Apple is the exception. The entire marketing machine drives the idea that the current Mac-whatever is super sexy, until the next one comes out, after which you wouldn't be caught dead with the previous model anymore.
And Apple makes a lot of money, and e-landfill increases.
Yes, there's plenty of sub-20$ mp3 players but they don't even last one year. On the other hand I'm still using my 2nd-generation iPod shuffle every day and the only thing bad about it is the battery which isn't holding as long a charge as when it was new.
Enh. I disagree. Cheap headphones, yes, absolutely, but electronics are electronics, and some of the knockoffs are built in the same factories in china. For instance, in my experience, the headphone jacks that Apple uses are the worst mass produced crap of which Chinese factories are capable.
Batteries are replaceable if you have the right tools and know where to buy the components. I have a nice little side-business replacing batteries and headphone jacks in older ipods and screens for older iphones and ipod touch. But congratulations to you for sticking with your 2nd generation shuffle rather than buying the next one as soon as it's available. Clearly you don't have the "Apple landfill" mindset. (And that's a good thing.)
One of the annoying things about hardware the past ten-fifteen years is that by the time I'm ready to upgrade, the CPU form factor has changed yet again, necessitating a new motherboard. In the early days I'd gotten away with upgrading CPU and memory as better components become available, but now we are pretty much forced to consider the CPU/motherboard as a whole. The point, I think, is that the tendency is not to be able to replace anything, even the battery, in recent Apple gear. The contention was "nobody upgrades", and I'm pointing out that this is far from the truth.
I'm not a gamer. A friend is an avid gamer, and when he upgrades to the next overpriced GPU, I often get his previous card for the cost of lunch. This keeps my graphics updated but comfortably behind the curve.
When transitioning from ME (I know I know, ME was crap) to XP, I had to dual boot because a capture card I was using at the time didn't have drivers for XP. If you booted ME into safe mode and examined the system files, you'd see that it represented an unbroken series of upgrades back to Windows 3.1, and that the drivers for my very first CD ROM (SCSI) were still present. I finally had to make a decision to jettison all that history when installing Win 7. I was never in the crowd who re-installed the OS every five or six weeks. I hate reinstalling my apps and getting the environment back the way I want it, and avoid doing that as much as possible.
I do end up with older motherboards, and they've gone into machines for sister, mother, and mother in law, all of whom just recently got off dialup and only use their boxes for email and facebook, and to put together a box for a friend who basically only uses it to look at pr0n.
Electronics don't go to the local e-recycler until I'm positive I don't have a use for them, as electronics tend to last a long time. I do tend to wear out keyboards, though.
ATX became a thing in 1995. (Check the wiki.) My current box is from right at the turn of the century. My previous box was in use until (so it happens) last weekend at mother-in-law's house. It contained a I submit that if you're replacing the motherboard and GPU you are upgrading your machine. We seem to be at core in agreement, only the terminology is in question. The original observation way up there was that Apple gear tends not to be maintainable or upgradable, the response being that nobody upgrades their machines. I think both of our anecdotes proves that false.
Parenthetically, I wonder how all the hipsters with their shiny silver boxes and shiny white earbuds reconcile in their own minds the tremendous amount of e-waste they're responsible for.
What, seriously? My current PC enclosure is over 13 years old. I have lost track of the number of times the motherboard has been swapped out. Power supplies are consumables -- I usually carry a spare on hand, swapping as necessary. Hard drives get ghosted and swapped once a year. (The old drive becomes my backup drive.) This PC started life running WinME, then XP, now Win7 64 bit.
You mean laptops? I have an IBM Thinkpad (pre-Lenovo) which is about to get a new hard drive (hopefully solid state if I can find something that works). I replace the battery every three years or so.
Where did you get the idea that nobody upgrades computers? It happens all the time.
Did you mean, nobody upgrades APPLE computers? Could this be because Apple has taken great pains to make their computers unmaintainable?
Proves the rule. The Shuffle is cheap for an ipod, but significantly more expensive than a non-Apple mp3 player of similar capabilities. (Search "mp3 player" on Amazon.)
