Don't Buy That New Computer Just Yet!

[threegee]

There are some huge bargains on the way. Why? A combination of things; particularly an unprecedented depression in the industry is starting to take hold. Firms will need to clear current inventory and get cheaper better value product to the market just to survive.

Hold off that purchase for a while, and make do with what you have - things can only get cheaper!

Advice offered by someone who has been in the business since year one.

[Cympil]

There are some huge bargains on the way. Why? A combination of things; particularly an unprecedented depression in the industry is starting to take hold. Firms will need to clear current inventory and get cheaper better value product to the market just to survive.

Hold off that purchase for a while, and make do with what you have - things can only get cheaper!

Advice offered by someone who has been in the business since year one.

Does this apply to all kinds of things or just computers?

[threegee]

Does this apply to all kinds of things or just computers?

Don't know, but you've only got to eyeball the vast amount of parked-up new cars to realise that somehow they have to be turned into cash by increasingly cash-strapped manufacturers.

Some industries can turn off the tap much more quickly. But with computers you have to commit to lots of high value components well in advance, and if you don't keep the development effort going you're out of the business. A lot of well-known brands use contract manufacture to keep their costs down, and those contractors will just keep going until the minimum contract is fulfilled as their payment is guaranteed.

The computer industry has never experienced this scale of downturn before, so there are a lot of buying mistakes in the pipeline.

If I had to guess on houses I'd say that they have a lot further to go. It's going to get a lot worse than even I imagined it could. There will be false dawns. The trick is not to get sucked in by the industry propaganda that the market has bottomed. As any experienced stockmarket trader will tell you, the time to buy is when even the super-optimists have given up - it's called market capitulation.

[threegee]

Rumour has it that Apple Store sales are down about 22%. They are planning to reduce prices and/or launch a new range of "value" products to hold onto market share.

Other manufacturers are sure to counter this. There are already some pretty hefty cash back offers to clear surplus stock. New, more attractive models, also gives the excuse to slash prices on the current ranges.

[threegee]

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Postage & Packing is £5.75 Bigger cuts on the way though, and I've seen these in the shops for more or less the same price.

[threegee]

Some really great bargains of recent weeks. The Aspire One netbook has been on sale as low as £120.

A price-cut I simply couldn't resist was a brand new one of these for £390 all inclusive from laptopsdirect. Spotted them last weekend but they seem to be sold-out now.

Full review coming of the R50A coming. But I won't write one on first impressions, and need to use a machine daily for at least a month before I feel able to give an honest opinion.

One thing I'm likely to be changing is the Vista o/s though. May leave it on - less a lot of the bloatware - and set the machine up for a dual boot. I'm anticipating driver problems with Ubuntu, due to all the gismos (like the fingerprint reader, TV, and GPS). Will be interesting to see if these can be worked around, and probably the strongest reason to leave a Vista boot option available for just now.

The market is awash with unsold 15" machines, so if you really can stand something so large then shop around - a lot! I think the netbook has done for this class of machine, and although it might not always be the same customer base buying them, netbooks make laptops this big look like dinosaurs. So 12" is becoming the new 15" - unless you want a bargain!