<p>When's the best time to buy a computer for college? When are they usually the cheapest?</p>
<p>Yeah I would like to know the answer to this.
I was originally planning on buying right before the school begins, like late August. Would that be a good time?</p>
<p>Buy them from your campus, if it has a deal with a company like Dell.</p>
<p>I was thinking of buying mine early July, so that I have a while to familiarize myself with it.</p>
<p>Bump............</p>
<p>buy it at the college. gary is right since about discounts on computers and other electronics for college studensts</p>
<p>Discounts you can easily find on dell's online are about twice as good as your average educational discount program.</p>
<p>there is no best time. There will always be something new right after you buy it so unless there is something specific you are waiting for, buy when you feel you need to buy.</p>
<p>i would say xmas is best time for good deals on computers... and september for all the back to school deals...</p>
<p>If you're NOT buying it from the school, I'd say now's a good time to buy (instead of waiting until August) because around early-mid August it seems like everyone buys a computer. Dell sends out their college circulars, and I think they probably jack up the prices around then because they know everyone's gotta buy one.</p>
<p>Build yourself (and pirate Windows XP ;)), way cheaper</p>
<p>Building yourself is a good idea, pirating Windows is NOT.</p>
<p>You can put together a real nice college desktop with XP and a good monitor for under $700.</p>
<p>If you want a laptop however then the self-construction gets exponentially tricker....</p>
<p>If you're planning to get a desktop, and your parents won't be delivering you to school by (large) car, you might want to buy in late summer so that it can be delivered to you at school.</p>
<p>i highly, HIGHLY suggest checking out apple's ibook and/or powerbook if you're in the market for an excellent student-oriented notebook computer. not only does apple offer an educational discount for college students (i think it's around $100 for an ibook), but right now they're offering an additional $100 coupon (through the 25th of june, i think).</p>
<p>i've toted an ibook to and from classes and home for the past 4 years of high school, and they can truly take a beating. unless you're a hardcore gamer, i'd suggest at least investigating the apple option, as for most people, an ibook or powerbook would more than suffice.</p>
<p>if you are considering an ibook, they're overdue for an update. there are rumors of updates any day now through august in time for back-to-school, but no one's really sure... personally, i'm planning on using the educational discount and holding out until august. i'm also buying my ibook with the standard amount of memory (RAM) and then upgrading it myself-- apple marks up their memory upgrades by hundreds of dollars, and this is another great way to save money on their computers (they even provide you with instructions on how to upgrade it yourself!)</p>
<p>< /end apple rave></p>
<p>I agree with portrait. I got one a few months ago (15" Powerbook with something like a $400 student discount) and I LOVE it. I cant imagine sticking with windows for the next 4 years.</p>
<p>Well if you're buying a Windows-based PC with a Pentium M processor then the prices will be going down in July because Intel is going to drop the prices on the Pentium M.</p>
<p>Actually end of July is good for some other reasons. For instance, end of July marks the end of a fiscal quarter for dell (thus likely leading to more sales as last attempts to make the quarter look better).</p>
<p>Price drops at the end of July? I'll make a note of that.</p>
<p>haha get the asus motherboard and build a machine like the one here:</p>
<p>"With a simple adapter, Intel's Pentium M processor can be used on veteran mainboards based on the i865 and i875 chipsets. Would you believe that this unorthodox combination proves to be so fast that it beats even the Athlon 64 FX and the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition?!"</p>