The Other Waiting Game

As opposed to the other thread about waiting....

How do you guys decide when to adopt new technology? In other words, how up-to-date are you on your gear? Do you buy it the instant that new stuff comes out, or do you tend to wait until it becomes more mainstream (aka lower price)?

Well, I don't have my own job yet, so I can't complain, but I'm somewhat behind on my tech. My parents tend to be very much penny-pinchers when it comes to buying new stuff. Often we wait for things to drop their price for what they offer. Like, for example, we're still on a standard CRT SDTV. I've been trying to get my parents to get an HDTV if possible, but they're currently waiting for a good 42" LCD HDTV to drop under $1000. That has yet to happen, but I think that when it does, they'll probably aim for something else (like a 52" Plasma HDTV under $1000), and it just keeps going on and on and on.

I mean, yeah, there are benefits to this as when you do buy it, you get an awesome deal. But I think they're trying to avoid what I did with my graphics card. About 2 years ago, I wanted to get a graphics card for my old computer (Athlon XP 1800+, not my Dell). So I did some research and saw that it needed an AGP card, so, that was easy, go online, find a good AGP card for the price. At the time, my parents had agreed to spend $200 as a maximum for some reward for something I did that I have now forgotten. So I went on newegg.com, and found my new AGP graphics card. Obviously, a very short time after, PCI-Express became widely popular (or I was just oblivious the whole time), and soon thereafter, my computer died. Since all new computers have PCI-Express slots now, my AGP is going to have trouble finding a home. I suppose if I had waited until I really did get a whole new computer and found a card for that, I wouldn't be out of luck.

Anyways, thoughts? Stories of buying something cutting edge that get beat a matter of days? What things do you play the waiting game for?

Jam it back in, in the dark.