Posted 3 days ago

Best time of the year to buy a laptop?

I compared prices nowadays to prices during Black Friday/Cyber Monday and those were better. With November gone however, I wonder, is there any time of the year that is generally good for buying? I googled this and I saw that 23 December generally bas good discounta and also 26 December, as it’s Boxing Day. Is that true from your experience? Or what other time of the year is generally known to bring high discounts to products like laptops? I ask for laptops specifically because things like Intel or NVidia releasing their future lineups likely also impact prices of the already existing ones. So with that in mind, since I want to buy a laptop (and preferably soon), when do you think is the best time to do so?

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18th Dec
Best buy second-hand- there have been so many amazing bargains here.

Admittedly if you (foolishly) want a 'gaming' laptop, well that's a horse of a different colour. High-end PC gaming gear is very over-priced, and both AMD and Nvidia conspire to make things worse across time. The best discounts tend to be on enthusiast gear that new releases make undesirable to the 'whales'. However, gaming laptops tend to be judged on performance more than the names given to their GPUs and CPUs which doesn't help pricing given the mobile battery issue of performance per watt.

However, the rise of AI may push down the cost of laptops with poor amounts of non-upgradable RAM (or possibly likewise with VRAM <=4GB).

Anyway in retail, the run up to Xmas is considered 'sucker time'. The so-called NY sales are worse. Usually it is the quiet period afterwards that sees retailers interested in trying to win sales.
4 h, 3 m ago
Agree New Year Sales are in my experience the worst possible time to buy.

However the run up to Christmas is not that bad these days. It used to be certainly, but so many retailers are competing for business there are good offers around.

New Year Sales are all about loss leaders that grab the headlines and sell out super quick, with the main aim of ensuring there are queues and crowds of people fighting over bargains shown on TV, which provides the retailer with free advertising.
4 h, 9 m ago
I think it varies. I helped a friend look for a basic laptop on Black Friday and she purchased the one below for £279. It's now £239.

argos.co.uk/pro….ds

I also purchased this week a 12th gen i3 HP for less than £200. There was no such offer on Black Friday, as I was looking then too.

hotukdeals.com/dea…354

If you are looking for a high end one, maybe there are better deals at other times of year. (edited)
2 m ago
I haven't looked at laptops specifically but desktop parts are normally cheapest either in the pre-christmas sales (november onwards) or in the quiet period in late spring/early summer.