I think it depends on the person. On cars, since the 1980's I've bought lease returns and kept them until the don't run anymore. (I'm on my third.) It's really nice not having car payments. I buy clothes at Costco and keep them until my family starts to complain. For me, eating out is an event, not a daily occurrence. I do drink Starbucks or Dutch Brothers, because they really are better than any food-type drive-thru, but I only order regular black coffee, not any of those inordinately expensive froo froo drinks.
I was grateful when the PC industry changed to the ATX form factor and motherboard manufacturers started including an I/O backplate, because I don't have to replace my enclosure for a very long time and several upgrades. The current one was purchased before the turn of the century.
This isn't about being cheap. It's a simple question: Before you buy something, ask yourself, what is it for? What problem does this solve? If your only answer is "I wants it", find a different solution.
But I agree, a heartbreakingly large number of people think as you describe, and they all mill around in the parking lot, blocking my path to the Starbucks drive-thru (next to the AT&T store) on the morning when a new incrementally improved iphone comes out.
My Galaxy S2 obsoleted my tablet before I bought it. I got the tablet and after a week I stopped using it because my phone effectively IS a tablet and runs all of the same apps, plus it's insanely convenient. I sold the tablet to someone else.
Agreed. My daughter was set to buy a 10 inch Galaxy Note tablet, but discovered that the drawing program she wanted would run on her Galaxy Note phone, and for now that's good enough. It's like having a sketch pad in your pocket at all times, something important to an artist.
"Samsung is blaming Windows 8 for its poor performance in the PC market and the overall decline of the industry as a whole."
I'm aware of that. I personally think there are multiple factors, but that is a significant one. It may even be the straw that breaks some major companies. (But probably not Samsung.)
> The market was never driven by equipment wearing out, it was always about rapid planned obsolescence.
Well, it was also driven by being on the steep end of a new technology curve. The 386 was fast compared to the 8088, but the 486 was a godsend if you were doing anything besides text editing. There was a time when you couldn't want to get your hands on the next generation hardware, because current hardware really wasn't good enough. Now it is. (Has been for some time.)
Honestly, I haven't seen a lot of planned obsolescence in current PC hardware. The examples I can think of have to do with software, not hardware. For instance, Windows XP getting slower and slower as the number of patches increases. (As discussed on Slashdot recently.)
It'd be difficult to quantify, but I suspect that there is a significant [emphasis mine] percentage of people who were going to get another PC, but decided to wait rather than struggle with Win8.
Doubtful. There's nothing sexy about a laptop, whereas Apple and Google (via Samsung and others) have made tablets the go-to computing device of the moment. Win8 is barely moving the needle on this decision; it is all being decided by form factor.
Ok, so "significant" may be in question. I know of people who are grimly holding onto their current hardware rather than deal with Win8, but a few data points do not a trend make. I'd also argue that although "sexy" is important to many, it's not important to everyone.
Makes me wonder if (full size) tablet growth will eventually be eroded by phablets. The advantage of the latter being that it's something you always have on you, unlike a PC, or a laptop, or even a tablet.
Old PCs are good enough. I'm still on a 3.8 GHz P4 single core running Debian, and it's fast enough for everything I do but running my pet project or doing video encoding, both of which I do on my Core i7 laptop.
My folks recently had to replace their machine. It's a quad core unit that is such serious overkill for email and surfing it's not even funny. Unless it breaks down, I doubt they'll *ever* have to replace it.
That's kinda the point -- you can't BUY a PC these days that isn't serious overkill for email and surfing.
There is that. It'd be difficult to quantify, but I suspect that there is a significant percentage of people who were going to get another PC, but decided to wait rather than struggle with Win8.
But I think the overriding factor is that PCs made since, oh, 2007 are fast enough for any but the most demanding needs.
Slashdot Mirror
Apple is the exception. The entire marketing machine drives the idea that the current Mac-whatever is super sexy, until the next one comes out, after which you wouldn't be caught dead with the previous model anymore.
And Apple makes a lot of money, and e-landfill increases.
Yes, there's plenty of sub-20$ mp3 players but they don't even last one year. On the other hand I'm still using my 2nd-generation iPod shuffle every day and the only thing bad about it is the battery which isn't holding as long a charge as when it was new.
Enh. I disagree. Cheap headphones, yes, absolutely, but electronics are electronics, and some of the knockoffs are built in the same factories in china. For instance, in my experience, the headphone jacks that Apple uses are the worst mass produced crap of which Chinese factories are capable.
