A friend of mine just announced on Facebook that he lost his four day old smartphone. One of the comments under his post was something to the effect that “the technology has changed in the last couple days” insinuating the phone can’t be replaced.
How many times have you purchased a piece of technology only to have it outdate shortly after your purchase? My guess is the answer is ‘most of the time.’ The reality is that most every piece of technology based equipment will become obsolete at one time or another. Unfortunately, technology changes and forces obsolescence on us.
Years ago we made purchases and expected to keep the item for an extended period of time. I remember a television my parents owned when I was a kid that ended up surviving two years of college with me. Throughout most of the time I owned it I used rabbit ears for reception. When I finally had enough money for cable, I added a tuner to allow for the extra channels.
Today we make a purchase and expect it to be superseded within a short amount of time. Even through my flat screen TV works perfectly, there are new televisions that are internet ready. The satellite provider I subscribe to already flashes internet links on my screen which I can’t click on because I have old technology.
There was a time when everyone I knew either had a Betamax or VHS based VCR. My family and I owned hundreds of Betamax tapes. Every video in the house; from commercial movies to home movies was on tape. We expected VCR technology to be around for a long time and still be available for years to come. It’s been years since I’ve seen a new video cassette in stores.
DVD technology quickly took the place of cassette tapes and made them antiques and unusable. We were fortunate enough to have copied most of the non-replaceable tapes to digital format and eventually DVD, but it wasn’t without frustration. I noticed within the last year that DVD technology is being phased out in exchange for Blu-Ray.
Computers are no different. In some of my past articles I’ve talked about computer speeds and operating systems changing with times. Anyone who has purchased a new computer in recent years has experienced this. Ten years ago a single core processor was the rage. I remember sitting in my car in Connecticut many years ago when I heard a radio announcement for gigahertz processors.
My first computer greater than one gigahertz cost me around $1,000.00 and took almost a month of waiting for the processor. It truly made running Windows fun because the speed of the processor and memory was more than sufficient. Although that computer is no longer in existence, we recently tried installing Windows 7 on a similar machine and the experience was painful.
Coming to terms with ever-changing technology is something we all have to deal with when making purchasing decisions. When purchasing technology, we have to understand that someday the item may no longer provide the service for which it was intended. Even though functionally the device works perfectly, the reality is it may no longer meet current technological requirements.
In order to circumvent the changes there are some things which can be done at the time of purchase. One of the things I tell my customers is to purchase much more computer than you currently need; and hopefully you’ll be able to get many years of use. With regard to other items, research what you’re purchasing. If you visit the store and all of one genre of item is on sale, consider waiting a bit before making your purchase. There is some truth to my friend’s Facebook post: wait a few days and there will be something better.
(Jeromy Patriquin is the President of Laptop & Computer Repair, Inc. located at 509 Main St. in Gardner. You can text him at (978) 413-2840 or call him directly at (978) 919-8059.)