Everybody loves to find a great deal, and save a few dollars. When it comes to choosing PCs, mobile devices, and other technology, however, price is often a poor measure in and of itself.
Don’t get me wrong. Price is certainly a factor—an important one even. It’s just that price is different than value. You want the technology you choose to provide you with value, and that takes more discrimination than simply choosing the device with the lowest price.
As an illustration, consider a jar of pickles. A 46 ounce jar of Vlasic Baby Kosher Dills costs $3.98 at Walmart. If I found a 200 ounce jar for $5, that would be an awesome price, and a pretty sweet deal. Price is not the only consideration, though. The price is right, but the cheap jar of pickles has absolutely no value for me because I hate pickles. It’s just a waste of $5.
There are plenty of examples like that. Have you ever bought something you didn’t want, or bought way more of it than you really needed just to get a deal? Like when you have no intention of buying a giant container of Bavarian pretzels, but you throw it in the cart because it’s $2 off. You convince yourself you “saved” $2, when the reality is that you spent money you had no intention of spending to buy something you had no intention of buying just because it was a “deal”.
It even works for free things. When it comes to price, you can’t get any better than free, but even something that is free can have little or no value. If a store is handing out free golf balls, there is no point in taking advantage of that offer if you don’t actually golf.
So, let’s bring this back to technology.
There are lots of tablets out there to choose from. You can find Android tablets in the $100 range. If you rely on Google tools and services, and you use an Android smartphone, then a $100 tablet might have value for you.
The phrase “You get what you pay for” isn’t always accurate, but when it comes to technology, there is more than an ounce of truth in most cases. For $100, you get a tablet with a slower processor, less RAM, more limited storage, and lower quality overall. For less than twice that, you could have an ASUS Google Nexus 7 tablet with a quad-core processor, and double the storage, as well as a more responsive touchscreen, and better experience overall. In other words, spending more money gets you a tablet that provides you with greater value and fewer headaches.
However, if you use a Mac OS X PC, and you aren’t a fan of Google tools and services, and you have an iPhone for your smartphone, you will likely get more value by spending twice as much and purchasing an iPad Mini. Why? Well, you can use many of the iOS apps on both the iPhone and iPad, and much of iOS and Mac OS X are integrated to work seamlessly with each other. You could still use an Android tablet, but you’d have to find equivalent apps, and keeping all of your data in sync would be more of a challenge. For someone with a Mac and an iPhone, the iPad Mini offers a better value even though the price is significantly higher.
I must stress that “value” is subjective, and there are a number of variables that play into determining the value a given device or service will provide you. The main point is to look beyond price when making technology buying decisions, and consider how you plan to use the technology over time, and how well it will integrate or work with your existing devices and technologies.
Along those same lines, it is also silly and unnecessary to try and break down how much a device costs to make. The cost to manufacture a given device like a Surface Pro 3 tablet, or an iPhone 5s may affect its price, but it has little—if any—impact on its value.
It is a waste of time to examine the profit margin—the difference between the cost to produce a given item, and the price being charged for it—as a criteria for choosing a technology. Whether the vendor is making five percent or fifty percent profit on the sale of that device, what matters to you is “Are you getting sufficient value from the purchase to justify the price you paid?”
With Back-to-School deals in full swing now, followed closely by holiday sales, you will see plenty of examples of great prices. Consider those deals wisely, though, because a great price on a device or technology that doesn’t provide enough value is just a waste of money.
