Survey Shows Consumers Still Plan to Buy Gadgets, Despite Inflation

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Only 18 to 24 percent planned to delay or cancel tech purchases.

Consumer Shopping for Tech
(Image credit: Shutterstock (539139967))

Consumers remain concerned about increases in the cost of living but are still determined to purchase gadgets they need, according to a survey conducted by TechRadar, one of our sister sites. Along with announcing the survey results, TechRadar also launched a major redesign and rebranding today with the aim of highlighting its ability to help readers find the right products at the right prices.

Conducted on 13,797 consumers in the UK and the U.S. across four time periods between May 2022 and March 2023, the survey included 2,319 respondents who were TechRadar readers. The poll’s results indicate that people in both countries plan to or already have made changes to their spending habits in order to save money. Of the respondents who were TechRadar readers, 50 percent in both countries reported that they had cut back on streaming subscriptions while 47 and 38 percent in the UK and U.S. respectively said that they were eating out less frequently.

Despite other cutbacks in their lives, only 24 percent of UK readers and 18 percent of U.S. readers said they would delay a planned tech purchase. However, 40 percent of all respondents and 37 percent of TechRadar readers indicated that they would be spending less on electronics in the near future. Not surprisingly, 86 percent of all respondents and 90 percent of TechRadar readers agreed with the statement that “it’s more important than ever to get a good deal.”

What type of electronics are people shopping for these days? According to the most recent data, which comes from April 2023 but is from UK respondents only, consumers were most likely to buy a new smartphone in the next 12 months, followed by laptops, a desktop PC or components, a game console or a camera.

 TechRadar Rebranding as ‘The Technology Experts’ 

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

In order to serve an audience that’s more concerned than ever with making the most of its money, TechRadar has officially relaunched its site with a reimagined home page, improved navigation menu and new design features throughout. The goal is to position the site as “the technology experts,” highlighting the expertise of its editors and writers. 

“Our analysts and editors live with the technology and share their experiences in personal and relatable ways,” TechRadar U.S. Editor-in-Chief Lance Ulanoff said in a press release. “Now, we’ve crafted new platforms to help us better tell those stories, with recurring features like Home Screen Heroes (the apps we cannot live without), Smart Ideas (unpacking the best in smart home technology) [and] How to Choose (product category explainers for buying decision makers).”

To expose readers to this expertise first-hand, TechRadar is adding its “Ask an Expert,” feature which will allow readers to send in their questions via email and receive answers from one of the site’s editorial staff. 

Launched in 2008, TechRadar is one of the world’s most-visited mainstream consumer tech sites. It has local versions for 17 different countries, including the U.S., UK, Denmark, France and Singapore. TechRadar is owned and operated by Future plc, a global publishing company with more than 80 different outlets, including Tom’s Hardware, Real Homes, Marie Claire and Cinemablend. 

Avram Piltch
Avram Piltch
Avram Piltch is Tom's Hardware's editor-in-chief. When he's not playing with the latest gadgets at work or putting on VR helmets at trade shows, you'll find him rooting his phone, taking apart his PC or coding plugins. With his technical knowledge and passion for testing, Avram developed many real-world benchmarks, including our laptop battery test.
14 Comments Comment from the forums
  • bit_user
    So far this year, I've taken advantage of low prices to make a couple SSD & RAM purchases I wouldn't have otherwise done. If you're curious, the SSDs are discussed here:
    https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/datacenter-ssds-for-home-lab.3807207/#post-23006003
    I'm also in the market for a GPU, but I'm waiting to see what a possible Alchemist+ looks like and I'm also interested in AMD's new mid-tier (i.e. RX 7700 & RX 7800).

    I'll probably buy a new monitor, but I'm in no hurry. Maybe towards the end of the year. I commented on this thread with some of the details, if you're curious:
    https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/new-monitor-suggestions.3811718/
    My phone is on year 4 and its second battery. The thought crossed my mind to exploit the discounts and replace it now, but I just have a hard time replacing something that truly works well enough for my needs.

    Lastly, on the SBC front, I'll probably pick up a RK3588 board, at some point. Right now, the leading contender seems to be the Orange Pi 5 Plus:
    https://www.tomshardware.com/news/orange-pi-5-plus-rk3588http://www.orangepi.org/html/hardWare/computerAndMicrocontrollers/details/Orange-Pi-5-plus.html
    And, of course, I'll need another 2280 M.2 SSD for it. My current thinking is that the SK Hynix P31 Gold should be an excellent fit, due to its outstanding power efficiency (not to mention the RK3588 only has PCIe 3.0 anyway).
    https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/sk-hynix-gold-p31-m2-nvme-ssd-review
    Reply
  • PlaneInTheSky
    I stopped upgrading my phone years ago.

    They can pretty much do all the same things. The only difference is repairability.