Batteries are replaceable if you have the right tools and know where to buy the components. I have a nice little side-business replacing batteries and headphone jacks in older ipods and screens for older iphones and ipod touch. But congratulations to you for sticking with your 2nd generation shuffle rather than buying the next one as soon as it's available. Clearly you don't have the "Apple landfill" mindset. (And that's a good thing.)
Shrug. That's why they make Presarios and Inspirons. Personally, I've never seen the point of paying extra for substandard components.
One of the annoying things about hardware the past ten-fifteen years is that by the time I'm ready to upgrade, the CPU form factor has changed yet again, necessitating a new motherboard. In the early days I'd gotten away with upgrading CPU and memory as better components become available, but now we are pretty much forced to consider the CPU/motherboard as a whole. The point, I think, is that the tendency is not to be able to replace anything, even the battery, in recent Apple gear. The contention was "nobody upgrades", and I'm pointing out that this is far from the truth.
I'm not a gamer. A friend is an avid gamer, and when he upgrades to the next overpriced GPU, I often get his previous card for the cost of lunch. This keeps my graphics updated but comfortably behind the curve.
When transitioning from ME (I know I know, ME was crap) to XP, I had to dual boot because a capture card I was using at the time didn't have drivers for XP. If you booted ME into safe mode and examined the system files, you'd see that it represented an unbroken series of upgrades back to Windows 3.1, and that the drivers for my very first CD ROM (SCSI) were still present. I finally had to make a decision to jettison all that history when installing Win 7. I was never in the crowd who re-installed the OS every five or six weeks. I hate reinstalling my apps and getting the environment back the way I want it, and avoid doing that as much as possible.
I do end up with older motherboards, and they've gone into machines for sister, mother, and mother in law, all of whom just recently got off dialup and only use their boxes for email and facebook, and to put together a box for a friend who basically only uses it to look at pr0n.
Electronics don't go to the local e-recycler until I'm positive I don't have a use for them, as electronics tend to last a long time. I do tend to wear out keyboards, though.
ATX became a thing in 1995. (Check the wiki.) My current box is from right at the turn of the century. My previous box was in use until (so it happens) last weekend at mother-in-law's house. It contained a
I submit that if you're replacing the motherboard and GPU you are upgrading your machine. We seem to be at core in agreement, only the terminology is in question. The original observation way up there was that Apple gear tends not to be maintainable or upgradable, the response being that nobody upgrades their machines. I think both of our anecdotes proves that false.
Parenthetically, I wonder how all the hipsters with their shiny silver boxes and shiny white earbuds reconcile in their own minds the tremendous amount of e-waste they're responsible for.
Shrug. Someone has to be the 1%.
> Nobody upgrades computers. Nobody.
What, seriously? My current PC enclosure is over 13 years old. I have lost track of the number of times the motherboard has been swapped out. Power supplies are consumables -- I usually carry a spare on hand, swapping as necessary. Hard drives get ghosted and swapped once a year. (The old drive becomes my backup drive.) This PC started life running WinME, then XP, now Win7 64 bit.
You mean laptops? I have an IBM Thinkpad (pre-Lenovo) which is about to get a new hard drive (hopefully solid state if I can find something that works). I replace the battery every three years or so.
Where did you get the idea that nobody upgrades computers? It happens all the time.
Did you mean, nobody upgrades APPLE computers? Could this be because Apple has taken great pains to make their computers unmaintainable?
Moreover, when one's hard drive has crashed, this gives one an opportunity to switch to a solid state drive...
> but it can't drive a modern tape drive without shoe-shining
I think this is my new favorite phrase. I used to do backup solutions for a living, and this describes the phenomenon perfectly.
I've never even seen one, outside The Big Bang Theory.
Proves the rule. The Shuffle is cheap for an ipod, but significantly more expensive than a non-Apple mp3 player of similar capabilities. (Search "mp3 player" on Amazon.)
I think it depends on the person. On cars, since the 1980's I've bought lease returns and kept them until the don't run anymore. (I'm on my third.) It's really nice not having car payments. I buy clothes at Costco and keep them until my family starts to complain. For me, eating out is an event, not a daily occurrence. I do drink Starbucks or Dutch Brothers, because they really are better than any food-type drive-thru, but I only order regular black coffee, not any of those inordinately expensive froo froo drinks.
