I have everything on a upgrade list depending on how much we use it and how fast the technology is changing.
Phones: 3 years. Thinking of moving this to 4 or 5 years with the industry’s stagnation. Starting to see some companies offering updates for longer times.
Why 5-6 years, that’s about when I start seeing the cascade of little things. Weird transitory bugs when rebooting. Speed issues and compatibility issues with bloated new software etc. After that amount of time, I start to spend way too much time maintaining them.
I could tinker with them and keep them going. Its what I used to do when my kids were small. Install a Linux distro on an old computer, load a bunch of educational games and set the browser homepage to PBSkids.
However I have 5 computers to maintain now and my teenagers need compatible fast systems for college and school. My wife works from home at times and needs something that reliably works.
I have everything on a upgrade list depending on how much we use it and how fast the technology is changing.
Phones: 3 years. Thinking of moving this to 4 or 5 years with the industry’s stagnation. Starting to see some companies offering updates for longer times.
Laptops/desktops: 5-6 years.
Wifi/modem/router: 10 years.
My notebook is 9 years old. My desktop is 6 years old. I haven’t found a reasonable argument to replace them until they stop working. Why 5-6 years?
Why 5-6 years, that’s about when I start seeing the cascade of little things. Weird transitory bugs when rebooting. Speed issues and compatibility issues with bloated new software etc. After that amount of time, I start to spend way too much time maintaining them.
I could tinker with them and keep them going. Its what I used to do when my kids were small. Install a Linux distro on an old computer, load a bunch of educational games and set the browser homepage to PBSkids.
However I have 5 computers to maintain now and my teenagers need compatible fast systems for college and school. My wife works from home at times and needs something that reliably works.