Laptop: Buy now or wait? (sell, best, prices, old)
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I need a new laptop, my current one is over 7 years old although it still works fine it's quite slow (i5-U, 4 GB RAM, Surface Pro 4).
However, at home I mostly use my Desktop which works just great so far and I mostly use my laptop for travel. I plan to do a whole lot of longer term traveling starting mid next year when I retire so the most use for the laptop will be starting then trading my Desktop for my Laptop as my primary computer.
Considering taking advantage of best prices/deals and when I actually need to use my laptop the most:
Would you:
a) Buy during black Friday or Cyber Monday deals in November?
b) Wait till Memorial day next year (con: deals may not be as good, pro: new models come out and there may be better discounts on current ones)
Argument for waiting:
until next May (memorial day) means I can put that chunk of change in a high yield savings and get some interest for 6 months since I am not using the laptop between now and then anyway, yeah it's not a lot of money but still a few bucks.
Argument for buying now (i.e. Nov):
Black Friday/Cyber Monday probably has better deals than Memorial day? But models sold this November may be 1 generation behind newer models coming out next year so perhaps more discounted?
Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
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I buy my travel laptops used. From very high end commercial upgrades. $3000 laptop for $300, wiped, new fast and Large SSHD, reloaded with new software (all for $300). I use aluminum cased (solid & robust) travel laptops. Heavier than I'd prefer, but bulletproof. Since they're cheap, I keep a spare as clone. These are very well equipped for graphics and CPU, as I do a lot of complex 3d CAD. (But no gaming).
Since I keep multiple homes across USA and world, I have a docking station and multiple displays at each home. My laptop is my main machine. My newest version is about 4 years old. Docking station is very slim (this version was for business travelers). Not my favorite brand, but performs well. I have a spare parts one (bought for $120)
yeah, I think i'll just wait until I have a need to buy. I don't need it at the moment. If there are some killer deals on Black Friday then I may consider buying.
Sometimes you can get better pricing in July/August back to school than Black Friday. I did not notice deals this year. I monitor Lenovo when I am in the market. The Thinkpads are Mil Specs and durable. After killing a couple Sony's in short order (when they were a thing) I switched to Thinkpads and have not looked back.
I've been buying them used for ages on eBay. Just ck the seller's ratings, you'll quickly see who to buy from and who to avoid. Most if not all of them will take a full return minus shipping, but I've never had to return one. A lot of them come from schools and businesses that change theirs out regularly, they're in great shape and the good sellers ck them out before listing them.
You can get a better computer w/ more memory and a much fast processor than you can get w/ a new one for a lot less money. Best of all, you can get one with a better OS than these newer, crappy Windows OS's from Win 8 up to the current one. I have a laptop w/ Win 7 Pro, it's got plenty of memory and is very fast, which is good because I use Photoshop with large files from film scans. The medium format and large format 4x5 scans are huge. All my other stuff is compatible w/ it. Like XP, you can customize it to your heart's content and get it set up the way you want it, which is something almost impossible to do w/ the later OS's.
Last edited by stephenMM; 10-15-2023 at 07:48 PM..
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