I was grateful when the PC industry changed to the ATX form factor and motherboard manufacturers started including an I/O backplate, because I don't have to replace my enclosure for a very long time and several upgrades. The current one was purchased before the turn of the century.
This isn't about being cheap. It's a simple question: Before you buy something, ask yourself, what is it for? What problem does this solve? If your only answer is "I wants it", find a different solution.
But I agree, a heartbreakingly large number of people think as you describe, and they all mill around in the parking lot, blocking my path to the Starbucks drive-thru (next to the AT&T store) on the morning when a new incrementally improved iphone comes out.
My Galaxy S2 obsoleted my tablet before I bought it. I got the tablet and after a week I stopped using it because my phone effectively IS a tablet and runs all of the same apps, plus it's insanely convenient. I sold the tablet to someone else.
Agreed. My daughter was set to buy a 10 inch Galaxy Note tablet, but discovered that the drawing program she wanted would run on her Galaxy Note phone, and for now that's good enough. It's like having a sketch pad in your pocket at all times, something important to an artist.
It's Microsoft's fault. They won't allow the makers to sell you a PC without a tablet OS.
I'm sure that's a significant factor. I wonder how the makers feel about that.
Look no further
"Samsung is blaming Windows 8 for its poor performance in the PC market and the overall decline of the industry as a whole."
I'm aware of that. I personally think there are multiple factors, but that is a significant one. It may even be the straw that breaks some major companies. (But probably not Samsung.)
> The market was never driven by equipment wearing out, it was always about rapid planned obsolescence.
Well, it was also driven by being on the steep end of a new technology curve. The 386 was fast compared to the 8088, but the 486 was a godsend if you were doing anything besides text editing. There was a time when you couldn't want to get your hands on the next generation hardware, because current hardware really wasn't good enough. Now it is. (Has been for some time.)
Honestly, I haven't seen a lot of planned obsolescence in current PC hardware. The examples I can think of have to do with software, not hardware. For instance, Windows XP getting slower and slower as the number of patches increases. (As discussed on Slashdot recently.)
Mod up. They're a prisoner of their own success.
It'd be difficult to quantify, but I suspect that there is a significant [emphasis mine] percentage of people who were going to get another PC, but decided to wait rather than struggle with Win8.
Doubtful. There's nothing sexy about a laptop, whereas Apple and Google (via Samsung and others) have made tablets the go-to computing device of the moment. Win8 is barely moving the needle on this decision; it is all being decided by form factor.
Ok, so "significant" may be in question. I know of people who are grimly holding onto their current hardware rather than deal with Win8, but a few data points do not a trend make. I'd also argue that although "sexy" is important to many, it's not important to everyone.
Makes me wonder if (full size) tablet growth will eventually be eroded by phablets. The advantage of the latter being that it's something you always have on you, unlike a PC, or a laptop, or even a tablet.
Wasn't Window 8 released about seven quarters ago?
Utter coincidence. Nothing to see here. Move along, now.
I'm sorry, I'm trying to wrap my brain around "apple" and "cheap" in the same sentence.
It's Microsoft's fault. They won't allow the makers to sell you a PC without a tablet OS.
I'm sure that's a significant factor. I wonder how the makers feel about that.
Old PCs are good enough. I'm still on a 3.8 GHz P4 single core running Debian, and it's fast enough for everything I do but running my pet project or doing video encoding, both of which I do on my Core i7 laptop.
My folks recently had to replace their machine. It's a quad core unit that is such serious overkill for email and surfing it's not even funny. Unless it breaks down, I doubt they'll *ever* have to replace it.
That's kinda the point -- you can't BUY a PC these days that isn't serious overkill for email and surfing.
> You've actually met someone who does like Window 8?
I have. Well, wait, he says he does, but he works in Redmond (true story) so it may be a job requirement.
There is that. It'd be difficult to quantify, but I suspect that there is a significant percentage of people who were going to get another PC, but decided to wait rather than struggle with Win8.
But I think the overriding factor is that PCs made since, oh, 2007 are fast enough for any but the most demanding needs.
Film at eleven.