Why would anyone put money into a Windows 98 computer? Well, I had a customer spend $150.00 into an old beige desktop computer last week so he could play Microsoft Solitaire. He didn’t like any of the solitaire games that come with newer computers, so he decided to spend his hard earned money on an antique.
It gets better, the week before that I worked with a customer who spent almost $200.00 for a new hard drive and memory upgrade on her dinosaur. She justified the expense because it has her software and settings and changing computers would mean purchasing new software and configuring a new system to her liking.
I have a theory that customers seem to appreciate. Basically, older systems do the same as new systems as long as they’re running and maintained. Maybe I shouldn’t go as far as saying a Windows 98 based machine will do the same as a high end Windows 10 computer. But, I would stick my neck out and say that a five to ten year old computer can handle most current applications and functions the same as a modern, brand new computer.
Years ago, when those 98 machines were sold, technology changed so fast it was outdated by the time the computer was first powered on. Until the early 2000’s computers changed so rapidly that people were always questioning why they didn’t wait another month to make their purchase. Shoot, I remember cursing myself out for buying a new computer 2 days before it was announced that AMD had broken the 1GHz barrier in mid 2000.
Since those days, the rate at which technology changed started to plateau and the number of new bells and whistles pretty much tapered off. Eventually consumers stopped paying attention to the new things Intel and AMD were churning out and started looking at computers as long term investments. I used to coach customers who hadn’t purchased a computer in a long time to over buy and plan to have their computer for many years.
In the 20 years or so I’ve been doing this I’ve never seen so many customers with five year old or older machines. Instead of people asking me if their computer is too old and many times opting to simply replace, we’re seeing many customers ask us to upgrade their memory or replace mechanical drives with solid state which not only speeds up computers but eliminates mechanical components.
Rather than replace a computer because it needs minor repairs, customers are opting to spend some money on their older equipment. Consumers have realized that technology stuff hasn’t changed significantly enough to warrant spending money on a new computer. Repair prices are almost always less than replacement.
For some reason people believe that I, the owner of a computer repair chain, carry and use the newest computer on the market. The desktop that I’m currently typing on was built around five years ago and hasn’t been upgraded since. My laptop is a 2011 MacBook Pro that was built from scrap parts we had around the stores. I talk on an iPhone 6S purchased in 2015 only because my previous phone drowned.
The morale of this story is the vast majority of us don’t need the latest and greatest to get our work done and cruise the web. We can get away with older equipment provided it’s maintained and has a somewhat current operating system. The outliers who need the latest and greatest still spur technology’s growth so the rest of us can have great computers in five to eight years.
(Jeromy Patriquin is the President of Laptop & Computer Repair, Inc. You can read past articles at www.LocalComputerWiz.com.)