When Is A Good Time To Upgrade?

Andru Edwards writes "In an article which looks at the techie's mindset as it pertains to upgrading, Hector Martinez takes a deeper look at what makes us want to buy the latest gadgets. What are your options, and when should you actually just keep what you already have?"

Comments

Always

[Anonymous Coward]

On the old Slashdot, there wouldn't have been any other answer.

Re:Always

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, always. Always just before the new version comes out.

Re:Always

[Kryxan]

Speaking of old slashdot, since when did such ignorance get to make the headlines.

One time my PC kept shutting down on me for no apparent reason. After about an hour it just kept pooping out on me. I turn it back on, and it would last another 30 minutes before giving up. One day I tried this too many times and something in the back end of the case exploded, leaving tendrils of smoke climbing out the back of the desk. Turned out the power supply fan wasn't working and it kept heating up my PC, causing it to shut down as a form of protection. But I had friends in high places. For a mere $20, I was able to buy a new power supply and bring the whole system back from the dead, almost a full year later. The key is this: If it's only partially broken you can get away with saving a little cash.

Re:Always

[smarthippy]

"Always" is spot on the mark, for Gentoo users. Gentoo releases are just lines in the sand, announced for the purpose of printing LiveCDs. We have to change a symlink which determines which version is running every year or so, but all programs are upgraded incrementally on demand using the best of breed package management facility, Portage. To quote the docs on the subject of upgrades:

"Here in Gentoo land, the concept of upgrading is quite different compared to the rest of the Linux world. You probably already know that we never got in touch with the "classic" way of upgrading software: waiting for a new release, downloading it, burning, putting it in the cdrom drive and then following the upgrade instructions. You know (being a Gentoo user after all) that this process is extremely frustrating for power users that want to live on the bleeding edge. [...]"

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gentoo-upgrading.xml

Obvious Answer:

[zoobaby]

I upgrade when I get the money.

Re:Obvious Answer:

[isometrick]

So ... when your mom gives you your allowance? ;)

Re:Obvious Answer:

[billysielu]

when it doesnt do what i want it to do. i generally buy top-of the range stuff so i dont have to upgrade for a very long time (if ever)

Re:Obvious Answer:

[Reducer2001]

What do you think credit is for.

Screwing over consumers with high interest. What do YOU think it's for?

Re:Obvious Answer:

[Soko]

I upgrade when I get the money.

And I get the money when my lovely bride (read: Domestic Finanacial Manager) decides to give it to me. (Hi, hon!)

Soko

Re:Obvious Answer:

[KilobyteKnight]

Screwing over consumers with high interest. What do YOU think it's for?

Buying lots of stuff I can't afford and blaming evil corporate entities for making me do it because I am a slave to the bling-bling.

Re:Obvious Answer:

[Jason1729]

The top-of-the-range stuff is the biggest rip-off in terms of price per length of time you get to use it. I discovered that a long time ago. I bought a high-end ATI 9600 baud modem for $600 because it had all sorts of great features. I could have bought a cheap one for $300, but I figured I use my modem a lot and I want the best. A year later, I replaced it with a 14.4k modem that cost $150 and didn't have the nice features but it was 50% faster so it was unambiguously better. It just doesn't pay to get the bells and whistles because the core features get stale so fast.

Does it matter if your CD-RW drive can burn at 8x or 40x when the DVD+-RW drives are under $100?

Jason
ProfQuotes

Re:Obvious Answer:

[AuMatar]

Well then your hardware isn't doing what you want it to do, is it?

Personally, I don't need a DVD player to play avis, vcds, etc. I don't ever even watch those on the computer. I want my DVD player to play little round discs drom Blockbuster. It does that, so I'll keep it til it breaks. Which may be a very long time- I kept the same cheap-ass stereo from age 14-24, it did what I needed it to- play fm radio.

Same with computers- I don't upgrade until there's some software I want to run that I can't. Usually thats a game, and that tends to be every 4 years or so (I don't play FPS, so I don't tend to push the envelope too much). I'll be upgrading 1 of my 2 computers soon- basicly to run MythTV so I can get rid of my DVD player, old video game systems, VCR etc entirely. It'll only be a small upgrade though- adding some cards to my linux box. After that I don't see myself buying any new electronics for 3-4 years, unless something breaks.

