Top 7 Technology Items to Avoid Purchasing This Season

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Struggling to keep up with the latest tech releases? I hear you. With so many new and upcoming releases of our favorite phones, consoles, and gadgets, it’s hard to stay on top of it all. That’s why I’ve compiled a list of tech products you shouldn’t purchase this summer, as they’ll soon be outdated.

1 iPhone and Some Other Apple Products

Apple usually drops new iPhones in September or October each year, so the worst time to buy a new iPhone is always the summer preceding the new phone. If you were planning to buy a new iPhone and some new AirPods before your summer vacation, or maybe a couple of devices for your kids when it’s back to school season, put your credit card back into your wallet immediately.

Justin Duino / How-To Geek

A new iPhone 15 is still at full price , and it’ll remain that way until the iPhone 16 is announced and/or released. Even if the iPhone 16 has a higher price tag than the 15 at launch, the old model should still drop in price by around $50–100. Older iPhones should follow suit as well.

Some other Apple devices that we’re most likely going to see by the end of the year include a new lineup of Apple Watches and iPads , the 4th-gen AirPods , and maybe even a new iPhone SE . This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t buy any Apple devices before September; even if you missed some Prime Day Deals , you can still hunt for discounted AirPods Pro (2nd Generation) and AirPods Max .

Apple AirPods Pro (2nd Generation)

$190 $249 Save $59

Enjoy significant enhancements to the Apple AirPods Pro with this 2nd generation release, powered by Apple’s H2 processor. Delivering twice the active noise cancellation, spatial audio, and more.

Buy on Amazon See at Apple See at Target See at Walmart

2 Google Pixel Phone, Watch, and Buds Pro

Just like the iPhone and other Apple devices, Google has a lineup of devices coming out very soon. To be more specific, we’ll see a whole new lineup of Pixel 9 phones coming August 13th , along with a new Pixel Watch 3 and Pixel Buds Pro 2 . The release is less than a month away, so just hold out for a little while longer to snatch yourself a newer device or a better deal.

It looks like the Pixel Watch 3 will start at €399 ($436), which is significantly more expensive than the Pixel Watch 2 , so it’s unclear if we’ll see a permanent price drop with the Pixel Watch 2. I prefer cheaper smartwatches anyway, and there are plenty of other good smartwatches that are much cheaper, such as the new Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 .

Samsung Galaxy Watch 7

The Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 is Samsung’s entry-level smartwatch for 2024. It resembles the Galaxy Watch 6 but features an enhanced Exynos W1000 chipset, promising significantly improved battery life and performance.

$300 at Samsung See at Verizon $350 at Amazon

3 Sonos Arc

When the original Sonos Arc dropped back in 2020, it disrupted the TV soundbar industry. This was a premium soundbar with Dolby Atmos, a sleek design, and excellent sound quality. However, it was quite expensive when it launched at $799. What’s worse is that it actually got a price bump to $899 , and it’s currently $872.50 for the white model or $889.99 for the black one.

Sonos

With the second generation apparently around the corner, it makes little sense to buy the original model at such a high price tag. It’s worth noting that the 2nd-gen Arc will reportedly cost $1,200, but it’ll likely have even better sound quality. If you’re an audiophile, and no price is too high, the 2nd-gen Sonos Arc is worth the wait. If you want to upgrade your TV’s sound quality at a reasonable price, check out our list of the best soundbars of 2024 instead.

4 PlayStation 5

AMD has launched a new generation of Zen 5 CPUs , and RDNA 3.5 GPUs are coming soon as well. With this news in mind, it comes as no surprise that Sony is working hard to release the PlayStation 5 Pro before Christmas. We don’t know if the PS5 Pro will use Zen 5 CPUs or the slightly older Zen 4 models, but we know that it’ll be a significant performance uplift over the original PlayStation 5.

The PlayStation 5 launched in 2020, and a lot has happened over the past four and a half years in terms of hardware advancements, especially in the realm of neural cores for AI. The Slim version replaced the original PS5 in 2023, but it didn’t feature any performance improvements.

The PS5 Slim Digital Edition is $449 at the time of writing, so it’s not exactly a cheap investment. At the same time, the PS5 Pro will provide a significant performance bump for (hopefully) not too much more money. At the same time, the original model will likely drop in price, and enthusiasts will start replacing their standard PS5s en masse, while PS4 holdouts will likely sell their used PS4s at a steep discount to pick up a used or discounted base PS5 model.

Hannah Stryker / How-To Geek

5 Nintendo Switch

The Nintendo Switch is one of the oldest “current-gen” consoles in existence. It was released in 2017, long before PC-grade handhelds powered by advanced SoCs like the Steam Deck entered the mainstream. Plus, the Switch was underpowered even at launch , so it’s fair to say that a Switch 2 is long overdue. The OLED version was a nice improvement, however!

Granted, the types of games that only the Nintendo Switch can run don’t require that much processing power to be fun—the Zelda games alone prove it. Still, I’d like a Switch 2 that can handle triple-A titles with next-gen graphics and AI upscaling. The Switch 2 will reportedly launch in March 2025 ; if you can’t wait that much, get a pre-owned Switch Lite for under $100 .

Goran Damnjanovic/How-To Geek

6 NVIDIA RTX-40 Series and AMD RX 7000 Series GPUs

The NVIDIA RTX-50 Series will reportedly launch in January 2025; AMD RX 8000 Series RDNA 4, along with a long-rumored RX 7000 Series RDNA 3 refresh , is also coming out at around the same time. It’s worth noting that RDNA 4 GPUs focus heavily on ray-tracing performance and, according to rumors , AMD’s next-gen GPUs can’t beat AMD’s outgoing flagship GPU, the RX 7900 XTX.

Nonetheless, when a new GPU lineup drops, it’s an unwritten rule that the older generations see a price drop, so now isn’t a good time to buy RTX-40 Series and RX 7000 Series graphics cards at full price. Maybe Intel Arc GPUs are a better idea given their cheap pricing, but the next-gen Arc Battlemage GPUs are on the way, too.

Justin Duino / How-To Geek

7 AMD Ryzen 7000 Series and 14th Gen Intel CPUs

AMD Ryzen 9000 desktop CPUs are hopefully coming out in August 2024 . They promise a 10–20% performance uplift, so now is perhaps the worst time to buy a Ryzen 7000 Series CPU. Although CPUs like the Ryzen 5 7600X are already excellent value, it’s possible that they’ll get even cheaper when the new generation drops.

Intel 15th-gen “Arrow Lake” CPUs are also set to launch by the end of 2024 and promise a similar generational performance uplift. 14th-gen Intel CPUs still cost too much compared to AMD and its older CPUs—I love the Core i5-12600KF ‘s performance per dollar. Plus, they’re still rocking the aging 7nm node , so they’re not the best value at the moment. I recommend either going for the older chips or waiting for Arrow Lake to drop instead of shelling out for a 14th-gen CPU.

The primary reason I can’t recommend buying the products from this list is because they’re relatively old and have a known successor that’ll be released soon. That said, remember that these are just some general recommendations and tips, and if you really like one of these products and find it for a reasonable price, don’t feel guilty about picking it up!

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Top 7 Technology Items to Avoid Purchasing This Season