http://www.techradar.com/news/computing ... ts-1171800

I'll definitely be considering a Haswell machine come the time.

Most PC manufacturers operate pretty lean production because they cannot afford to be so wasteful. Many companies probably have few spare machines. When I was a PC user I always had to wait for a week or so for my machine to be built and tested. It might be different for bog standard machines. Though they cannot afford to carry huge stock piles. Even Apple who clear their stock before a new version do not end up with lots of old stock. Also processors like Haswell would be released with lots of notice. In fact some chips were launched in early June and the rest on 1st September. The top spec ones have been out since June so really we should be seeing decent sales now if the waiting for the new chip was really an issue. I suspect that the market is saturated and there is only replacement sales from now on. Even Apple has not been taking a lot of market share from PC this last quarter.

The price of the new machines weighs heavily though; the newer chip only making that worse. They look especially bad value for Joe Average when he doesn't care about specs and can pick up a £300 Acer that 'looks good enough' at Tesco. And get money off and points

Yes it does depend on the user. Modern laptops have higher resolution screens and they are definitely more expensive. I was reading about how power hungry the Haswell chips are at full load. That will impact battery life and even if you cut ports to cut costs you do not save much. Then the OS will be significant and even OEM pricing can add a big chunk to the price.