How Often do you Upgrade you Computer?

[jon_kobeck1]

I'm using an iMac that's about 3 years old. I think that was the first generation iMac.

I just looked at the new ones today. WOW!

28" loaded with 4 times the memory, 1 terra bite hard drive, damn impressive.

Also $3000.00 fully loaded:(

 

So I have been thinking, if I were to upgrade, would it be out of need or envy?

 

Probably envy. Am I the only one why feels this way?

 

I am curious how long some of you keep computers before upgrading.

What's the life expectancy onmthese things?

Is 3 years antiquidated?

 

In hate the fact they release a new model so often now, like digital cameras

[vincent_peri]

<p>I keep my computers about 5 or 6 years. I don't need the latest and greatest, just something to go online with and to write on. I shoot film, so I don't digitize my photos. Thus, I have no need for gigantic hard drives.</p>

[patrickwells]

<p>I believe a computer is out of date when you open the box. My desk top computer is so old it only has a 10 gig hard drive which was big when it was new. my lap top has 320 gig and is now about 3 years old. Compared to the old desktop it is blazingly fast. I am afraid to look at the new models and find out how slow it is. I did buy an external hard drive to free up space on the laptop,and as a backup<br>

Its like I was happy with my average lenses till I shot with a better one now.......</p>

[andrewg_ny]

<p>Would you rather they just sat on their old designs just so that previous customers don't feel that they should have waited? I have a 24" iMac that's probably slightly newer than yours and have started to look longingly at the latest batch. What I've got still seems reasonably quick though, the only thing I do that could really use more oomph is video encoding from my eyeTV--I think the computer isn't fast enough encoding video to stream to mobile devices. I'll probably drag my feet for a while before upgrading though. I think the iMac's all-in-one design is a little bit of a drag in that I'll probably wish I had a faster CPU before I think there's anything wrong with the screen on this one. Wish Apple had a monitor-less desktop machine in between the Mini and the Pro.</p>

[akocurek]

<p>I tend to keep a computer until it hurts! I just built a new one after posting a question about my build in this forum and it is fast.<br>

My old XP 32 bit was showing signs of age; PS opened in 30 to 40 seconds. This one opens in 10 seconds, including Bridge. Camera Raw is instantaneous rather than lagging by 5 seconds or so.<br>

So I guess it depends on what you need or what you can tolerate ;-)<br>

My income is not related to photography, either, so that may matter.</p>

[AlanKlein]

<p>I wait until I get a virus that I can't fix cheaper than replacing the computer. Or close enough in cost.</p>

[kevin_break]

<p>I have a lot of digital files, and I load many photos often.<br>

I am fascinated by SATA 6 and USB 3 and perhaps when I find a good deal on a PC with both of those, I'll bite.<br>

However I just reinstalled Win7 in September, keep it maintained, and this quadcore 6Gb with 6Tb is running too good to replace.<br>

yet.</p>

[kevin_break]

<p>You can fix any virus with a format and reinstall, or be sneaky and format and pull the disk image off Windows Home Server. Slow, but works. Nice to have a complete backup on the server as well as various external drives to back up to.<br>

Tired of burning DVDs.</p>

[roger_smith4]

<p>My 2004 Dell laptop is getting creaky for Lightroom 3 and Sony Vegas so I'm looking at new ones now. For just Photoshop CS3 and scanning my laptop is more than adequate.</p>

[kevin_delson]

<blockquote>

<p>In hate the fact they release a new model so often now, like digital cameras</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>Then why play the game perpetrated by advertisers who say "You gotta' have this" ?</p>

<p>When do I "replace" equipment?<br>

One day before it fails. :)</p>

<p>Seriously; I'll replace a computer when it becomes a hindrance to my profit margin.<br>

I'm more concerned with back up strategies and archiving than I am with the ability to play a computer game at 60 fps.</p>

<p>My DSLR's are a different story as they do have a shorter shelf life for me, (Shutter actuations) specifically.</p>

[kevin_break]

<p>Transferring your photos off card and into computer with USB 3 sounds fascinating...... several times faster than what we have now.<br>

My bugaboo is I'd like to shoot wirelessly tethered and those big files don't exactly fly into the computer. (yes "wirelessly tethered"= oxymoron)<br>

I would LOVE to finish shooting someone and walk over to the computer and tell them we're ready to burn a disk, retouching is optional and extra, look them over tonight and let me know tomorrrow!</p>

