So does that mean you’ll be able to scoop up a used, first-generation iPad on the cheap?
gadgets
iPaid Too Much: Is a Tablet Price War Coming?
Perhaps you’ve heard of the iPad? The device that’s certainly fun, but arguably a fairly useless time suck? Well, in addition to this “it” gizmo, by one count there are more than 100 other tablets in the works or currently being sold by 64 different manufacturers. That’s a lot of tablets.
Cheapskate Wisdom … About the Unassuming Millionaires in Your Neighborhood
“These people are not into status, they are not into designer brands.”
The iPad Debate: Is It Remotely Useful or Just a Total Time Suck?
“A salad spinner would have been a better investment, and I don’t even eat that much salad.”
Is Best Buy’s ‘Buy Back’ Program a Good Buy?
“This plan seems more like a way for a retailer to add a higher-profit item to a low-margin sale than a great way for consumers to get a break on new gear. And it will make even less sense after Saturday when the program is no longer free.”
With Electronic Gadgets, Even the Concept of ‘Built to Last’ Is Outdated
Upgrades are necessary. Gadgets must be replaced regularly. Modern-day consumers are programmed to accept these as golden rules that must be followed—not because gadgets break down or completely stop functioning, but because to not upgrade is to fall behind, to tempt failure, to be uncool and out of it. But why do we accept these …
Black Friday by the Numbers
Here’s a roundup of resources for the best deals, along with some perspective, related to the monster shopping day that is Black Friday.
Cheapskate Wisdom … About Gadgets Bought for Bragging Rights
“The bizarre obsession with moderately priced vanity gadgets is part of a living-standard masquerade at the twilight of middle-class prosperity. It doesn’t matter if the electronic bling works well or lasts long. Its value is not utility — it is the ability to feign class equality in a country of crushing stratification and rising poverty.”
Watch the New ‘Story of Stuff’: ‘The Story of Electronics’
Today’s electronics are cheap to buy, relatively speaking. But they break quickly. They’re expensive if not impossible to fix. Even when they don’t break, they seem outdated soon after they’re out of that annoying, clamshell, sealed-tight packaging. The result is that consumers often feel like they need a new laptop, TV, or digital …
Portrait of Today’s Schizophrenic Consumer
The Great Recession has made consumers reconsider purchases that were once made without much thought. Perhaps, the new thinking goes, you don’t need a new wardrobe every season or a new refrigerator every two years. Perhaps you should only make these sorts of purchases when they are truly necessary. But, speaking of necessities, don’t …
