A couple of weeks ago, online shopping for electronics reached new heights and is probably still hitting records globally. PC enthusiasts and gamers were upgrading their video cards, Apple worshipers were donating to their Church, while home users and the working Joe went to replace their 2-year old laptops, portables, All-in-Ones, and desktops with brand-spanking, high performance hybrid machines. News about users replacing their cellphones and smartphones every couple of weeks give me chills, but smartphones are being bought, sold, and traded faster than Pokeman cards way back when.
I can't argue with publishers and writers of sites such as CNET and PCWorld. It's their job to sell stuff and present you with plenty of superlatives in order for you to buy the latest ultrabook or video card, the new Mac Mini, and the popular Samsung Galaxy. Besides commercial sites, there are also millions of professionals and technical communities that discuss the merits of buying X or Y and upgrading Z while prices are low. It's very easy to list the merits of upgrading. Well, I'm going to swim upstream and write about NOT upgrading. I don't mean waiting it out and not being an "early adopter". I'm not talking about waiting for the next HTC phone or Macbook before getting one because it will be better or cheaper later on. I'm talking about upgrading your hardware/gadget only if you really need to.
I work for a hardware manufacturer with a huge line of products and I love reading reviews and articles about products in sites like Engadget and Wired. I'd probably buy more stuff if I had disposable income (a Macbook Pro has been on my wishlist for close to a decade now), but I'm definitely not as well off as Tony Stark. This year, I bought a stick of 4GB of RAM for my 2-year old Ideapad and 2TB of external storage. The rest of my largely aged gear (which is considered legacy by today's standards) - the pokey Sony PRS-600, the now discontinued Creative Zen, my first-gen netbook, my embarrassing Nokia E63, and the aforementioned USB2.0-equipped Ideapad - remain untouched and in use. Bleeding-edge tech users don't need to feel sorry for me though, I was given an iPad 2 for my birthday so I'm not totally from the Cretaceous era.
Before you upgrade your tech, ask yourself the following questions:
Do you need it?
Everyone will tell you a quadcore phone is the way to go or the iPhone 5 is heaven's gift to mankind. But if all you do on your phone is make phone calls, take photos you will never print (sigh), check e-mail, read the occasional ebook, and play some version of Angry Birds, should you really shell out a few hundred quid because advertising and sales say so? It's tough to argue with anyone who says they need it because everyone else has it, but ask yourself do you really need it. I don't use a cellphone so I'll use RAM as an example instead. I increased the RAM on my Ideapad to 6GB this X'mas because it was struggling with some of the video conversions I was doing and Adobe and Corel tasks I was working on. If I ask myself point blank if the standard 4GB it came with would be enough for the next year, I would say "Sure, especially when I'm booted into openSUSE or Ubuntu."
Tech professionals would laugh at my gear, but the money I spent on the RAM was more cheaper than buying that Samsung Series 9 Ultrabook I've been checking out. I could have definitely continued working without the 2GB increase, but getting the extra Kingston DDR3 was worth it. I also dream about someday upgrading the storage on my machines to SSD, but right now I'm fine with the mechanical HDDs I'm using. I'd love to read in the dark with a new Kobo Glo to replace my PRS-600 with its dim screen, but a click of a bedside lamp dissuades me from ordering one. I try to remember that when it comes to consumer electronics, necessity and luxury can easily be confused.
Ok, you need it. Is there any way to improve your product without having to replace it or buy a new one?
Android gets a lot of criticism due to its fragmented update structure but that doesn't give you an excuse to chuck it out the window and buy the HTC One X or newest iPhone. If you do your homework really well and ask an enthusiast to help you out, you can solve a lot of the complaints about your smartphone, desktop, tablet, or laptop whether it's in the form of a firmware upgrade, a quick fix, or a cheap replacement. You don't need to be technically inclined to learn a thing or two from forums. If you find smug and condescending tech guys in the community, look elsewhere for help. There are plenty of places to find solutions, from the manufacturer's site to YouTube.
Is your wireless connection on your laptop slow? Check if the Mini-PCIe card can be replaced with a faster one (it's $10 for the latest Wireless-N Intel Pro card). Windows 7, Windows Vista, or Windows XP getting you down? Forget about that iMac, do a clean install or better yet, dual-boot to a Linux distribution. Bugs in the performance or features even on standalone products like media players and tablets always have a workaround. You just need a bit of patience or help from nice folks on the Internet, the best troubleshooting/upgrade tool in the world.
The Economics of Upgrading (or Replacing)
Every time I read buyer and consumer reviews in sites like Amazon.com, I get the feeling that everyone believes they're an expert when it comes to consumer electronics and that throwing money at a device that is faster and has better hardware will resolve all software or hardware issues (believe me, it's normally the user who causes their own issues).
Having disposable income is tough anywhere in the world right now. Tech sites will always argue that buying the latest equipment is an "investment" that will pay off later. Keep in mind that writers encouraging upgrades or purchase of new products are either paid to write or actually have the disposable income to buy new stuff themselves. A larger HDTV being sold at a few hundred dollars off is a good buy, but ask yourself if you can still see Daniel Craig's facial lines in Quantum of Solace clearly on your Panasonic or Samsung TV. If you still can (and count his warts too), then maybe you don't need a new HDTV quite yet.
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