    If my friends ask me which phone to buy, I always tell them. "Make sure you can easily replace the battery yourself!".
    I read on The Verge that Fairphone is finally available in the US. You can replace every single part. It's running on Murena, an OS stripped of every privacy violating Google junk. Their last phone was really good too.

    Reply
  • InvalidError
    PlaneInTheSky said:
    If my friends ask me which phone to buy, I always tell them. "Make sure you can easily replace the battery yourself!".
    A few states and countries have hopped aboard the "right to repair" bandwagon and have mandated or are about to mandate that phones must have user-serviceable batteries. We should be seeing more models where you may only need to mess with a few screws instead of glued-shut screen to swap batteries.
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    baboma said:
    The piece overreaches in extrapolating this small voluntary sample size to "consumers" at large.
    "Consumers are determined to purchase gadgets they NEED."

    When you actually need something or at least convinced yourself that you do, not buying is usually not a viable option.
    Reply
  • DavidLejdar
    PlaneInTheSky said:
    ... I read on The Verge that Fairphone is finally available in the US. You can replace every single part. It's running on Murena, an OS stripped of every privacy violating Google junk. Their last phone was really good too.
    No, thanks. I paid about 25% of that price for a phone with almost the same technical specs, and I am barely online with it. Which isn't to say that Murena may not have a noble cause, and in the EU the law seems to be more strict regarding data collection. But from that price difference, i.e. a RX 6700 XT can be paid for.

    Somewhat an individual matter of course. Some others may easily pay $599 for a phone, to then complain in almost every second comment about newish GPUs not costing $100 at the most. Or some may afford the best of everything. But in my case, I spend more time looking at a big screen than on a small screen - so paying for a phone almost as much as what e.g. the best CPUs cost (which barely get busy running an emulator for smartphone apps), not a feasible option for me.
    Reply
  • TJ Hooker
    If people have decided that a purchase is needed, then choosing to not to delay that purchase actually makes perfect sense in an inflationary environment. Inflation means it'll only get more expensive in thr future, so you may as well buy it sooner rather than later, as long as you have the cash to do so.
    Reply
  • TJ Hooker
    DavidLejdar said:
    No, thanks. I paid about 25% of that price for a phone with almost the same technical specs, and I am barely online with it. Which isn't to say that Murena may not have a noble cause, and in the EU the law seems to be more strict regarding data collection. But from that price difference, i.e. a RX 6700 XT can be paid for.

    Somewhat an individual matter of course. Some others may easily pay $599 for a phone, to then complain in almost every second comment about newish GPUs not costing $100 at the most. Or some may afford the best of everything. But in my case, I spend more time looking at a big screen than on a small screen - so paying for a phone almost as much as what e.g. the best CPUs cost (which barely get busy running an emulator for smartphone apps), not a feasible option for me.
    Unfortunately this seems to be a recurring theme with these types of 'open' phones. Old, slow hardware and/or expensive. I wonder if it's just a matter of economies of scale, or if part of it is that mainstream phone hardware prices are somewhat subsidized by the appstores and/or data collection present on them.

    Probably the best, cheap way to get a degoogled android is, somewhat ironically, to buy a used/refurbished Google Pixel phone and flash grapheneos or calyxos.

    Edit: But the above doesn't get you the reparability/modularity of the fairphone.

    Edit2: The fairphone is also advertised as being environmentally friendly, so there's likely a cost to that as well.
    Reply
  • RichardtST
    PlaneInTheSky said:
    I stopped upgrading my phone years ago.

    They can pretty much do all the same things. The only difference is repairability.

    If my friends ask me which phone to buy, I always tell them. "Make sure you can easily replace the battery yourself!".
    I read on The Verge that Fairphone is finally available in the US. You can replace every single part. It's running on Murena, an OS stripped of every privacy violating Google junk. Their last phone was really good too.


    I am still looking for one with a PHYSICAL OFF SWITCH on the side that completely disconnects the battery. I want to be able to make sure it is absolutely dead when I want it to be. But of course that's why there aren't any. There are no off switches because they want to be always on. How else can they spy on you 24 hours a day?
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    RichardtST said:
    I am still looking for one with a PHYSICAL OFF SWITCH on the side that completely disconnects the battery.
    I'd rather just be able to physically remove the battery. Having a physical switch on something you stuff in pockets or elsewhere where a finger-friendly switch could easily get randomly switched could be quite annoying. Make the battery so you can put it on backwards (contacts go into the plastic housing instead of the phone's battery contacts) and you can still store your battery inside the phone for protection, convenience and space saving.
    Reply
  • GenericUser
    Unless the difference literally comes down to being able to afford rent for the month, or have food on the table, people are still going to be buying gadgets and toys in droves no matter what the economy looks like. "I've got to have it!"

    And even for the ones that are struggling to pay the bills, those of them with poor financial skills or impulse control will still buy the latest toy even if it puts them behind on rent for the month.
    Reply