The best time to buy an electronic device was yesterday. The second best time is today
I want the Steam Machine and, precisely for that (and for the more than 1,000 euros for the power it has), I am assembling a PC in pieces. I started choosing components and told myself “when I get paid, I’ll get it.” Two days later I happily looked at my payroll, went to Amazon to formalize the payment and found a surprise: almost 200 euros more. Guilty? The RAM and the GPU and I asked myself something: Do I jump through the hoop or wait? I commented on that same question a few days ago at the third meeting between editors and subscribers of Xataka Xtra and we draw three conclusions. The first is that everyone spends money on what they want, that’s what we work for. The second is that everything is very expensive and it is difficult to foresee the moment when the situation will change. If it does, of course. The third conclusion is that if you need any device or think you are going to need it in the short term, there is only one possible path: buy it now because it is already late, but tomorrow it will be even more so. Apocalypse wrapped 2026 First of all, a short review and at the bottom (although if you read us, you already know perfectly well what this nonsense is about). The consumer market has gone to hell due to the rise of AI. The two concepts are related because AI requires a lot of RAM, as well as storage, and the big problem is that there are very few companies that manufacture these components. Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron (who have been denounced for seeking to take advantage of the situation) are the ones that have the capacity to manufacture the majority of necessary components and, since AI is so gluttonous, Big Tech has launched itself to create data centers and pay whatever price is necessary, all three have pivoted their production from the consumer segment to only that of hyperscalers. Consequences? If they don’t make chips for DDR5 memories, prices go up, but they don’t make NAND chips for consumer SSDs either, so prices go up. As they have turned to fast memories, They have abandoned the DDR4 and LPDDR4 memory production lines and, again, prices rise. They not only rise for consumers, but for companies. Samsung or Apple are two examples, with the latter announcing two days ago that They are going to increase the price of iPads and Macs by an average of 20% because they have no memory. Sony is looking for how to create a PS6 that costs less than 1,000 euros; Nothing saying that It’s not going to release some phones this year.; Raspberry Pi increasing its price A LOT and Microsoft rethinking its next Xbox because it gets out of hand. These are just a few examples, I think the idea is clear. That is, it is not that assembling a PC in parts is more expensive, it is that even routers are more expensive because they have some NAND chip inside. When being an early adopter is a good idea (and it shouldn’t) In the conversation with subscribers we decided to bring up the topic of early adopters. This term has been used (sometimes pejoratively) to refer to those who buy hardware on launch day, even knowing that you are going to pay more for a product that is worse than the revision they will release a year or two later. The case of the consoles is very revealing. The first models of PS3 and Xbox 360 were expensive (especially PS3, I still remember the 600 euros at launch with a controller and no games), but objectively worse than the ones they released two/three years later. Sony revised the design and released the PS3 Slim for 300 euros that heated up less and made less noise, and Xbox also launched a 360 Slim without red lightswith more internal storage and WiFi. You paid less, they were better, but you played later. If you weren’t in a hurry, absolutely nothing happened. The problem is that things have changed and with Xbox Series and PS5 The opposite has been seen: the consoles have been rising more and more in price. Now it has a certain justification because the crisis and such, but both ate one or two increases before any crisis. And so I come to the conclusion of this article. In January, when prices were already crazyI thought “I’m going to build a PC in pieces.” I didn’t do it because it was like “bah, I don’t 100% need it right now.” Now, I would travel back in time to give myself a couple of kicks. January was the best time, then February, then March and then… the 1,700 euro PC from two days ago. Because the easiest thing, and this is what the market trend is telling us, is that within a week, two or a month, those 1,700 euros will easily disappear and the same hardware will be more expensive. If it’s still available, that’s another matter. Lenovo already said in February that, if you needed something, you bought it as soon as possible. And given what I’ve seen, I recommend the same thing: if you need something new or if you think you’re going to need it in the short term, tomorrow is too late. We are jo….robbed Because, speaking of Lenovo, they also just say that the prices of some components They will never return to the pre-AI situation. You will think that it is an exaggeration, but in the world we live in it is something that makes all the sense in the world. Although there are segments in which declines in sales are being noticed (PlayStation has had the worst May in its history since the one registered in 2001), those that control the component market because they are the ones that have the capacity to manufacture them They are going … Read more
