<commit_before>+++
date = 2022-11-30T11:00:00Z
draft = true
slug = "a-tale-of-two-tablets-part-2"
title = "A tale of two tablets - Part 2"

+++
And so concludes a tale of two tablets. The stage has been set. We have a face-off between the 10th generation iPad and the iPad Air 5. The winner will be my birthday present.

Plot twist - I already made my choice a while ago, long before October's iPad event.

In the run-up to the event, all the tech YouTubers and journalists kept spouting the same conventional wisdom: Hold off on buying an iPad until Apple reveals their new goodies. And under normal circumstances, this is great advice. You would be an utter fool, for example, if you bought a new iPhone in August.

While I'm no analyst, I've become pretty good at taking an educated gamble.<commit_msg>Update from Forestry.io wordbit updated content/posts/a-tale-of-two-tablets-part-2.md<commit_after>+++
date = 2022-11-30T11:00:00Z
draft = true
slug = "a-tale-of-two-tablets-part-2"
title = "A tale of two tablets - Part 2"

+++
And so concludes a tale of two tablets. The stage has been set. To summarize from Part 1: We have a face-off between the 10th generation iPad and the iPad Air 5. The winner is my birthday present.

Plot twist - I already made my choice a while ago, long before October's iPad event.

In the run-up to the event, all the tech YouTubers and journalists kept spouting the same conventional wisdom: Hold off on buying an iPad until Apple reveals their new goodies. And under normal circumstances, this is great advice. Only fools, for example, buy new iPhones in August.

I ignored their advice - and got a great deal on the iPad Air 5 that far surpasses any Black Friday deal out there.

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Firstly, I knew before it arrived that the 10th-gen iPad could never be better than the Air and it's M1 chip, even with a re-design. It's the base iPad and sits at the bottom of the product line. Secondly, inflation was bumping up prices everywhere so I knew waiting was a losing game. Thirdly, with everybody holding their breath for new iPads, nobody was jumping on the current third-party stock, which was plentiful.

These conditions created the perfect storm and I found a deal on eBay that seemed too good to be true. On impulse, I jumped on it, knowing that I'd be covered if I'd just bought a lump of clay inside an iPad box. It seemed legit though - and was from a seller I'd bought from before.

When the iPads were released, not only was the base model surprisingly expensive, but all iPads got a price bump. My educated gamble had paid off. I ended up paying almost a hundred bucks less for my Air than the new base iPad. In fact, according to eBay's iPad Air sales history, I'd just gotten the best deal on the entire site: 

I have no idea why I got such a great price. My working theory is that most dudes aren't interested in a pink iPad (even though it isn't pink - more on the colour later). Blue is by far the most popular colour.

Another theory I have is that the seller used some sort of automated algorithm to set the price and this iPad sat for longer than usual while the price ticked down lower than it should have. Perhaps because the item metadata wasn't correctly set to "5th Generation" so didn't come up in filtered searches. 

... was worried about warranty...

While I'm no analyst, I've become pretty good at taking an educated gamble.
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