Posts by SantaClaws

Upgrades? Schmuckgrades!

Not sure that the upgrade need / frequency has gone at all . Suspect the opposite. It's just that the packaging for computers has shuffled around a bit and the terminology has changed...

During the 90s computing moved to the mass market, non-techie users, who shopped, browsed, emailed, social networked and the like. They became the majority of computer users. They had little or no ability, interest or need to get serious with what a computer can do, a bit like typical motorists not knowing or wanting to know how to mend or make a car engine. For 15-20 years, these average users had essentially one choice available, the same sort of personal computer as techie users used: two fundamentally different types of user forced to use the same sort of gadget.

In the last few years the range of devices in various shapes and sizes has broadened as screen, battery and network technologies and computing power evolved and made new packages possible. Many of the new computer packages have their techieness hidden, which is just fine for today's 'average' computer user, who thinks in tems of smartphones, tablets, games consoles rather than 'computers'.

So, Mr. / Mrs. Average Computer User, shops and upgrades just as much as ever, probably a lot more, only they do it across the range of computers now available and don't think of most of them as a computer at all... a smartphone upgrade probably happens more often than a desktop / laptop upgrade ever did.

The real change is that as one sort of personal computer fragmented into multiple sorts, the usage and purchasing patterns fragmented accordingly. Some 'need' to be upgraded more often than others. Being seen in the pub with last year's model wouldn't bother most programmers interested in programming rather than image. But pubbing with the lads or girls on a Friday night with last year's smartphone? Whoa! Fashionista police alert!

Paris. Last year's model?