By:  Aaron Darling, Rehabilitated Geek

It’s been ten years since the release of the very first smart phone.  In the early days each new generation of phone brought with it dramatic improvements in tech from significantly faster processing speeds to revolutions in touch screen capability, data speed and more.  The first Smartphone had a 2.0MP camera in 2007 and we were up to 12MP by 2009!  Progress has slowed in recent years with fewer and fewer new features introduced with new phone models and even fewer that make any significant improvement to our lives.

The pièce de rèsistance of the most recent iPhone was a camera that could take pictures with out-of-focus backgrounds.  Ooooooooo.  Life changing…  Apple engineers burned the candle from both ends to bring us this amazing new piece of tech that frankly no one needs and does not improve our lives proportional to the cost of the phone.

The reality we have come to is that a phone is much like a car or a microwave oven; when they first came out they were incredible advancements with amazing new possibilities.  Now we just need them to work.

I remember in 2009 having a Blackberry and I was amazed by what it could do, at first, but I found that tech advanced so fast that it was very limited in a very short time.  The same thing happened with both of my Motorola Droids; though sometimes I still miss that slide out keyboard.  Apps were coming out with system reqs that my phones just couldn’t keep up with.  I caught New Phone Fever like everyone else and I always wanted the latest and greatest.

Then 2014 hit and I bought a Samsung Galaxy Note 3.  I made sure I had a great phone with maximum capability.  There really is something to be said for buying from a quality manufacturer.  I expected at that point the Note would have the same short life expectancy as my previous phones, but I was pleasantly surprised.

It’s now 2017 and I’ve had the same phone for three and a half years.  I’ve worn out an Otterbox Defender case and a battery (replacements cost me a cumulative $30), but the phone keeps marching on.  I have no failing parts, no storage issues and no performance issues.    We started this craze looking for the biggest and fastest stallion, but what we find we need now is a good, reliable work horse.

To keep up sales and to ride out the tech frenzy that Apple successfully started, tech companies continue to hype their new products.  Truly though, the luster is gone and won’t return until someone develops a new idea that actually improves our lives again.

In the mean time, opportunity cost reigns and discretion is the better part of valor.  We need to make the tech industry earn our money with advancements that actually matter.  Until then, remembering that phones have nearly zero resale value, this author suggests you buy a solid phone that does what you need from a reputable manufacturer – and then ride it ‘till it dies.

 

…Oh, and make sure the battery is easy to remove and replace.  My wife’s phone battery was pinned between the screen and the logic board and was a pain to swap.