Re:Obvious Answer:

[npsimons]

What do you think credit is for.

Screwing over consumers with high interest. What do YOU think it's for?

There are two types of people: those who pay interest, and those who collect it. I don't know where that quote is from originally, but I've found it to mostly be true.

Re:Obvious Answer:

[Ohreally_factor]

Did you buy the $300 modem the week it first shipped, or did you buy it a month before newer and faster modems appeared? It really makes a big difference when you purchase during a particular products life cycle.

A case in point is my brother-in-law, a total gadget freak. (Hi Karl!) I think he once told me he "invests" around $500 in gadgets every year, but he always has the latest and greatest of everything. His method is to buy what he wants the moment it's shipping, and then immediately selling the gadget it is replacing on ebay. Part of why this works is that the "top-of-the-range" stuff tends to hold it's value longer.

I know someone else that does this with Macs. He's always got the latest, most powerful system, and he is able to afford this because he can always find a buyer willing to pay a good price for last years top of the line system. I'm not sure what his yearly outlay is, but it's not $5000 a year.

Re:Obvious Answer:

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope. I'm married. I have to ask a totally different woman for permission now.

Re:Obvious Answer:

[stiber]

Why in the hell that was modded as funny

You're obviously not married.

Don't.

[torpor]

I've been in computers for 20 years. I'm now thinking that, all along, this whole 'upgrade' thing is a pile of crap.. .. I'm not thinking of upgrading any more. I'm thinking "maybe its time to learn assembly, chuck away all this bloat, and push this metal really hard".

Seriously. Upgrading is bad for the environment, especially if you do it in some sorta consumerican goose-step, a fatal religion.

Lets see an "Ask Slashdot" about 'how did you bring old hardware new life'? Its much more impressive to me to see someone downgrade, albeit with new non-bloated software, than it is to see the 'latest and greatest' ricerbox being sliding off someones credit card ..

Re:Don't.

[Elwood P Dowd]

++

The article hits it pretty close to the mark with:

When you can't live without it.

and

When it's completely busted.

I'm still using my dual-usb iBook, even after the LCD died. I hope to buy a new computer around 2010 at the earliest.

Re:Don't.

[AKAImBatman]

Truth be told, the "upgrade" cycle was caused by PCs. PCs used to be so underpowered, that you'd need to occasionally upgrade just to run the simplest of programs. Here's my upgrade cycle:

~1985 - PC jr (upgraded because of lack of memory)
~1988 - Laser XT (upgraded because of 640K and GUIs)
~1992 - 486 DX2 (upgraded because 4MB wouldn't run Win95)
~1995 - Pentium 120 (upgraded because 16MB was too little for modern programs)
~2000 - Homebuilt PIII 733/512MB/80Gig

Note that the last item shows no "upgrade" cycle. That's because I haven't upgraded. I built my machine for capacity, and it has held up for about four years. Even more interesting is that I have no current plans at upgrading that machine. All of my current thoughts are leaning toward getting a used Ultra80, and wiring up the entire house with thin-client services.

Re:Don't.

[devphaeton]

On the list of things that humans do that are bad for the environment, upgrading a new video card (which the average human does, well, NEVER) is a little bit lower than exhaling carbon dioxide (which the average human does a lot).

It'd surprise you to know how many toxic chemicals and heavy metals are in that video card that will find itself in landfill much sooner than necessary.

In most states, it is illegal to dispose of electronics, especially computers, in landfills or other conventional means without first processing them to some degree.

Otherwise the electronics recycling business wouldn't be flourishing like it is

Re:Don't.

[mqx]

I was recently lectured by someone who worked in marketing in a UK HI-FI R&D company in the 1980's: his insightful comment (which must also apply to many other technologies, such as computers and mobile phones) was "the key thing we understood is that high fidelity market was not a technology market, it was a fashion market". I'd bet that a lot of slashdot readers are fashionistas more than technocrats - and I'd like to hear some ideas on what behaviours distinguish each type of person.

