Watch out: Cameras, hard drives, PCs, and mobile data will all cost more in 2012. Every day, stories appear about a price drop for this or that tech gadget.

1. 30/01/2012 07:59
blog.batteryfast.co.uk
Top 5 High-Tech Gadget that Will Cost You
More in 2012
zooms also saw increases during the time frame–16
percent in units shipped and 10 percent in dollars.
Camera makers can see the handwriting on the wall.
They’re going to be adding features and pumping
up the quality of their new cameras, and you can
expect all of that to translate into higher camera
prices in the coming months.
Hard Drives
The price of storage has shown a nice, steady decline
in the past, but not this year.
Every day, stories appear about a price drop for
this or that tech gadget. As a result, consumers have Flooding of historic proportions in Thailand last year
a tendency to delay spending. After all, why buy has disrupted the hard-drive supply chain. Thailand
something today that will be cheaper tomorrow? accounts for up to 45 percent of worldwide hard-
drive production, and the flooding has damaged
That won’t be the case for everything in 2012, more than a dozen hard-drive factories, according
http://blog.batteryfast.co.uk/top-5-high-tech-gadget-that-will-cost-you-more-in-2012/
though. Here is a list of tech products and services to market research firm IDC.
whose prices are expected to rise in the coming
months. If you’re shopping for any of them, you Bargain-hunting site DealNews.com says that the
might want to buy sooner rather than later. flooding has forced some retailers to ration hard-
drive-based products over the past year–and that
Smartphones, such as the Apple iPhone 4S and the has reduced the number of discounts that merchants
T-Mobile MyTouch 4G Slide (which won out as the can offer on hard-drive products. DealNews predicts
best smartphone camera in our tests last year), that hard-drive shortages will continue throughout
are eating into the low end of the digital camera the first quarter of 2012. IDC, however, anticipates
market. Numbers for the digital point-and-shoot that hard-drive prices will stabilize by June, and
camera market were down 17 percent in units that the industry should return to normal by the
and 18 percent in dollars for the first 11 months of second half of the year.
2011, according to the NPD Group.
Desktop Computers
By contrast, during the same period, digital cameras
with detachable lenses saw a 12 percent increase in Two factors will contribute to higher prices for des-
units shipped, and an 11 percent bump up in dollars. ktop computers in 2012.
More expensive point-and-shoot cameras with large
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2. 30/01/2012 07:59
blog.batteryfast.co.uk
Top 5 High-Tech Gadget that Will Cost You More in 2012
Climbing hard-drive announced similar plans. The result? Many consu-
prices, of course, are in mers will be paying more for their mobile data this
turn raising the prices year, especially heavy users.
of PCs. According to
high-tech market wat- Shipping
cher Gartner, PC makers
will be unable to absorb If you plan to buy anything on the Internet, you
the higher cost of hard can expect delivery to cost more. Postal rates are
drives, and will be pas- scheduled to climb 4.6 percent in 2012–provided
sing that cost on to that the Postal Service is still around to raise them.
consumers. IDC agrees: Reports also indicate that both Federal Express and
PC prices may rise as a UPS will be jacking up their rates on small packages
result of the prolonged by 4.9 percent.
and substantial effects
of the flooding, says Lo- Online shopping is growing in popularity (up 15
ren Loverde, IDC vice president. Hard drives consti- percent in the past year, according to ComScore).
tute about 7 percent to 10 percent of the total cost If you intend to shop for gifts on the Web this year,
of a PC, Loverde notes. Gartner predicts that desk- you might want to budget some extra shipping costs
tops will be the first to succumb to the upward price into your budget.
pressure, followed by laptops.
Related Articles:
Along with the hard-drive trend, design changes will
fire up prices. More all-in-one desktops will enter the
market, and many will have touchscreens, which are
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more expensive to produce than traditional hands-
off displays, according to NPD, which predicts a 30
percent increase in the average price of a PC.
A sign at Best Buy in a Norwalk, Connecticut store
apologizes for hard drive prices.Mobile-Device
Data Plans
Although the rollout of faster data-delivery techno-
logies usually depresses the cost of data plans for
consumers, in 4G’s case that development will be
offset by wireless carriers’ movement away from
unlimited data plans, according to DealNews.
Verizon, for instance, has been busy building out its
wireless 4G LTE network over the past 12 months.
Not surprisingly, earlier this summer it announced
that it was killing its unlimited data plan in favor
of a tiered pricing model with data caps. AT&T also
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