When it comes to
shopping for tech gadgets, there are times wherein it's worth to wait for a new
and improved model of the device you've been eyeing on for a quite a while now.
Here are some tech products
that you'll never regret on buying even until next year when its better
successor arrives.
SSDs
SSDs or Solid State Drives
provide a high-speed, low-power data solution both for personal and enterprise
use. Having an SSD is ideal for someone who is willing to pay more for faster
performance, and those who don't mind getting limited storage capacity or can
just work around that. Though the prices of SSDs may drop over time, new and
upcoming models won't be significantly faster than what we have today for a
long time.
An SSD-equipped PC will boot in seconds, certainly under a minute. A
hard drive requires time to speed up to operating specs, and will continue to
be slower than an SSD during normal operation. A PC or Mac with an SSD boots
faster, launches apps faster, and has higher overall performance. Whether it's
for fun, school, or business, the extra speed may be the difference between
finishing on time or failing.
Windows
7 Notebooks
Even though
Microsoft's Windows 8 offers better performance and a handful of touch-friendly
features, a number of consumers were disappointed by its new
Start-button-no-more UI and the high learning curve needed to master its
navigation.
New computers are now
rolled out with the new Windows 8 OS. Though if you still prefer the
traditional look and feel of Windows interface, there may still be a slim
chance of finding slightly older models that come with Windows 7. As days go
by, stocks of Windows 7-based computers will dwindle and there'll come a day
when all you can find is Windows 8. If you buy a Windows 7 notebook and decide
later that you want to upgrade to the new OS, you're going to shell out around
$40 or less.
Monitors
Even though you use a
laptop almost everyday, it's still recommended to have full-size monitors both
at home and at work. The more pixels and the larger screen you have, the more
productive you'll be. There are lots of affordable 23-inch, 1920 x 1080 screens
today that you can get under $150. However, if you can stretch your budget a
little bit more, it's better to get an LED-backlit monitor that has 1920 x 1200
resolution. Even if more and more manufacturers are integrating touch screen
displays since last year, these monitors can serve you well for many years to
come.
Media
Tablets
You don't have to wait if
you want a low-cost, high-portability media tablet because you can already get
tablets like the Amazon Kindle Fire HD, Google Nexus 7, or Barnes and Noble
Nook HD for $199, as well as the iPad Mini. Since none of these companies
refreshes their flagship products more than once a year, you'll have no regrets
if you buy one now. They'll also be hard pressed to improve the high-res
screens, speedy CPUs, and long battery lives even by that time. Prices for
these tablets are also not expected to drop its price that much, otherwise
manufacturers that sell them would be taking in a huge loss.
Printers
Printers keep getting
better like most technologies, however the differences are not much of
significance that most of us would hardly notice. If you're going to buy a
decent quality printer or an all-in-one right now, it should still be more than
adequate five years from now.
The image quality that you
can get from a budget printer is good enough when printing your own
high-quality color photos. When asked which printer type is better, a laser
printer is better than going with an inkjet since laser printers with locking
paper drawers have a tendency to suffer from lesser jams.
Set-Top
Boxes
Want to have a better
content viewing experience? Smart TVs let you view streaming video but can be
an extremely expensive solution. Luckily, there are affordable set-top boxes
like the Roku box and Apple TV, which allows you to stream your favorite
content directly from the Internet to your home theater system.
There will always be new models
that will come out eventually, but since the models available on the market
today already have a 1080p output, that should be enough to be the main feature
that you should need for now and for many years to come. For example, the Roku
2 XS is perfect for streaming content from services such as Netflix, Hulu,
Amazon, and hundreds of other video channels while offering a USB port for
connecting to local storage for just $99.
External
Hard Drives and USB Flash Disks
The birth of USB 3.0 has
been the biggest advancement in the external storage technology in the past few
years. If you buy a USB 3.0-compliant hard drive today, most likely you'll
still be happy with it in 2014 and beyond. While external SSDs can possibly get
cheaper over the next few years, it still won't reach price parity with
external hard drives for a long period of time. Wireless hard drive, which is a
relatively new category, will continue to improve over the next few year,
however, it still won't match the speed and ease-of-use that you can get from a
simple USB 3.0 drive.
eReaders
If you fancy reading on a
grayscale eInk screen, then the eReader is just the right gadget for you. You
can get quality eReaders such as the Kindle for $69 and the Nook Simple Touch
for $99. It's actually hard to imagine what other features you'd want to get
from an eBook reader that you won't get now. Well, maybe companies such as
Barnes & Noble and Amazon will roll out color eBook readers, but right now
that technology is somewhat cost prohibitive and unlikely to be attractive to
the consumers.
If you already have most, if not all, of these trending products we
showed you, then it's best to take very good care of them. Devices like these
can be very useful and can meet all our tech-related needs, now and for the
years to come.