Re:Don't.

[@madeus]

Its much more impressive to me to see someone downgrade, albeit with new non-bloated software, than it is to see the 'latest and greatest' ricerbox being sliding off someones credit card ..

I dislike badly written software, (for example most MMORPG's have very poor 3D engines compared to most single player games - as an avid gamer this is a bug bear of mine) and I think it's been clear over the last 20 years that there are diminish returns in each upgrade cycle (Mac OS 6 through 9 were all faster to use for regular desktop bound tasks than Mac OS X for example, and it's not at all clear that the additional features are worth the disproportionate drop in speed - similar things can be said of the Windows platfom in comparing Windows XP to Windows 3.1).

I think it's fair to say that both Mac OS 7 and Windows 95 were faster for navigating directories, opening word processor documents and checking email on average hardware for the time than either Mac OS X or Windows XP are on significantly newer hardware. Linux on my 1.5 Ghz PowerBook is *staggeringly* fast compared to Mac OS X for example (so much so, that I'm very tempted to keep buying the hardware, because I like the feature set, but switch back to Debian). The very apparent lack of optimisation on Mac OS X is just staggering.

However...

I can honstly say that I find it much more impressive for me to see Doom 3, PlanetSide or Unreal 2 running on high end new hardware and it is to see that after months of hard work they have managed to port a rather mundane title to a 10 or 20 year old system. The price of not having bloated software is sometimes just that - a mesurable monetary cost which someone has to be willing to bear. Time, money and the very real resultant possiblity that if it can't be made quickly it can't be made at all (which in the case of some software, could be be bad for overall productivity).

I do think OS vendors have a lot to answer for - they are responsible for massive amounts of bloat (particularly Microsoft and Apple), but other than the period release of a new OS like XP or OS X, it's games more than anything that drive the cycle, and most developers are keen to do as much as they can to keep the performance as good as possible within reasonable limits.

I hear David Braben is working on a sequal to Elite, I'm sure it will be very tighly coded. I think perhaps it will be a long time coming though - if, dare I say it ever.

I do not think coding in assembly is very efficient, as it takes significantly longer to write complex software, which is why we have C (and other higher level languages). We should be picking the right battles I think. Perhaps by attacking poorly implimented and very inefficent high level languages and ensuring we have good compiler technology (and run time engines) to appropriatly optimise software to make use of the hardware it's running on.

Hardly any programs (certainly hardly any of the programs I use) take advantage of features like Altivec (on PPC G4's) or Hyperthreading (on Intel P4's) - having them do so by being appropriately written and having compilers that can do a good job of optimisation would be a big step in the right direction. It was the efforts of Motorola (donating code to GNU/FSF) and the work of companies like Red Hat and independant individuals that Altivec optimisation was added gcc for example - yet Apple rely on it, even ship it on CD/DVD with every Macintosh, as such many would think perhaps they should have been leading contributions to such a project. Which brings me to perhaps one of the best targets for bloatware critisim - vendors of commercial operating systems (i.e. Sun, Apple, Microsoft) - some of there software is frankly appaulingly slow given the hardware it runs on, and what they do in many ways sets the tone for the rest of the industry.

Re:Don't.

[antiMStroll]

Let me know when you're done squeezing eight-five 8x anti-aliased frames per second @ 1200x1024x32 on a P3 with that assembler version of Far Cry and I'm behind you all the way. :)

Re:Don't.

[toddestan]

In Minnesota, garbage collectors won't take computer monitors in the trash. They won't take TV's either, and generally don't want things like microwaves and other computer hardware either. I don't know if the laws are different up here, or perhaps due to Arizona being a drier state they don't worry about the chemicals leeching out.

By the way, it costs about $15 up here to get a computer monitor recycled.

Re:Don't.

[Tim Browse]

I hear David Braben is working on a sequal to Elite, I'm sure it will be very tighly coded. I think perhaps it will be a long time coming though - if, dare I say it ever.

When did you hear that? Must have been a while ago, because two sequels have already been developed and released. Quite a long time ago, too.

