Elvis Costello humor aside, I don’t entirely buy into this.

My philosophy about computer purchases, and most electronics actually, is to buy the best, most expandable, most high-end model I can afford. And these upgrade any upgradable components until it begins to reach a point of obsolescence.

Example, my current machine is an Apple 17″ MacBook Pro with the onboard graphic card to run an external 30″ monitor. About 5 years ago I bought the 30″ monitor when it had been out for only a few months. I bought them monitor as an upgrade for a G5 tower. I still have the tower as a backup desktop machine. A 2 GHz dual processor, I pre-ordered it before the first dual processor G5s were released.

But if you cannot afford, or your needs cannot justify, buying the top-of-the-line, your hardware is going to have a much shorter lifespan.

Also, sometime new technologies (mobile) are advancing at such a rate that a recent model is obsolete sooner than the decline of its own functionality. My iPhone 3G is just over a year old, but the new 3Gs model has a new piece of hardware, a magnetometer (fancy word for digital compass) that is not included in the electronics of the prior model. The magnetometer, together with the accelerometer (combination of digital level meter and velocity motion meter), and the GPS, is the third and final electronic component to make the device completely location aware — it knows where in the world it is from GPS, It knows what direction it is facing from the magnetometer, and it knows what angle it is tilted at from the accelerometer. Only with this full set of components (together with video) is the device able to support augmented reality applications. In September Apple will make the API for the iPhone camera’s live video feed accessible to developers in iPhone OS 3.1. Doing so will open the floodgates to augmented reality software, but only the 3Gs model will be able to use it because the prior iPhone models lack a digital compass.

As I will be advising clients on the implementation of mobile AR, I will need to have a phone that supports it myself. Hence I will have to upgrade to the 3Gs in September, though my 3G is still a perfectly useful phone.

I never throw away gadgets. If something isn’t worthy of my “collection”, I pass it on to a friend. Not all my friends or relatives need the newest bleeding edge thing. My ‘obsolete’ is often their ‘cutting edge’. Some iPhone-less friend will end up with my 3G.

I donate old computers to charity / non-profits.

It all depends on your needs.

I’m also inclined to believe that more people holding on to older models has less to do with altruism, and more to do with the current economic climate (though telling themselves they’re ‘doing for a good cause’ may help the rationalize and feel better about themselves for it).

I still use a Power Mac G4 Cube (it’s 10 years old now) and while it is slower than its modern contemporaries, it still runs all of my work apps very well. Where it is starting to show its age though is dealing with web videos. They have become so processor hungry that playback is not fluid anymore.

Case in point: growing up we only had one car (my dad drove a police cruiser that he legally could not drive us in). It was a Nissan/Datsun that my parents bought before I was born and kept until I was into high school. By the time they gave it up, it had over 250k miles on it and the hubcaps were worth more than the car, but we all rocked it!

Also a few years back, I got a MacBook Pro which eventually got relegated to desk duty because of the small hard drive and my reluctance to crack it open. After learning Tekserve wanted some $300+ to upgrade the hard drive, I finally worked up the courage to unscrew some 2 dozen tiny screws and now it’s like I’ve got a brand new laptop!