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The Joys of Being a Late Tech Adopter

nytimes.com

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Re: The Joys of Being a Late Tech Adopter

#21

Post by mantas »

CogitoCogito wrote: post #19
pddpro wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With people looking forward to upgrade their mobile and hand-held devices for multiple reasons (including the "bling factor") I can't help but think about the current e-waste management policies and mechanisms in place. Especially in third world countries where new electronic devices are pouring in as gifts or imports (thanks to the migrant workers and inflow of remittance) and older devices are just being dumped as…

I only recently moved from an iphone 5 to a 6. I actually consider it largely a step down due to the larger form factor. The 5 worked fine except for some applications I needed moving passed 32 bit support. If not for that I never would have upgraded. I'm always amazed at how people just must have the newest phones. Other than my issue with the 32 bit I saw no reason to change.

Why not iPhone SE? It was possible to get it real cheap in clearance sales.

Fingers crossed for iPhone SE2 in iPhone5 shape :|

Re: The Joys of Being a Late Tech Adopter

#22

Post by mgkimsal »

kd5bjo wrote: post #17
mojuba wrote: post #15

I think Apple knows this perfectly. I'm not even sure whether the "I'll wait for the S upgrade" people (myself included) outsmart Apple or it's Apple who created the market for those who want to feel smarter than the rest. At the end of the day, the economics of major upgrades vs. incrementals is very straightforward: major upgrades do bring significant new convenience features (e.g. once you are used to Face ID you…

> There's nothing smart about not benefiting from the new features today for the sake of saving a few hundred dollars. Sure there is. For every life-changing new feature, there are a dozen that end up not going anywhere. For the ones that are, their true advantages and disadvantages only become clear after they’ve been in the world for a while. I’m thankful for all of the early adopters out there that hapily deal wit…

"For every life-changing new feature, there are a dozen that end up not going anywhere"

"3D Touch" (IIRC?) would seem to fall in to that camp, no? I've never had a device that offered it, and the folks I know that do didn't realize they had it.

Re: The Joys of Being a Late Tech Adopter

#23

Post by jotm »

pentaxy wrote: post #9
jotm wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still have a HTC One M8, which is almost 5 years old. The processor is fine, storage seems fine, battery is almost dead which is normal... But 2GB of RAM is now not enough for the same apps I've used for years. Open a few tabs in Firefox and it slows down a lot. Before quad core processors, I found the CPU was a serious bottleneck, as well. And fwiw, Windows Mobile phones had full fledged browsers and 3G long befor…

I would put all hardware in the same bag - can be good as new after 5+ years - but whatever electronics you want to buy today (be it a phone, "smart" TV, even a car), if you have any experience you know that vendors are now mostly in the business of providing a service, not just a physical product. And that's what you'll want to look up and pay most for. If the stuff becomes incompatible or not secure for everyday us…

Thankfully, it's still possible to update software yourself. If that's impossible, well, good bye from me. I'm not going to be forced to buy new stuff because the perfectly good old one is not going to be updated.

Re: The Joys of Being a Late Tech Adopter

#24

Post by klingonopera »

EliRivers wrote: post #7

“We’re in the golden age of smartphones,” he said. “Your smartphone from two years ago still works great and will continue to work for a while.” If this is where smartphones peak - usable for two and a bit years - we need to take ourselves out to the car park for a strong conversation.

Samsung Galaxy S5+, bought used November 2018, running LineageOS 16.0 (Android 9). I don't know, it's a 4/5 year-old model by now?

Enough for browsing, listening to music, texting, I don't play games on my phone (if I ever do, I might consider installing chess, but the need never arose).

I've my sights set on a new Fairphone 3 once my current phone gives up. The ease of repair, stock Android, great software support, plus ethical manufacturing have me sold.

Re: The Joys of Being a Late Tech Adopter

#25

Post by std_throwaway »

mojuba wrote: post #15

I think Apple knows this perfectly. I'm not even sure whether the "I'll wait for the S upgrade" people (myself included) outsmart Apple or it's Apple who created the market for those who want to feel smarter than the rest. At the end of the day, the economics of major upgrades vs. incrementals is very straightforward: major upgrades do bring significant new convenience features (e.g. once you are used to Face ID you…

> I think Apple knows this perfectly.