How many rods per hogshead does your car get?

Re:Don't.

[drsquare]

Upgrading drives progress. If no-one upgraded to faster and better hardware, no-one would make any better hardware, and we'd all be using 1Mhz processors with 256kB of RAM.

Re:Don't.

[Barlo_Mung_42]

"I'd love to buy a computer that was manufactured in a not-environmentally-hostile manner. However, with our current technology, that is not possible."

I think things are getting a bit better. I work for a company that produces hardware. We've just done a complete redesign across the board to get rid of the parts that contain lead. We had to do this because of a law that will soon be going into effect in Europe but it will help everywhere.

Upgrade time:

[Anonymous Coward]

Responibility is when you ask yourself: "Do I *REALLY* need this??"
Maturity is when you answer: "No."

I upgrade after I call Dell tech support

[taxman_10m]

After speaking with... Kevin... and going in circles for an hour, I break down, and just upgrade whatever part it is that broke.

Best time to upgrade?

[LegendOfLink]

Easy, when Carmack puts out a new first person shooter.

Every 6 years

[Tibor the Hun]

But then again I use Apple products. Right now I have a 1.4 G4, and I don't foresee upgrading it for another 3 years...

When the need arises

[ircubic]

I'm not a gamer, I'm not a graphics editor. What I do on the computer rarely pressurizes my computer so much that I have to update often. Thus, I update my computer whenever I start noticing slowdowns and bottlenecks in my system. My last update was over a year ago, I'd think, I'm still going good and don't think I'll be updating any time in the near future.
I never saw what was so "cool" about wasting all your money on bleeding-edge CPUs, RAM, and such, and the spending even more money overclocking it to the max. I have no need for it, I stick to what I need, easy as that.
I can see the gamer wanting to be a it ahead, but taking it to the extreme like that is kinda useless. It just wastes extreme amounts of money on just getting those few extra 5FPSs that you probably won't need anyway. I can understand wanting to stay ahead, but there's no need to stay WAY too ahead way too often.
In short: I upgrade when my system feels like it's being dominated and spanked by all teh software I run.

After new products are announced

[TykeClone]

Purchase the older model at a discount.

Simple answer:

[Ars-Fartsica]

When do you upgrade? If you are poor, hardly ever. If you are rich, whenever you want. In fact for the rich, the hassle of setting up a new piece of equipment is probably a stronger disincentive than the cost.

Re:Simple answer:

[johansalk]

You're absolutely right about the hassle. I'm not saying I'm rich, but I have a technophilic temptation that often interfers with my functional use of the device. I often find that a slightly older, classic and well-reviewed item works best for me, and I've had many occasions where I bought an "upgrade" that turned out to be less preferable when put to use than item i had it was meant to replace.

Re:Obvious Answer II

[spidereyes]

When my wife says so or when I upgrade my wife.

NOW!

[i_r_sensitive]

Er, no NOW!

And AGAIN!

Wait... ...NOW!

Is it Wednesday? Then my answer is NOW!

You get the point...

Timely article.

[SloWave]

I've been trying to decide when to upgrade my 150Mhz box to it's full 233 Mhz capacity. I would have done it some time back but the little LED numbers on the front only go up to 99 and no-one would be able to tell the difference. I have upgraded the software on it over the years from 1.?? Linux to 2.4.+. That was easy.

Average PC User

[FriedTurkey]

I think the average PC user upgrades when the computer gets unusable with spyware and viruses. Its easier to plunk down $2000 instead of wiping the computer clean. PC manufactures should thank spyware and virus writers. The average PC user would never upgrade again because all they are doing is web surfing.

Re:Average PC User

[antiMStroll]

Hell, I'll wipe the drive and reload your software for a low, low $1699 during my November special. An extra $100 will Windex the case.

Re:Average PC User

[toddestan]

I think the average PC user upgrades when the computer gets unusable with spyware and viruses. Its easier to plunk down $2000 instead of wiping the computer clean. PC manufactures should thank spyware and virus writers. The average PC user would never upgrade again because all they are doing is web surfing.

