I liken buying a new computer very much to the same experience as a car. It’s a necessity that most of us need and it tends to be a very personal decision despite others incessantly interjecting their opinions. “Get that!”, “I would buy this!”, “Why do you want THAT one?!” ……and the thing is, you have to go with what you want and follow your gut. Because the moment you allow yourself to be swayed into something you just weren’t feeling, it will never work. You’ll never be fully at peace with your car or your computer and you’ll always be kind of pissed with the person that talked you into it.
Either way, once you make the plunge and do the purchase we all know once again, computers like cars, as soon as you drive it off the lot, it depreciates in value. We’ve all heard that and yet, it is a cycle we all must endure. Most of us can’t imagine functioning without either.
In our digital age and everything being so fast paced, there are some folks that’ll hang onto their device only until the next shinier (seemingly) prettier version comes out. And then there are those that hold sentimental attachment to our purchases and will just use them until they are beyond repair. If it’s not broke don’t fix it, right? I tend to be that girl. And I tend to be that girl for a lot of reasons. Because I believe that we do live in a rat race that when a new computer is coming out at least once a year, there’s no possible way you can financially stay on top of it. I can’t lease my computer and trade it in for a nicer model. I’m kind of on the hook with the outright purchase. And I think if a device is serving you well, why not stick with it? We are a wasteful society at best and I could go on, but recently I had to have a slight intervention on my last laptop. Because at some point, mother nature takes its course and you must simply learn to say goodbye. There is at some point an end for all things.
When do I upgrade?
For me, at first it was my computer steadily getting slower. It had served me well for five years and I was comfortable where everything was placed on it and wanted to try and give it a boost. I was given the sad news that the cost to help resurrect it to a resemblance of its former state of speed simply wouldn’t be worth the cost. So like a faithful companion, I decided to take it home and allow us to have as many good days as we could possibly get together. And this worked fine for awhile. And then it just eventually started getting slower, and Slower, and SLOWER. And then, the hardware literally started to fall apart. So yeah, now that I’m writing this, I feel ridiculous knowing how long I pushed off the inevitable. But to take a leap to a new computer after five years, made me appreciate it all the more. With the newly acquired SSD and RAM, I feel like I went from being the captain of the Mayflower to being Han Solo on the Millennium Falcon.