I have everything on a upgrade list depending on how much we use it and how fast the technology is changing.
Phones: 3 years. Thinking of moving this to 4 or 5 years with the industry’s stagnation. Starting to see some companies offering updates for longer times.
I’m still trying to understand what people do in their phones that they need to run the very latest model with the specs of a laptop. Mine is from 2018 and is doing the job nicely. What am I missing out there?
Most people never use all the specs. If all you are doing is browsing the Internet, watching videos, or playing some simple games, you don’t need much.
I have purchased unlocked mid-range phones for for a while now. Expensive enough to have decent specs but not so cheap that the build quality suffers. When the teenager is dropping the phone 3-4 times per day, a good case and a good build quality is required. 3 years with that type of abuse is about all you’ll get out of it.
I run two phones. For work I get one of the flagship phones. I only pull out my laptop in my office. Most of the time I am using the phone in all weather conditions. I use those specs for thousands of hi-res pictures, data entry etc… all day long. At the end of 3 years it’s toast.
Why 5-6 years, that’s about when I start seeing the cascade of little things. Weird transitory bugs when rebooting. Speed issues and compatibility issues with bloated new software etc. After that amount of time, I start to spend way too much time maintaining them.
I could tinker with them and keep them going. Its what I used to do when my kids were small. Install a Linux distro on an old computer, load a bunch of educational games and set the browser homepage to PBSkids.
However I have 5 computers to maintain now and my teenagers need compatible fast systems for college and school. My wife works from home at times and needs something that reliably works.
I have everything on a upgrade list depending on how much we use it and how fast the technology is changing.
Phones: 3 years. Thinking of moving this to 4 or 5 years with the industry’s stagnation. Starting to see some companies offering updates for longer times.
Laptops/desktops: 5-6 years.
Wifi/modem/router: 10 years.
3 years for a phone is very low. Maybe change battery and you can keep it for 3 years more. Though you need to buy phones with custom rom support.
I’m still trying to understand what people do in their phones that they need to run the very latest model with the specs of a laptop. Mine is from 2018 and is doing the job nicely. What am I missing out there?
Most people never use all the specs. If all you are doing is browsing the Internet, watching videos, or playing some simple games, you don’t need much.
I have purchased unlocked mid-range phones for for a while now. Expensive enough to have decent specs but not so cheap that the build quality suffers. When the teenager is dropping the phone 3-4 times per day, a good case and a good build quality is required. 3 years with that type of abuse is about all you’ll get out of it.
I run two phones. For work I get one of the flagship phones. I only pull out my laptop in my office. Most of the time I am using the phone in all weather conditions. I use those specs for thousands of hi-res pictures, data entry etc… all day long. At the end of 3 years it’s toast.
My notebook is 9 years old. My desktop is 6 years old. I haven’t found a reasonable argument to replace them until they stop working. Why 5-6 years?
Why 5-6 years, that’s about when I start seeing the cascade of little things. Weird transitory bugs when rebooting. Speed issues and compatibility issues with bloated new software etc. After that amount of time, I start to spend way too much time maintaining them.
I could tinker with them and keep them going. Its what I used to do when my kids were small. Install a Linux distro on an old computer, load a bunch of educational games and set the browser homepage to PBSkids.
However I have 5 computers to maintain now and my teenagers need compatible fast systems for college and school. My wife works from home at times and needs something that reliably works.