Judging by how fast I have seen clueless PC users can screw up a virgin Windows XP install, you're saying that the average PC user buys a new system every week or so?

"whatever you want"

[mqx]

I'm looking forward to reading the various replies: but honestly, just do as you please. If you're a gadget freak, then upgrade whenever you want the latest. If you're not, then wait until breakage or functionality is required.

For example, I've had a GSM phone here in the UK for the last 6 years: initially a motorola tri-band that was part of a no initial cost 12 month lock-in contract in 1998: it served me well until 2003, until I took option on a free upgrade to sony ericson T68i (I'd been getting text-messages about free upgrades for 18 months or so, and finally decided to act) - I even got £20 cash back on sending back the old phone! I don't plan to upgrade again for another 3-4 years or more - that'll be 10 years without paying for a phone; and I'm still on a cheap plan from 2001 for low cost calls :-). I don't need to surf the web on a postage stamp, nor take 1mpixel pictures.

On the other hand, guys I work with have been through the latest and greatest phones every 12-18 months or so - buying expensive camera/colour models. Sure they are nice and snazzy, but honestly, they don't seem to really use all the extra functionality other than as occasional toy. But, it seems to keep them happy. It keeps me happy knowing they're helping drive the technology forward until I decide to upgrade ;-).

Back to my hand, I do spend ~£500 a month at good restaurants here in London because that's my thing: when taking to one of these constant upgrade guys once, they couldn't understand why anyone would pay more than £30 for a meal.

It takes all kinds! Just do what makes you happy and just ensure that you're not doing something you might regret such
as throwing away 10 years of money on frivolous toys - some people actually have no regrets about this type of thing, I would.

Re:I upgrade when...

[gid]

You should pay all those credit cards off and upgrade only when you need more speed and have enough money to cover your full credit card bill next month... but that's just me--I don't like throwing money away. I know, I know... I'm unamerican.

You upgrade when you need to upgrade

[Jason1729]

If your computer still does everything you want it to, don't upgrade.

Jason
ProfQuotes

Rule of thumb for me

[PoderOmega]

To fight the urge to constantly be upgrading the last 6 years my rule has been I can upgrade motherboard and CPU every other year and on the off year I can get a new video card. Also, never spend more than $150 on a video card, or $200 on a motherboard and processor. Of course some upgrade require new RAM, so it isn't a perfect rule.
Other than that I get a new hard drive about every 3 years and I've had to get a new power supply in there somewhere. This has worked well for me.

Depends on the product

[Jakhel]

Every 2-3 years I upgrade at least the mother board + cpu of my computer...just to be able to play games at a decent detail setting. I find that I usually end up buying a great (not top of the line, but great) combo. For example, in preparation for hl2 I'll be swapping out an athlon xp 1900 for the athlon64 3000 (as opposed to a 3400 or better) this weekend.

As far as phones/pda's are concerned, as soon as the one I'm using either starts to act up, or some new innovation in the product market makes the one I'm using obsolete or hard to find replacement parts for I upgrade to the new latest and greatest.

Hell I still run a Celeron 400...

[gatkinso]

...I'll upgrade when the thing simply refuses to work.

Re: Environment-friendly computing

[Alwin Henseler]

I'd love to buy a computer that was manufactured in a not-environmentally-hostile manner.

There was some research done on how useful it is to recycle computer equipment (for materials). Conclusion: energy costs of recycling weigh heavier than the benefit of turning the materials back into new products. From an environmental perspective, it helps most to just keep old equipment working as long as possible.

For about a year and a half, I ran an old Pentium box as router/firewall. The most costly thing over that period: hardware? No (pocketmoney). Software? No (a few floppy discs w/ free software). Energy! The electricity for running the box 24/7 over that period topped other costs.

After that, I sold the box for similar use elsewhere. So what if I had used an energy-efficient dedicated router, and dumped the old box for recycling?

• The dedicated router would have to be produced new, taking a lot of energy & costing me $$
• The old box would have become trash right away, cost lots of energy to recycle, and not around for resale.

So looking back, the advice above makes sense.

However, with our current technology, that is not possible.

