you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 78 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (3 children)

I could understand upgrading so frequently at the advent of mainstream smartphones, where two years of progress actually did represent a significant user experience improvement - but the intergenerational improvements for most people's day-to-day use have been marginal for quite some time now.

Once you've got web browsers and website-equivalent mobile apps performing well, software keyboards which keep up with your typing, high-definition video playback working without dropped frames, graphics processing sufficient to render whatever your game of choice is for the train journey to work, batteries which last a day of moderate to intense use, and screen resolutions so high that you can't differentiate the pixels even by pressing your eyeball to the glass - that covers most people's media consumption for the form factor, and there's not much else to offer after that.

  • source
  • hideshow 6 child comments
  • [–] 9 points 3 years ago

    If the batteries were easily replaceable, and the software didn't continually get bloated, and companies kept issuing security patches, sure.

    I kept my last desktop system for 10 years. Actually I still have it and it performs sort of ok (I was running Mint the whole time). But I upgraded and the performance improvement was actually worth the considerable cost. I've gotten similar life out of my other desktops and laptops over the years.

    I think at least 5 years or preferably 10 is reasonable for smart phones.

  • source
  • parent