Don’t you just hate it when you buy a gadget or device and a week later you see that it goes on sale?
Worse yet are the instances when it’s a high-priced electronic like a laptop or computer.
Fortunately, there are resources out there like the NPD Group, which puts together reports like this one here—the best times of the year to purchase a computer. They’ve confirmed by way of some impressive data crunching, that if you’re in the market for a new laptop computer, it pays to not ignore all of the back-to-school and black Friday holiday sales that go on around that time of year; that these messages are not some sort of marketing ploy, but that they in fact do offer some honest to goodness savings advantages.
“There is a best time to buy notebooks, and it is exactly when you think it is, between the last week in July and the first three weeks in August, when the back-to-school merchandising frenzy is in full force,” explained Stephen Baker, a market analyst who studies laptop pricing and sales for NPD Group, to Laptop Magazine.
Below are charts that indicate the best time to buy two types of notebook: a Mac and a Windows PC.
Laptop Magazine, which published the Group’s findings, offered a few additional tips when looking for a new laptop: perhaps most valuable is the tip is that older models often do not get cheaper; that is, a manufacturer often chooses to discontinue the computer rather than sell it at a marked down price. Yes, there are third party vendors that sell older model laptops and computers, but more often than not these devices cost more than the current models.
The bottom line is you’ll find better deals in July / August and November / December, and newer models released in early spring, midsummer, and fall.
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