Longevity of your computer, digital camera, etc.

[ny biker]

Well I've complained elsewhere about the Kindle Fire HDX that died slightly more than a year after I got it, and the fact that Amazon considers these $400 products to be disposable. Since I find tablets to be useful I was going to replace it with a less expensive Samsung Galaxy Tab, but at the last minute I decided to go for the expensive Tab S2 so I could have a great screen for looking at the photos and videos I'm taking with my new Nikon camera. But I'm starting to wonder if I should have saved a couple hundred and gone with a less expensive model.

The Nikon camera is fantastic. I bought it a few months ago. I originally was going to get something inexpensive but decided it would be useful to have a camera with a really good zoom feature, so I think that increased the price by about $100. The zoom really is amazing -- I took it to a U2 concert at Madison Square Garden and got some incredible shots when the band was at the far end of the arena, despite the fact that they were not standing still and the light was far from ideal. I'm also blown away by some of the photos I took with it on a nighttime tour of the monuments in DC, and I was able to take a video at my nephew's graduation and then pause it and create still shots at key moments. Really it's a great camera, and I hope it lasts a long time. Prior to the Nikon I had a Canon digital point and shoot that was very old. It still worked but was very slow between shots, which was annoying enough to make me not use it anymore. I do feel that it's worthwhile to have a good camera -- most smartphone cameras are okay for daytime shots of everyday things but for special occasions and low light, a real camera is better.

My smartphone, a Motorola Droid phone, is several years old. The battery is still great and the phone works fine with a big exception -- it is slowing down. I think this might be because Verizon no longer pushes out operating system updates for it, but the apps keep getting updated for new OSs, so they no longer work great on my phone. If anyone knows a way to speed things up, I'd love to hear it.

As for computers, I like to keep them as long as possible, too. My very old laptop, which runs on Vista because I got it a couple of weeks before Windows 7 came out and never updated it, is at my office. I need it to connect remotely to my official work pc which is in another location. The screen has started to develop large black spots so I have to use a separate monitor with it, and I can no longer download updates to it because a recent one made it unable to connect to the internet. It's extremely slow but I don't want to spend the money to replace it. There is a slim chance that my official work pc will be moved to the office where I work, in which case I wouldn't need my own pc there anymore. My newer laptop which I use at home is a few months old -- I bought it when the screen started to fail on the old one.

I hate having to replace technology because (as I've whined about elsewhere) it seems to get harder and harder to set up new devices or to even get one that hasn't been damaged in transit. And I don't know where people get the money to replace these things so often just so they can have the latest toy. They are all so expensive.

Oh by the way I also like to keep cars for a long time. My first car, a Camry, was 9 years old with 97,000 miles on it when I traded it in for my Prius. That was in 2007, and the Prius is now about 500 miles shy of 100,000 miles. And it still runs well and feels solid, so I hope to keep it for a few more years at least.

[BikeDutchess]

The Nikon camera is fantastic.

Reminded me of this:

https://youtu.be/pLsDxvAErTU?t=56s

I may have missed it somewhere, which Nikon do you have? I have a 5-year old Nikon DSLR (D5000) which I've loved. Since taking a landscape photography workshop this spring, I've toyed with the idea of upgrading the body to a D7200. But the D5000 is still working well, and I'm not out there using it enough to really justify the upgrade.

For the times when I want more than my smartphone but not lug around the Nikon, I recently bought the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX100 (really, how do they come up with these unwieldy model names/numbers?). Fabulous little camera! Not quite the zoom range I would have preferred, but that was a more than acceptable trade-off to get the fantastic photo quality and the other features I wanted.

As far as computers go, my DH complains that his PCs seem to have such a short life span. Of course he rarely turns the thing off, that must impact the durability too, doesn't it? He seems to get about 3-5 years out of them when they crash. And repairing seems to cost almost as much as replacement these days.

[Crankin]

We have the Lumix, too. It's the second one we've had. I can't remember if we got this one because the first one broke, or this was just an upgrade that DH "wanted." We got the original one because DH wanted a camera that could fit in a bike jersey. All of the gorgeous pics I've posted on my European trips were taken with it. He had a very nice digital SLR camera that had not been used since DS #1 graduated from college in 2005. We sold it on E Bay last year.
I am a terrible photographer, so I don't care what camera we have! However, I like the idea of having a camera that can fit in my purse or jersey. And it definitely takes better pictures than my I Phone.

[ny biker]

Reminded me of this:

https://youtu.be/pLsDxvAErTU?t=56s

Well that takes me back!

I have a Coolpix S9900. Not as small and light as I planned to get when I started my research, because I did want something I could bring on bike rides. But it's about the same size as the one I replaced and it does fit in my bike bag. I bought it from B & H Photo (http://www.bhphotovideo.com). There were lots of great reviews there from people who actually know about photography, which helped me make my decision.

I have a 35mm Canon SLR that I bought in the mid '90s. It's a film camera, not digital. I haven't tried to use it in years because film. I had a lot of fun taking pictures with it and even took a photography class to help me get more out of it, but ultimately I got tired of having something so big and heavy around my neck.

[BikeDutchess]

That Coolpix does look like a great camera, that zoom range is amazing. I love B&H, I buy most of my photo gear there. I'd love to go to NYC some day and browse around there!

[Owlie]

My laptop is about 5 years old, still going strong. I dread having to replace it because I love Windows 7.

Digital camera? It's still good, but I rarely use it.