Maybe not, but you can make optimal use of equipment, give it a useful task for as long as possible, and have it recycled after use. Specialised companies are quite good at recycling electronic equipment. BTW. I think it's bad to throw computers in landfills anyway. When natural resources become scarce and recycling processes are refined, computer waste may turn into a very good source for materials like copper, lead, gold, etc.

Re:I upgrade when...

[zoloto]

This might seem off topic, but I like how being American has become synonymous with "wasteful and willful negligence" as well as corporatism and greed. I am an American and this is what I am building, as has my family:

If it is not broke, do not fix it.

Be able to pay off your credit card in full each month.

Debt is bad; avoid it at all costs, sans emergencies.

Do not spend simply because you have an excess of cash - emergencies are not cheap.

Insurance may cover that slight fender bender, but if you can fix it yourself or leave it you will be doing your premiums and your actual monthly insurance cost (by keeping it lower) a favor.

There may be an "I" in family, but do not spend like it.

This is probably unpopular with the consumerism trend and the encouragement of our government to "spend, spend, spend" to keep our economy strong and it is just a total farce. I swear the economy can do much better if based on something other than the revolving debt of our society. Now back to the main point: You do not "need" the latest hardware, software or gadgets. However, damn it they sure are fun!

More on topic, I sure did get your sarcasm. Your point does register with me 100%. It's a shame that too many people aren't like this in their own practice of financial sensibility and responsibility.

-- just my 2 cents.

"embarassment"?

[DogDude]

I agree with the embarassment thing. Every time somebody shows me a new gadget or computer that they just bought I'm embarassed for them. There's nothing cooler than using old hardware. And by the same logic, there's nothing less cool than buying brand new hardware for no particular reason. Any Joe Schmoe can drive to Wal-Mart and buy the latest and greatest. A real geek will make it work, regardless of hardware.

Re:"embarassment"?

[anubi]

Funny you mention using older hardware being cooler.

I was taking a class in Data Structures. We had our usual assortment of objects, linked lists, binary search trees, mazes, and graphs to do. I did mine on an old 386SX I had laying around. Borland Turbo C version 3 for DOS.

There was great mirth in the classroom when the first assignment was due. I was working alongside people with Pentium 3's and thousands of dollars worth of cutting edge software, against just me and a computer I pulled out of the dumper, and a copy of a compiler that showed up in a discarded magazine CD. I wanted to do this just for fun.

You see, I think *anyone* can throw lots of money at any problem, and eventually overcome it. I find solving the problem using just what I have on hand to be the real challenge.

Especially, if the problem came nowhere near requiring the resources of such exquisite equipment.

I had no trouble submitting the entire coursework for the entire sequence of classes using only that old 386SX, which I lated donated to a needy student ( with my programs still on its old 40-megabyte MFM disk ).

I often wonder why so many businesses these days wanna kill a fly by running it over with a Mack Truck, as the flyswatter lays unused. Too much money floating around?

Re:I upgrade when...

[CommandNotFound]

Debt is bad; avoid it at all costs, sans emergencies.

Debt is not always bad. Handled carefully (like fire), it can really be your friend. BTW, I don't consider a reasonably-priced house debt, since it can appreciate and build equity, especially if you pay it off in less than 30 years. I'm talking about consumer debt.

Anyway, as far as consumer spending goes, I've lived successfully by some basic principles:

• Everything you buy and bring into your home must be stored, cleaned, repaired, guarded from theft, and otherwise becomes a nuisance/distraction in your life. As you're holding the item in the store, think about the item in those terms, and you'll probably put it down.
• If you really want something, put it off for two or three weeks. If you still want it after that, you'll probably use it forever; go for it.
• Don't buy cheap crappy stuff, but don't buy the over-priced premium items, either. The middle-upper range is usually the best buy and will bring most satisfaction.
• For big, important items that you don't want to deplete your cash for, save up and put half down in cash, and use credit to match the other half. This is especially good for things like electronics, furniture, and other stuff that lasts for years; you'll pay it off a lot quicker, but you don't have to save up forever, either. (this is where debt can be your friend, just make sure you pay it off at the rate you saved the other half)