro the all-dual-processor tower lineup? In between New York and Paris.
The updates come in between when Apple's ready to release them, which is really the way it should work.Maybe this is just the strategy for navigating the stormy economy and we'll see Apple re-adhere to the old schedule at some point. But for now, don't pin any bets on MacWorld... it's more for the third parties than Apple these days. The latest crop of TiBooks was also introduced between shows.
I know a lot of people are talking about the mythical G5 ("It's going to be released at MacWorld SF in January"), but it's the same speculation before every show year after year. Don't believe any of it unless you happen to know that Motorola has finally gotten its rear in gear.
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
So "now" isn't always the best time. If you can get by on the old system for six months while your current dream system takes an $1800 nosedive, it's up to the individual to decide whether or not the upgraded performance is worth the price premium.
My rule of thumb has always been, wait until you just can't bear the old computer any longer. Then buy whatever specs are exactly half that of the best system available. You can generally get a very usable system at a bargain price, and don't have to deal much with the weird, unproven tech. Sucks to have a 28.8 modem, though.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
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*
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).