Todd has tasked us with helping each other save money this year on technology. I’m all for that, believe me.
There was a time when I was looking for cheap tech gear, which included used items, I would head on over to eBay or my local craigslist. eBay was easy to search and I often found some pretty good deals. Over the years, the organization of eBay’s listings have improved, but the sellers have declined. Most tech gear offered on eBay these days is through clearinghouses of closeouts and refurbs. Seller ratings often show thousands of sales a month, but with a rather high incidence of negative feedback for items not being what they were stated to be, shipped poorly or late, and items not in working order. I myself have been burned by some of these sellers. Craigslist, while a great resource for local products, is almost impossible to search. You really have to take an hour or two to read through every ad to find what you want, as most search results are limited.
So I’m always on the lookout for cheap tech available online. I have three places I visit daily for tech deals.
Giveawayoftheday.com. Each day they give away free software. The software may not be high-end, but some of it is very good at what it does. About one day out of ten I find something that I download and use.
Slickdeals.net. Slickdeals is an aggregate of software, hardware, music, clothing, electronics, etc. It updates several times throughout the day. They have an RSS feed which may be easier for some to use; I just check it every couple of hours during the day. I’ve seen some amazing deals on computers, hard drives, games, and music.
Pacificgeek.com. They have a “deal of the day” that is posted at noon PST every day. They also have a lot of great closeout tech gear. I’ve bought memory for pennies, and hardware for not much more. It’s one of the first places I go to look for discount tech, especially to keep some of my older hardware running as long as possible.
What are your favorite cheapie online resources for tech gear? Post a comment here, or email me at susabelle (at) gmail (dot) com.