I don’t know how it works for cars, houses, white goods or other big-ticket items, but when it comes to the fast-paced world of electronics and gadgets, my rule of thumb is to always buy now.

The trick is to figure out exactly what you want the device to be able to do (such as receive push email, play DivX videos or display movies in Full HD) and then find a gadget that meets those requirements.

If you’ve found such a device, but then decide to wait for the new model that’s due for release ‘any moment now’ because you don’t your purchase to be superseded straight away, you’ll end up waiting forever. There’ll always be something better coming along, and if you hold out, you also end up denying yourself all the benefit you would’ve gotten if you’d just bought the original device from the get-go.

Say for example you want to buy a laptop for university so you don’t have to puzzle over your handwritten lecture notes anymore. You decide that you want something that’s two kilos or less, with a full-sized keyboard and 802.11b/g WLAN, and at least a 160GB hard drive. You find a laptop with all of those features, but then hear that Intel is releasing a new notebook platform in six months that will offer better battery life and faster performance. You could wait until then and keep handwriting all your notes in the meantime (which is exactly what you wanted to stop doing in the first place), or you could buy the notebook now, take better notes during lectures, and console yourself with the fact that new laptops only tend to have a six-month shelf life anyway.

There are always exceptions to the rule, though. Nothing’s worse than buying a new laptop or mobile phone and then have a new model that’s significantly better come out the next day or even the following week. That’s where it pays to do a bit of research.