Before or After Christmas to buy a desktop computer?

December 20, 2013 3:31 AM

Does Dell Computer run the best sales of it's desktop computers before or after Christmas?

I want to buy a new desktop computer from Dell and have one in my Dell shopping cart. Should I wait for more promo codes to come out after Christmas? Purchased my last Dell about 10 years ago and don't know what the current trends in retailing as to when to shop the right time to get the lowest price.

posted by BillyAnne to Shopping (4 answers total)

They're running a gnarly sale right now actually on dell outlet. See this thread on slickdeals explaining the coupon codes, etc. Some people were getting quad core i5 desktops for under $400(!) with great specs. If you want more of a performance system, there were quite a few under $600 that included fairly to properly powerful dedicated graphics cards like nvidia 650 Ti's and gtx 660s.

There were several i almost pulled the trigger on, but a lot of them are the "slim" towers that don't take full sized expansion cards, which is a bit of a requirement for me. Lots of good deals to be had on there however. Especially in the range of the least expensive machines that have a quad i5 and 6-8gb of ram.

I kinda doubt there will be a better deal on a wide selection of models like this for a while. I think it's a christmas clearout+end of the year thing. There were better deals around black friday, but dell wasn't the one selling them. Just resellers who sold dell.

I was going to mention that lenovo outlet is also having a sale, but honestly i'd direct you away from their desktops right now. The prices are good, and they're quality machines... but they've started using very skimpy power supplies in their Intel powered systems that are completely proprietary and use moronic 14 pin connectors instead of the standard 24. This is what dell was notorious for doing in the late 90s and early 2000s. It makes the machines impossible to upgrade, and expensive to repair if you ever need to replace the power supply. Adapters to standard power supplies are at least $15 and very hard to come by. Screw that.
posted by emptythought at 4:08 AM on December 20, 2013

I just sat on buying a new desktop for an entire year, waiting for Black Friday sales (and researching.) I ended up with an alienware box from dell, and it was definitely the best price for what I was looking for at $100 off. My alternative was buying all the pieces and assembling it myself, but that would have been about $70 more, no warranty (I'm clumsy, I need one), and a bigger box (I'm small and weak, but my new computer is about the size of an x-box.) It really depends on what you're specifically looking for and what your priorities are, but generally speaking the pre-Christmas sales are the best for computers that are built for you.
posted by Mizu at 4:15 AM on December 20, 2013

Bear in mind the outlet models are all refurbished. I've had two Dells - one that was bought brand-new which served me well for almost eight years, and one that was bought from the outlet which came with a bad video card that clearly hadn't been tested at all, and a hard drive that failed outright within 48 hours. And then they tried to screw me on the return.

So yeah, the prices are good, but you're taking a gamble.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 5:00 AM on December 20, 2013

The outlet store isn't for me. I want brand new.
I chatted with a Dell CSR and got him to lower the price $30 more than current coupon codes but I needed to order it then. I use Ebates.com which would give me a $32 dollar rebate by ordering thru them. He said that I couldn't do that and get the additional discount he gave me.
posted by BillyAnne at 5:34 AM on December 20, 2013