When is the best time/place to buy a laptop?
Other than Black Friday, when exactly is the best time to buy a laptop?
Should I buy the notebook direct from the company or would it be better to get it to Best Buy? (I’ve had great experience with Best Buy and terrible with Circuit City, and there are no other stores nearby, besides Walmart, and I’d prefer to go with a regular electronics store)
I’m almost certainly going to be getting a Sony VAIO for college next year, so it’s not necessarily about the lowest price on a laptop, but also the best accompanying accessories, too. Then again, it might be cheaper to get the cheaper laptop and buy accessories with the money I save.
The best time is next month (and it always will be, ignore sales, they usually come before a price drop).
Of course if you follow that rule then every month you’ll end up holding off for another month and never end up buying the laptop so instead how about we say that the best time is right before you need the thing (a month should give you enough time to set it up how you like it). If you wait until the latest possible time to get the laptop then you’ll get it cheaper than if you buy it sooner (since prices in the computer industry tend to go down over time as newer and better components come out).
Whether you want to buy online or at a store will depend a lot on how you feel about them (but do take into account shipping costs, if they are too high they might make it cheaper to go to a store) and if you want to customise the laptop and the manufacturer lets you then you’ll need to buy from them. Buying from a store that will be close by to you might help if you need repairs although if it does need repairs the manufacturer can have you bring it to their closest repair centre.
I wouldn’t worry too much about accessories (the only thing I would buy if I had never had a laptop before would be a case for it which is something you really do need to have, a bigger battery might also be worth buying if you expect to need to run it on battery a lot and you might), for everything else you’d be better off just waiting until you actually need them (costs going down again) although if the store you buy it from throws anything in as a special offer I wouldn’t knock it back.
If you find that you don’t like the pointing device the laptop comes with a mouse might be something you’ll want to get although I’d suggest you try to learn to live with whatever your laptop has (probably a touchpad) so as to not need to plug a mouse in during every class.
Oh and you really should be getting a three year warranty even if you have to pay more to buy the laptop because laptops are extremely expensive to repair out of warranty (getting the extension from the manufacturer will mean that you can take it to their nearest service centre instead of the store you bought it from which might help if you aren’t near the store you bought it from).
Sony VAIO CS-series Unboxing Part 2: Key Features