[dhbebb]

<p>I use PCs in my business (journalism and photography) and have 4 laptops and 1 desktop in the company. One laptop is my workhorse and runs for 8 to 9 hours day, 5 to 5 1/2 days a week. I replace the hard disk in this after 2 years - after a further 18 months, I retire this computer and either keep it as a spare or give it away, very often to teenage children/grandchildren of friends, who will not use it as heavily as me and will therefore get 3 or 4 years' service out of it. My oldest laptop is still running Windows XP, two others have Vista, the latest has Windows 7. The first three have 2GB of RAM, the newest has 4GB. I barely notice any performance difference from one computer to another, even when working with 100MB image files and larger, and never buy a new computer to get "better" features (I regard each new interation of Windows as a pain) but only to minimise the risk of breakdown (haven't had one for years).</p>

[rickeselgroth]

<p>if it isn't broke don't fix it. Mine is 7yrs old with 3.5gig and I have no prob and I run CS3 and have no probs at all.</p>

[jon_kobeck1]

I think more and more people are repairing their old computers. I was at TeckServ in NYC the other day and the

amount old cumputers waiting to be pickedup is astounding

[RaymondC]

<p>My computer is near 3yrs old. My first PC. Before I only had laptops for my study. In fact I did use a P3 600Mhz laptop for photography for about 2 yrs. <br>

I also don't upgrade my cameras freq either. Still have a 6MP dSLR. I shoot off a tripod and hardly use high ISO. So I can live with the small viewfinder, fewer pixels, no d-lighting (nikon), no live lcd, no video etc etc ..<br>

My passion is to record film onto ASA 50/100 transparency, might get into 120 or 4x5 format.</p>

[StuartMoxham]

<p>Well I am still using my PC I bought in 2006. P4ht 3.06 Win XP 1.5 gig of ram and a 19ich CRT monitor. Maybe I will upgrade the RAM at the weekend to get another 6 month out of this old thing. The previous PC was a 433 celeron with 196mb RAM that I used from 2000 to 2006.</p>

[bojepsen1]

<p>I used to upgrade every couple of years, but my pace has slowed somewhat down as of late. If there is nothing wrong with the equipment I don't suppose there is any need to upgrade, but if you really want to, then why not?</p>

[james_de_h]

<p>How much did you pay for a roll of film and did you then pay someone to process it for you? How many rolls of film did you shoot a year? In my case I was spending an average of £250 a month in film and processing. Since I switched to digital in 2003, I have not spent a penny on buying and developing film. Looked at in this way, not shelling out for film and related costs has paid for the hardware and software I now use to replace it. Worked out like that, you can see how much your computer is 'saving' you. In my case, I did need to invest up-front to get myself up to speed with digital, but over seven years in I am now on the right side of the equation. Pop a couple of bucks into a box every time you shoot 24 images, and the chances are you will have a lot of cash sitting in that box by the end of the year. Does that help soften the blow of shelling out for new kit every three years or so? </p>

[wmervine]

<p>3 years is not bad. I replaced my macbookpro after 4 and a half years.Old one still works but things were starting to fail.<br>

Question is, do you see enough difference to justify the expense? Will you want to try and sell your old machine? At the moment it's not that old to be worth nothing. Going from a core 2 processor to an i5 or i7 is a definate step up, and thunderport could potentially be worth having. Too early to tell though.</p>

[jasonweddington]

<p>I'm an IT professional, been in this field since '98. As long is the computer isn't holding you back, keep using it. Computers are made for the dump these days, manufactures are careful not to make them too good, because then you wouldn't upgrade. I'm an Apple user, and love my Mac, but Apple is just like the rest of the OEMs. Each new generation obsoletes the previous, and it's not an accident. Don't play that game. Spend your hard-earned cash on something that will last longer than a computer.</p>

<p>But back up your data, because desktop-class hardware isn't designed to last much longer than the 3-year warranty. If you've been on the same hard drive for 3 years, you're due for a failure at some point. (Or you could get lucky, but back up your data just the same.)</p>

<p>3 years old is not the first generation iMac, not even close. The first generation one looks like this:<br>

<a href="http://forums.macnn.com/89/macnn-lounge/408073/full-news-blackout-tomorrow-whos-doing/"><img src="http://www.vectronicsappleworld.com/collection/articlepics/bondi/snap39.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="394" /></a><br>

