My rules for technology acquisition

[dsrtao]

• Don't buy the first generation of any product.
  
• Don't buy in the first month.
  
• Where are you going to put it?
  
• What are the ongoing costs?
  
• What can it replace?
  

I hope these are all obvious by now. I'll just mention that ongoing costs include subscription fees, software purchases, accessories, media, and time-sink/time-savings tradeoff. A smartphone, for example, has a hardware cost (could be subsidized by) a contract, a new incompatible accessory like an earpiece or a battery, a new SD card, and some time savings (over not having a phone) and some time-sinks (getting it to sync with your gizmo thingy).

"What can it replace?" also means "are you going to stop using what it replaces? is the old one broken?"

Any others?

Comments

Functional feature?

[cristovau.livejournal.com]

Will you use all of it? I like the idea of cell phone cameras, but in practice, I never use them. Likewise, my palm can play MP3s, but again, I don't use that.

Sometimes a feature adds expense. If you can isolate features you won't use and choose a device based on what will use, you can save some money & possibly frustration.

Also, what does Consumer Reports say about the device? They are good at finding a shortcoming or isolating feature sets that you might not have thought of.