How to Save Money When Buying a New Laptop

Laptops are just as important as smartphones these days for some and it can range from a very affordable price to incredible high price that can be equivalent to a small Perodua Axia car. You may or may not know what operating system that you want but I am guessing that you have already decided to get a laptop over a desktop since it’s more portable. So if you are on a hunt to buy a new laptop for yourself, here are some tips on how you can save money.


1. Don’t get the features that you don’t need

Sometimes we can be too attracted or even distracted to the latest features that are offered on the latest laptop such as the fingerprint reader, 2-in-1 convertible PC, touch screen or the 4K resolution display. If you can live without them, they could easily save you from a couple of hundreds to thousand of ringgits. Just make sure that the laptop is future proof by having USB Type-C/Thunderbolt 3 Ports, or at least it provides a couple of USB 3.0 port and above.


2. Do your survey

This is probably the most important tip in my opinion. You need to do price comparison of the same laptop model from at least three shops or Google for the best price available online. Most of the time, the prices listed online are cheaper than those that you can find at the physical shop. If you plan to buy online, you can always drop by at the shop to experience the actual thing before you decide to make the purchase. This is important in order for you to have a feel on the weight, size and also the feedback on the keyboard as well as the touchpad. 


3. Buy older model

The prices of the older model will be slashed upon releasing the newer model. I have observed this trend by all the laptop manufacturers including Apple and usually computer hardware won’t be outdated so easily in compared to smartphone or tablet. On the positive side, you can purchase a higher specification laptop 2018 model for almost the same price as the current 2019 model. For example, you can take a look at the Dell XPS 13 9370 (2018) laptop.


4. Buy the lowest specs

If you are good at upgrading the laptop hardware yourself, you should get the least RAM size and ROM capacity available of the laptop. Why is that? The reason is, you can easily upgrade those in future and it is cheaper than spending so much on getting the highest specs model available. If you don’t know how to upgrade those, fret not, you can always find them on YouTube. Just be sure that anything that you try to change on the hardware will not void the laptop warranty.


5. Buy during sales

Recently, there was an anniversary sale from Lazada and I noticed there were a lot of the sellers were slashing prices for gadgets and electronics that include laptops. If you missed it and you are not in a hurry to get the laptop, you can always wait for the next sale such as the Malaysia Mega Sale, Black Friday Sale and Singles’ Day Sale (11.11).


6. Use coupon/voucher

If you are going to purchase the laptop online, I encourage you to check out the Shopee promo code or Lazada voucher since there will be discount, rebate and even cashback for the selected items. The money that you save, you should treat yourself a good meal after spending your hard earned money on a brand new laptop.


7. Upgrade your current laptop

This could be the least popular tip but it’s true. Sometimes the only thing that we need to do is to upgrade our laptop ram and the hard disk from HDD to SSD. The difference in speed is extravagant. Personally, I have been using my 2011 Apple Macbook Pro and I am still using it until today thanks to the upgrade. I managed to cut down the boot up time from minutes to seconds! So before you commit yourself into buying a new laptop, why don’t you try maxing out the hardware on your current laptop? Otherwise, if you are into the latest game titles or working with heavy applications, then you can always refer back to tip #1 to #6 above.

At the end of the day, it’s your money and I shouldn’t be telling you what to buy. Of course, you will have to make sure that the features fit all your needs and your budget as well. Let me know in the comment section below if you are considering getting a new laptop or if there’s any additional tips that you would like to add.

All images credit to freepik.com


.: Peace Out :.

Comments

  1. I too want a laptop, one with a pen & touch screen would be niceee but RM 5k+ is quite a lot of shell out.. gah.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think that's not bad. Don't forget we can get tax refund for computer for up to RM2,500 per year! :D

      Delete
  2. Only one brand has an office here so we would go for that one for the convenience should the laptop needs any servicing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Which brand is that? I guess the after service part is quite important also but usually there's not much of an issue here in Klang Valley

      Delete
  3. "3. Buy older model"
    Thanks for the tips

    ReplyDelete

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