3 easy ways to buy an iPad or laptop for cheaper than you would expect ‣ Diverse Daily

If you’ve done any shopping recently, or simply paid attention to tech news, you’re probably aware that laptop and tablet prices have spiraled out of control. Initially this was fueled by tariff wars. In the past year, though, the main culprit has become AI datacenters. Those facilities need such colossal amounts of storage and RAM that what’s left for consumer devices has become a rare commodity. Even game consoles are becoming as expensive as some full-fledged PCs.

I’ll be upfront — there’s only so much you can do to mitigate this situation. Don’t expect a secret hack that will make the same specs as affordable now as they were in 2024. Your aim should be to get specs that will hold you until CEOs (hopefully) stop treating AI as a miracle. If you’re lucky, you might even save on all your future devices by being more efficient.

Using external SSDs whenever possible

What do you need your storage for?

An iPad Pro paired with an Apple Pencil and a Crucial SSD.

Every computer or tablet maker tends to offer a range of storage tiers. Sometimes, of course, those higher tiers are necessary. If you’re setting up an audio or video production station, you’re not going to be very happy if there’s barely enough room for preinstalled tools.

The trick here is that companies like Apple sometimes overcharge for storage upgrades. And when they don’t, internal storage is still geared for maximum performance, because skimping in this area can bottleneck apps and the OS. You don’t need those speeds if all you’re doing is stashing documents and media libraries.

Many SSD models will do as long as they (and your device) support USB 3.x or better. USB 4 or Thunderbolt is ideal, but unnecessary unless, say, you’re using an SSD as a scratch or transfer drive for video editing. Don’t install apps to an external drive. If you do, they’ll not only run slower, but break whenever you unplug.

Some apps (such as Netflix or Spotify) may force you to save some files internally. If you expect to cache a lot of music or video, there may be no choice but to pay up when you first buy your device.

Choosing slower RAM, or less of the fast stuff

Read those app requirements first

While many tablets or pre-built computers don’t give you the option of selecting RAM, when this is available, think carefully about how much you need. On paper, more RAM is always better, yet there are diminishing returns past a certain threshold. If all you’re doing is answering email, browsing the web, and performing some light work tasks, you might be able to get away with as little as 8GB. 16GB is more realistic. You don’t need anything more than 32GB for PC gaming, however, no matter if you’ve got a top-end Nvidia GPU. 64GB or higher is overkill beyond niche functions.

If you’ve got the option of choosing slower RAM — like DDR4 instead of DDR5 — that may be a way to increase quantity without paying through the nose. Check online forums for the effect on specific apps, though. If a game (or other app) is more dependent on rapidly shuffling data than large quantities of it, it may be wiser to choose 16GB of DDR5 than 32GB of DDR4.

Regardless, check app requirements first. Many developers list minimum and recommended specs. You should always match or exceed recommended specs if you can, because the minimum is just that — enough to get an app to run at all, not well.

Deleting apps and offloading files to the cloud

Benefits all around

A MacBook with a trash can in front of it. — Apple / Pocket-lint

I have big reservations about relying on cloud storage, since it can potentially hold you hostage if you’re not able to keep up with subscription fees. Still, it might be worth keeping some files exclusively in the cloud if you don’t need a backup and the alternative would be an expensive hardware upgrade. Remember that if you’re already using cloud storage, the associated app(s) may give you the option of removing local copies.

Deleting apps and unwanted files can not only reduce the need for storage, but potentially speed up your machine. That’s because all tablets and computers demand a base amount of room for swap/cache files, and if you encroach on that, you’re going to force your device to update that data more often. Some apps also launch background tasks that eat up RAM, network bandwidth, and/or CPU cycles. If you’re not actively using something like Discord anymore, there’s no sense keeping it around on the off chance you’ll return.