{"id":145,"date":"2007-10-12T16:30:00","date_gmt":"2007-10-12T16:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.garfnet.org.uk\/cms\/buying-tips\/"},"modified":"2025-02-06T17:14:38","modified_gmt":"2025-02-06T17:14:38","slug":"buying-tips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/garfnet.org.uk\/cms\/2007\/10\/12\/buying-tips\/","title":{"rendered":"Buying tips"},"content":{"rendered":"

These days I am more concerned with bangs-per-buck rather than the latest, greatest technology. This kit is so disposable nowadays and the technology changes so quickly that I think you need to adopt a completely different purchase strategy. This is my strategy for consumer durables such as digital cameras and computers…<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Do some research and actually handle one if you can – looking for design faults and things that might snap off or generally annoy you.<\/li>\n
  2. Figure out what specification you really<\/em> need.<\/li>\n
  3. Shop around and buy it as cheaply as you can – obviously choosing a supplier that will actually deliver AND honour the warranty.<\/li>\n
  4. Often you find that your local supplier will match or come very close to a price you see on line. Obviously you need to provide some evidence.<\/li>\n
  5. Use it like crazy. Don’t just put it in a cupboard and “worship<\/em>” it. It’s already worth 20% less than you paid for it before you even take it out of the box.<\/li>\n
  6. Induce any manufacturing defects (i.e.wear it out<\/em>) before the warranty is up, so you can get a free, new replacement.<\/li>\n
  7. Use the replacement one like crazy – see point 4.<\/li>\n
  8. Plan to buy a new one at the end of an approximate two to four year cycle.<\/li>\n
  9. Ensure you recycle or freecycle the old one!<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    These days I am more concerned with bangs-per-buck rather than the latest, greatest technology. This kit is so disposable nowadays and the technology changes so quickly that I think you need to adopt a completely different purchase strategy. This is my strategy for consumer durables such as digital cameras and computers… Do some research and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26703,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_kad_post_transparent":"default","_kad_post_title":"default","_kad_post_layout":"default","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"default","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"default","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1623,744,12,6,680,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-digital-photography","category-electronics","category-faq","category-journal","category-photography","category-technology"],"yoast_head":"\nBuying tips - GarfNet<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/garfnet.org.uk\/cms\/2007\/10\/12\/buying-tips\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Buying tips - GarfNet\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"These days I am more concerned with bangs-per-buck rather than the latest, greatest technology. 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