Cute huh? If your's doesn't look like this, then keep using it. Three years ago means you probably have a dual core processor, which is pretty respectable. I say keep your current machine and buy a new lens or two instead. Computers are good for a few years, good glass can last a lifetime. ;-)</p>

[garethspics]

<p>I have just replaced a 2001 Compaq. P4 1.4 GHz 18GB hard drives 1GB RAM. All my Apps ran fine, it was the Antivirus that crippled it. Original SCSI drives still working.</p>

[bruced530]

<p>Here's just a bit of advice, don't get complacent. I was quite satisfied with my old dual core 2.8 Ghz PC having it around 7 or 8 years. Well I even did regular backups. I was running XP Pro 32 bit. Well I just built a new PC with Win7 64 bit. Two days before I was going to transfer my old IE favorites and other items I had my old PC decided to not boot up anymore. I haven't been able to recover my Documents or other files yet. I did install my old drive into my new PC and the drive is fine, must be files in the boot sectors that got wrecked somehow. I had an OEM XP disc and that won't fix it so at this point I can get some files, but not all. I think I have most of my images, but I did lose some. For my old PC I'll probably put in a new drive and use it just for Photography, that is If I can find a place for it somewhere. It'll have Win7.<br>

I just hope Win7 is better than XP for maintaining itself. I have my old backup file for XP on another exterior drive and its no use to me at all.<br>

Just on a sidenote I always thought that I'd retire in my job 20 or 30 years ago. That was 6 job changes ago, the last one taking me an entire year to find through temping. I'm hoping to make this permanent. 30 years ago I never looked for a new job nad became complacent, happy in my job. Ok its old time thinking, but I also see many people now doing the same thing. In a word <strong> DON'T , </strong>Always keep looking. Just like you're looking for that perfect image walking down a path, don't forget to turn around once in awhile and look at things from a different perspective, that next great image may just be lurking around right behind you.</p>

[jon_kobeck1]

"Three years ago means you probably have a dual core processor, which is pretty respectable. I say keep

your current machine and buy a new lens or two instead. Computers are good for a few years, good glass

can last a lifetime. ;-)"

 

Jason yes, here are my specs:

 

Model Name: iMac

Model Identifier: iMac7,1

Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo

Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz

Number Of Processors: 1

Total Number Of Cores: 2

L2 Cache: 4 MB

Memory: 4 GB

Bus Speed: 800 MHz

Boot ROM Version: IM71.007A.B03

SMC Version (system): 1.21f4

Serial Number (system):

Hardware UUID: 00000000-0000-1000-8000-001EC209F0B0

 

Now I have been getting this dark banding shadow on the far left of the screen up and down vertical. Its hard

to see it, only on certain backgrounds. I called Apple and have an appointment next week. It appears to be

an issue with imacs and they are extending warrantys for this problem. If they fix this, I assume replacing

some major components, I should be good for a couple more years

[hjoseph7]

<p>My Dell computer is 7 years old and still going. Of course there were some upgrades along the way, such as a new power supply, an extra 160GB internal hard drive(the original was only 80GB) , tons of anti-virus software, new Sony CD/DVD drive(the old one conked out on me) increased memory from 2GB to 4GB.<br>

However this was not enough, so I replaced it with a new HP computer last year that is blazing fast in comparison, came with 8GB memory and a 1T hardrive. I still kept my old Dell as a back-up because I got so much stuff stored on there that it would be foolish for me to try to transfer it over to another computer. Plus I like the CRT monitor more than I like the LCD on my newer computer. As far as I'm concerned I'll probably keep it until it dies.<br>

</p>

[cjk]

<p>I keep my iMac's for about 3 years, until close to the end of the 3-year warranty. By then, they are at least 2 generations old and the new ones usually offer such a large jump in specs that upgrading is not only safer (from a reliability perspective) but also enjoyable... <br>

On the other hand, I also recycle the old ones to family members (parents, etc.) and 2 out of the 3 I gave away over the past 8 years or so are still going strong. The 3rd one's motherboard passed away at my mother in law's a few months back... <br>

I currently have a 24in Nov 2007 iMac that has just outlived its 3-warranty. It's starting to *seem* slow with CS5 (or maybe I am getting a strong case of Apple envy).</p>