I hardly ever watch TV. I watch more on my PC, and i have a fairly nice monitor on it. Ideally i’d like a nicer TV but there’s no real desire to upgrade. Even if i did somehow manage to get a 4K HDR TV i wouldn’t be using it to it’s actual potential because… again i don’t watch TV, and i don’t own a PS4 Pro.
I agree, and I pretty much always buy Lenovo now. My last ThinkPad, though, only lasted a year and a half before the screen hinges busted, and buying a new one was not much more than repairing the old one.
Go Toyota Highlander. I have 2. Our first gen we bought new in 2003 and has 150k miles and only repairs are brakes and new struts. Our 2014 is almost paid off and has 40k miles and I hope to keep it to 200k plus…Here’s the proof on the Toyota reliability (especially the Highlander)
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There comes a point in the development of every consumer product where they stop making it better every year, and start making it worse. Smartphones hit that point a few years back. Now they’re removing the headphone jack and the buttons that make them easy to use. There is no reason to make a phone thinner than they were five years ago. Sheesh!
And don’t get me started on vehicles. Mine are my age: 1958 Chevy wagon, 1963 Corvair, 1962 Frejus 10 speed converted to fixie. They can be made to work. Sure, airbags would be nice, and there’s a non-zero chance that I’ll get in a crash one day, but I’ve been driving the wagon for 25 years already. I can repair them, and there’s no need to consult a dealer for anything.
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I’m reading this on a 11 yo Macbook running Linux (and it’s working great), so “I hear you”.
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that is a noisy gif for having zero audio. i hear horns. many horns.
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“She said your deck oughta be in a museum.”
“Shit she knows,” Jammer said “I know where she lives, don’t I?” He took a hit from his inhaler and put it back on the deck. “Your problem is, she’s written you off. She doesn’t wanna hear from you. You gotta get into her and tell her what she wants to know.”
Count Zero, William Gibson.
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What the heck are you doing to your cars that they fall apart like that? 4 sets of tires in 45K miles??! Do you deliberately drive into curbs at high speed? (don’t get me started on the RX8 - that’s what you get for buying a rotary engine).
My little Infiniti is approaching 325K miles. Bought brand new 18 years ago it still drives like the day I drove it off the lot. I do all my own maintenance for the usual things - brakes, tires, shocks, etc… all normal wear items. Replaced a few major/minor things that started going out around the 15 year mark - radiator, clutch, CV joint, alternator. Other than a couple of minor annoyances (motorized antenna that sticks and LCD panel on the radio going out) it is the most dependable car I have ever owned. I doubt I will ever find another car like this again.
This is a trend I can get behind.
I recently started making the most of my 2009-model iPod touch. I have a receiver circa 1982 and a pair of pretty good thrifted bookshelf speakers of similar vintage. One problem is that the receiver’s knobs and sliders have accumulated some dust over the years, so once they’re set to your liking the wisest course is to touch them as little as possible or you get some lovely crackling and fuzz. That’s where the iPod and an old Airport Express, scrounged from my box of tech junk, come in.
The iPod has enough capacity to hold a good number of favourites, and the Airport Express streams them flawlessly, lossless files included (no internet connection for either component, just local Airplay streaming). And if I really want to hear something that isn’t on the iPod, I can stream from any other Airplay-capable device instead; it will even stream from the internet to the Airport Express even though the latter is an entirely different network unto itself. (Sorry, I know this sounds like rank Apple fanboyism, but love 'em or hate 'em they really have done some things brilliantly at times and this is one of them.)
This is a secondary setup but I could just as well do the same with my primary system. And anyone can do something similar with practically any old iPhone and a cheap old Airport Express base station.
If you dabble in technological arts, old and dated gear is a secret weapon. People wonder aloud, “how the hell did you do that?”
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Hear, hear!
I just replaced my venerable Note 3 recently. With a Note 4. That’s the last model that has all the features I want (replaceable battery, wireless charging, memory card slot). And it still has bezels obviously. I want nothing to do with edge-to-edge screens on mobile devices (monitors on the other hand…).
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Any sufficiently obsolete technology is indistinguishable from magic.
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Remember the Whole Earth Catalog? That was about gadgets too. The tools were the central focus if the whole thing, and CoEvolution Quarterly became Whole Earth Review, but the centerfold was always the reviews.
Systems integration made a difference, though. Much of the discussion was about interaction between different tool sets. And those were mostly tools of creation rather than consumption.
Most things listed in those pages haven’t been improved on in all this time.
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Why not buy a car with a 10 year warranty like a Hyundai or Kia? Our Soul is 6 years old, lives in Jersey, no problems at all yet.
My peeve is people feeling they need greatly overpowered computers. A PC with a passmark of ~2000 will do any office or HTPC chores just fine. I build for my family cheap, silent, fanless systems on highly integrated motherboards that run on 10-12W. My workstation is 8 years old with a similar passmark score, I do CAD modeling on it just fine.
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@SeamusBellamy that was a great little editorial piece on technology desire. Thank you.
As a fellow gadget lover without an unlimited budget, would you consider writing a follow up piece for BoingBoing about:
which types of gadgets are more worth upgrading?
which ones are typically not worth the upgrade?
maybe even some gems of yesteryear that can be had for a penny that still hold up function wise today?
what is your view is on the added cost to make tech upgradable vs the more fixed model scenario?
Thanks!
For me I’ve found that smartphones replace a whole quiver of devices and can really save time, but the upgrade/obsolescence cycle is too brutal at their price point. In some cases I’m even switching back to older simpler devices because often things like fridges with build in smart crap don’t do as good of job at being fridges and add complication where i am looking for simplicity.
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I’m a regular person who has to pay a mortgage and tries to be somewhat fiscally responsible. With very few exceptions, I START with 1-2 year old tech.
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My screen started bleeding purple pixels last year, and honestly I almost downgraded to a Note4 rather than upgrade or replace as it had everything I wanted or needed, but finding a refurbish I trusted was tough. I ended up getting screen replacement instead (which cost about the same)
This only works if whatever you repair can be reasonably expected to last long enough to outweigh buying a new gadget. If repairing your fridge makes it last another decade, that’s probably worthwhile. If it’s replace the built in water dispenser, then replenish the freon, then a new door gasket, that’s several hundred dollars you could have used on a new fridge. My rule of thumb is repair it if it can be done for less than half the price of a new replacement, and that only once, due to diminishing returns. I repaired my LG stacking washer for $150, but a new one would have cost $450. Next time unless it’s under $100, it will probably be replaced.
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In case anyone else wants to try to do this you can cut out the middle-man and just get an old Roku.
I have a Roku 2XS hooked up to an old tube TV with a composite video/stereo audio RCA cable that came with the Roku. Works great still.
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