They research the market very well and optimize for maximum profit. Some people will feel left in the rain and some will think they made a steal. This is of no big concern for apple. Their overall profit is and in the last years it seemed to only go up and up.

Re: The Joys of Being a Late Tech Adopter

#26

Post by spodek »

Besides phones, other applications:

- Wait for movie hype to end to avoid crap movies with great marketing. I usually wait to borrow them from the library.

- I buy all my computers used from Craig's List. I'm typing on one I paid $500 for that would have been $2,000 new.

- Latest news about "superfoods" or nutrition. I heard about someone who waited 5 years to act on food trends. None lasted that long before more latest nutrition news superseded it.

- Reading daily news. Doesn't improve my life nor make me better informed.

I still check my email too much.

Re: The Joys of Being a Late Tech Adopter

#27

Post by leetcrew »

esotericn wrote: post #18

I just wish that smartphones had a more standardised OS. Old laptops are fully usable in exactly the same way as a modern machine. They might be slightly slower. Well, I mean, it's getting more difficult to deal with 32bit hardware, but that's about 10-15 years old now. My 32bit atom netbook is still usable; still gets security patches; runs the latest everything (it's just very slow, and e.g. some distros dropped 32…

> I think that the phone manufacturers, Google, etc, should address the fact that they are creating mountains of e-waste for no good reason. The last new phone I bought was partly because old software stopped running on my version of Android. That's really a shame.

this might be naive, but I do suspect we are getting close to an inflection point with the two year phone lifetime. up until the last few years, phone hardware was advancing rapidly and major features were being added to the mobile OSes every year. no one who could afford to wanted to keep a phone more than two or three years. now that mobile tech is more mature, they will start having to cater to people who want to buy a quality device and keep it for longer. arguably apple is already doing this; iOS 13 will still support a phone from 2015.

Re: The Joys of Being a Late Tech Adopter

#28

Post by davnicwil »

I think particularly with phones, 5-10 years ago it was necessary to get a flagship model to get something that at least wasn't awful, and you wanted to upgrade that flagship as often as possible to get to 'good' as soon as possible.

The last 5 years we reached 'good' for all flagship models, and so you bought one to get that but could then just keep it until it broke.

Now, and going forwards, I think we're in the phase where non flagships are reaching 'good' too, so it's really compelling to just get something that's cheaper and more of a commodity device.

As the article points out, it'll be fantastic when we reach the point of having good phones that are perfectly nice to use day to day, but if we occasionally lose or break them the reaction is 'ah well, I'll just go buy another one tomorrow' because they cost $50 brand new.

Re: The Joys of Being a Late Tech Adopter

#29

Post by imtringued »

jotm wrote: post #8
EliRivers wrote: post #7

“We’re in the golden age of smartphones,” he said. “Your smartphone from two years ago still works great and will continue to work for a while.” If this is where smartphones peak - usable for two and a bit years - we need to take ourselves out to the car park for a strong conversation.

I still have a HTC One M8, which is almost 5 years old. The processor is fine, storage seems fine, battery is almost dead which is normal... But 2GB of RAM is now not enough for the same apps I've used for years. Open a few tabs in Firefox and it slows down a lot. Before quad core processors, I found the CPU was a serious bottleneck, as well. And fwiw, Windows Mobile phones had full fledged browsers and 3G long befor…

I'm still using the HTC one M7. The battery is dying and the charging port is wearing out. I bought a magnetic charging cable so I can keep the plug inside permanently. I have dropped it several times and at least twice on the pavement. It has 5 2mm wide indentations in the aluminum frame. The glass is as good as new. It will probably survive another two years.

Re: The Joys of Being a Late Tech Adopter

#30

Post by [deleted] »

davnicwil wrote: post #28

I think particularly with phones, 5-10 years ago it was necessary to get a flagship model to get something that at least wasn't awful, and you wanted to upgrade that flagship as often as possible to get to 'good' as soon as possible. The last 5 years we reached 'good' for all flagship models, and so you bought one to get that but could then just keep it until it broke. Now, and going forwards, I think we're in the ph…

[deleted]
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