Holiday Computer Deals – Are They Really a Good Deal?

It’s that time of year again. Halloween is over. Thanksgiving is just around the corner and so is Black Friday, the Friday after Thanksgiving where most retailers make up for flagging sales during the year.  Pretty soon, the computer manufacturers will be coming out with their deals of a lifetime (or at least the year). Many computers are also coming off lease and will be available on eBay and through other re-sellers.

Are those deals really good deals? Many of them have some” gotchas” you should consider:

1)      Re-sellers provide the computer to you “as is”. If it comes with Windows XP it may not be a good deal if the recipient of your gift expects Windows 7.  By the time they add in the additional cost for Windows 7 ($299 – $319), additional memory, and software upgrades they could spend as much as you did for the gift. If the computer cannot be upgraded with additional memory, you gave a gift with a short lifespan. Do your homework first!

2)      Netbooks (mini-notebooks) are the latest rage, designed to provide the user with mobile access to the internet.  They are small, great for someone who is on the go and doesn’t want to carry a lot of extra weight, and relatively inexpensive. The downside: they are not really designed for much else.

• Memory is limited to 1GB (gigabyte), the minimum required for Windows 7. After a few service pack or anti-virus upgrades, they could see performance degrade and the recipient of your gift will be looking for a new computer.
• Most netbooks come with limited software. You may need to purchase an external CD/DVD drive for additional software installs (particularly if downloading software over the internet takes too long). Keep in mind the more software you install, the more memory you will wish you had.

The message is simple. Before you purchase a computer as a gift, understand the recipient’s needs and usage expectations. You don’t want your gift to become the “white elephant” used as door stop or paper weight.

If you have questions, contact your favorite IT service provider or feel free to DM me @ITMinefield on Twitter.

Wishing you safe passage through the IT Minefield!

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This topic is discussed in greater detail in Navigating the I.T. Minefield: Straight Talk for the Small Enterprise. To purchase your copy, please visit http://bit.ly/SNL4W.

Leslie Knight is a small business consultant with over 20 years of experience in Information Technology management in Fortune 500 companies.  She applies her experience in Corporate America (saving them millions) to smaller entrepreneurial enterprises. She is also the author of Navigating the I.T. Minefield- Straight Talk for the Small Enterprise.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 19th, 2009 at 7:26 pm and is filed under Business, Information Technology, small business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.