Making the purchase (W7J): Timing

I'm hoping to buying a new W7J sometime in the near future, but with the frequency in which deals appear and disappear on internet vendor sites, I've been wondering: Is there a "best" time to purchase a new(ish) notebook?

I know that a new group of Asus notebooks are right around the corner, and hopefully that will mean a clearing out of older models. However, I would much rather make a purchase sooner than later, and I don't want to wait around for anything less than a great deal.

I'm also going back and forth with myself about whether or not prices will drop after Christmas. For those here that have made a notebook purchase during the holiday season, I'm asking for a bit of advice: Is it smarter to take a decent deal before Christmas, or wait to try your luck on a post-holiday sale?

 

Yes in the market in general you will find better deals after the first. As well as tbring technology introductions that they hold off on christmas to bring to market.

In general it is the worst time to be a shopper so all things considered if you could wait I think it might make a difference.

Now on the w7j in specific it probably wont make any difference if thats what youve already chosen. I was thinking about the notebook market in general.

Its a terrible time to buy a dell the whole models are about to be scrapped and new ones introduced.

 

Asus won't offer a rebate unless there is a lot of stock leftover at Asus NA that they need to get moving and pushed out to the retailers.

This happened with the old Core Duo models when they switched to Core 2 Duo (because everyone stopped buying them waiting for C2D).

I doubt it will happen with any of the current Core 2 Duo models around the holidays. If anything there is a shortage, so the pipeline will be empty when any new models arrive and there will be no rebates...

Justin may correct me if I'm wrong

 

All of the Core 2 Duo models have been around no longer than 6 weeks...... and the only thing that will change before the next chipset gets released in about 4 months will be the inclusion of Windows Vista..... since the current packages give you the free express upgrade to vista, many have argued it's better to have xp pro and then a free copy of vista to upgrade to when you feel you're ready.

The W7 isn't being replaced any time soon and this market doesn't exactly recognize "the hoilday" as anyhting special...... the current models will be the current models for the next 2-4 months.

The best advice I've ever given..... buy when you're ready... period. When the next chipset set for an end of Q1 release, I believe it'll be late April, early May before we see Santa Rosa chipset models at all....... and probably June before we see an update to the W7, if not later. Tpyically we see releases of the same models, at the same time over a few year period...... The W5 will be the first Santa Rosa model.. I'll almost guarantee that we see it very early, like by the first week of April. As for the W7, the original W7 wasn't released in the US until July, so it may be in the middle of the models to get released this year.

 

To further what was said before me (while I was typing my response), stock of Core 2 Duo Asus models on a whole have been rather tight since release... There is not huge amounts of stock and Asus typically doesn't load up this time of year either....... The new releases (G1/G2/W2/V1) are all going to suffer because of this, but more of those will come in than W3/W5/W7's.

 

Thanks for the responses everybody. I think I've decided to buy the notebook now, and your site, Justin, looks like where I'll be going through. I'm sure once I open the box I'll be glad I made the decision.

 

A W7? Yeah, I swapped my long-term W3v for a W7j in July... If you search the forum, that means a lot... I love the model as it's the perfect blend of performance for a truly - highly mobile graphics professional...... shaving 3/4 of a pound off the W3 and the slightly smaller footprint make it better for traveling than the W3, but then again, when I'm at home, I still hook all of these systems up to external monitors, so I could really go with an 11" if it had dedicated graphics

 

This has also been something I was wondering about.

*has fingers crossed

 

In general.... but also, in general Core 2 Duo's were out by other makers a month or more before Asus got any stock...... and there are certainly not going to be any price changes on the models that have come in or will come in during December..... Prices drop when cpu's drop, which is once a quarter. The last drop was in October, so at best I think you can expect lower prices or updated models (to make up for the price change) towards the end of January for the models that have been out since the middle to the end of October......

.. just to be realistic about the whole thing.