The Rise of "Disposable" computing?

[Lepton87]

If that was so important to you, why didn't you get a Samsung Galaxy S4 or S5 instead? They both have SD card slots and removable batteries.

I still liked G2 more and it was cheaper. I would have probably choosen S5 over G2 if it weren't twice the price and even S4 was 30% more expensive.

 

[jhu]

I still liked G2 more and it was cheaper.

The former is subjective, but the latter, the S4 should be cheaper than an LG G2 (depending on when you got the G2).

 

[Lepton87]

The former is subjective, but the latter, the S4 should be cheaper than an LG G2 (depending on when you got the G2).

It weren't. My carrier had G2 for a good price(I got it just before the release of G3 so they wanted to get rid of the old model), probably because they wanted to clear the inventory and Samsung is hugely more popular over here than LG so they can get away with charging more for it. Galaxy brand is especially popular and almost just as recognizable as an iPhone while LG G phones are largely unknown.

 

[jhu]

It weren't. My carrier had G2 for a good price(I got it just before the release of G3 so they wanted to get rid of the old model), probably because they wanted to clear the inventory and Samsung is hugely more popular over here than LG so they can get away with charging more for it. Galaxy brand is especially popular and almost just as recognizable as an iPhone while LG G phones are largely unknown.

That's weird. When I got my HTC One M8, my carrier was trying to clear out the S4 because the S5 just came out. they were going for $0 with renewal/new contract.

 

[Lepton87]

That's weird. When I got my HTC One M8, my carrier was trying to clear out the S4 because the S5 just came out. they were going for $0 with renewal/new contract.

A slightly different time, a different carrier and a different region hence different prices.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

Apple was just filling demand. Blame people for wanting cheaper, thinner computing devices.

To clarify, it was Apple's fault because they sold the idea to Intel, who then started the whole "Ultrabook" fad.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Bear in mind that many "ewaste" recycling programs involve packing up the waste and shipping it to countries with lax/non-existent environmental regulations for processing. The industry will make absolutely certain to harvest as much tantalum as possible from old equipment (along with gold, copper, and whatever else has market value), but the rest . . .

Make of that what you will. I will side with the OP in at least one respect in that upgradeable devices with long lifespans will probably produce less ewaste than disposable ones. Probably. It really depends on consumer behavior.

 

[zink77]

Apple was just filling demand. Blame people for wanting cheaper, thinner computing devices.

Reasoning doesn't work the way we thought it did. See the science:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYmi0DLzBdQ

The whole idea of "freedom of choice" is a bit of a farce, our animal mind was not made to make intelligent decisions based on free market theory. Our mind has all sorts of bugs and screwed up behavior from millions of years of evolution. Enlightenment ideology was wrong about a lot of things and free market theory came out of the enlightenment. So its view of mankind, we're finding out a lot of it was a hill of beans.

 

[MongGrel]

I guess one of the reasons I've never owned a smart phone, beside the fees monthly there. The wife is the big one on phones and wants a tablet we we haven't went there I guess, she all ready has a nice computer to use and other than being able to walk around the house with it is much better.

I personally use her old hand me downs for a phone normally, we do have three desktops at home, hers, mine and ours in the bedroom for a HTPC.

She uses one of my old gaming machines still in the guest bedroom to mess around, have a better one for a HTPC in the master bedroom, but she likes hers and won't change to it.

Still just haven't updated the main in awhile, I guess in between the sound system and everything hooked into it, some things like speakers still date back to around 1980.

 

[seitur]

It is about control. By hardware having less/no replacable elements, makes it approaching it's EOL faster and make it less reseable as well.

Same thing is happening in software field where software it tied to an 'account'.


Anyway - I am personally not buying hardware like this.

I don't even buy phones without removable battery and SD(or other) slot for card, so laptop made like that is obviously out of question too.

I don't even consider purcharse of such hardware.