Posted by 79 at 9:45pm Mar 26 '11so this article is about various chunk of technology that can be done away with as a result of converging techologies. i mostly disagree.
DESKTOP COMPUTER Lose it. You may have one now, but are you really going to replace that deskbound PC when it becomes out of date? Assuming you are not a hardcore gamer or a video editor, laptops have all the necessary computing power the average user needs. If you want to replicate that desktop experience, you can always connect your laptop to a larger display and keyboard.
very wrong, imo. not because they're completely wrong, but because most people still don't "get" desktop computers. a laptop, aside from software, barely gets upgraded. when your laptop is out of date, you buy a completely new one.
this should not be so with desktop computers. opening one up is not scary, and you're not going to ruin it by poking around. have a friend or relative who's very comfortable with it handy the first time, if you like, but replacing a part is easy - and vastly cheaper to keep your desktop up to date that way compared with buying a new one (much less a new laptop!).
laptops are only superior to desktops in one category - portability. sure, you can get a bigger screen and a keyboard. and a mouse. but odds are the graphics card isn't all that excited about really high resolutions, unless it's a gaming laptop already. and you're not gonna bring the screen around everywhere. then there's speakers, the external hard drive, and everything else - you're gonna need a docking station pretty quickly. and then you just have a very, very expensive desktop.
my advice: cheap laptop if you really want that portability (once or twice a year, maybe, i use my laptop outside of the house), and build your own desktop (or get a pre-made one and upgrade as you go). it's not just gamers that like nice big screens and everything plugged in and running well - and it's everyone that should like the idea of buying a new component and sticking it in compared with buying a whole new computer.
HIGH-SPEED INTERNET AT HOME Keep it. With the advent of devices like the MiFi, which converts a 3G mobile signal into a Wi-Fi cloud for multiple devices to share, you might be thinking about giving your Internet service provider the boot and using your cellphone as your Internet connection, even when at home. That would work â provided that you get a strong data signal where you live; that you never intend to stream video from Netflix, YouTube or Hulu; and that you have an unlimited data plan from your wireless provider. Given all these caveats, it probably makes more sense to stick with your I.S.P.
agreed. if you only use the internet to check your email once a week, drop the ISP and use your smartphone. better yet, just use your smartphone for emailing instead of a computer. for the rest of us, a steady high-speed connection at home is pretty necessary.
CABLE TV Depends. While you may and should hold on to a good broadband connection at home, it is debatable whether you need to pay for cable TV. Sports fans probably will want to keep it, as many leagues restrict online content, but casual viewers who mainly want some shows and movies to watch could get by with a good Internet connection and some low-cost subscriptions to services like Netflix, Hulu Plus and Amazon Instant Video.
i'm not the target audience, here. i can see sports fans wanting it, sure. but i have made do without tv most of my life, and don't miss it (except during the olympics or the world cup) at all. of course, i do watch tv shows and movies....but you couldn't put my method for that in the NYT.
POINT-AND-SHOOT CAMERA Lose it. Yes, a dedicated camera will probably take a better picture than the small lens and image sensor of a smartphone, but it will not be that much better. And a point-and-shoot has limitations of its own. It is hard to share photos until you have transferred them to your computer, and there are no apps for cameras, as there are for smartphones, that allow you to quickly apply cool filters and treatments to the shots you took. Perhaps most important, a camera may or may not be close by when a photo-worthy moment arises, but itâs very likely that your phone will.
pretty much agree. the flash and zoom are generally a lot better on a dedicated camera, and i've got mine around basically for taking pictures of the furballs. it's a great 10Mp camera....but my new phone has an three-level LED flash, a zoom decent enough for my needs, and it's 8Mp. plus, when taking pictures, i can just tap the screen to let it know where to focus - and it automatically adjusts the light settings at the same time, so you can get a shot of something in [private] even with a bright light source in the frame.
but yeah, if you really want a nice camera, you probably already know exactly what you want. for most people, the newest smartphones definitely have the goods.
CAMCORDER Lose it. Camcorders get squeezed at both ends of the video spectrum. On the low end, smartphones can capture video, and while it may not be Imax quality, many people do not care. At the high end, new digital S.L.R. cameras (like Canonâs EOS Rebel T1i, which costs around $750 with a lens) can shoot full-HD video while taking advantage of all the interchangeable lenses that were created for still photography. That camcorder you have now is probably the last one you will own.
yeah, ditto. i've never owned one, actually - just cameras that take video.
USB THUMB DRIVE Lose it. File sharing does not require hardware anymore. In almost any case you can think of, you can move files around digitally via the Internet. That could mean signing up for a service like Dropbox, which creates a private, shareable hard drive in the cloud, or by simply e-mailing yourself attachments and storing them in the drafts folder of Gmail, Yahoo Mail, etc. A USB drive is just something to misplace or break.
completely disagree. if you misplace or break USB drives on a regular basis, i'd hate to see your phone/ipod/keys/etc. i don't think i've ever broken one. and they are extremely useful for size and cost - i want to get a tv show off my desktop onto my laptop, for instance. it takes less time to do it with a USB stick than over my home network - and it's far more reliable. i've got a hundred pictures i want from my mom's computer - USB stick, in my pocket, no problem. emailing all that? gimme a break! saving it to the cloud? nah.
if USB sticks were still $50 for 2Gb, yeah i wouldn't bother. but they're tiny and cheap. you can put one on your keyring - over a friend's house and want a file? nothing easier.
DIGITAL MUSIC PLAYER Lose it (probably). Do you have a smartphone? Then you have a music player. Why load yourself down with an extra gadget? Apple popularized the music player with its iPod, but when was the last time you saw that iconic white box with the dial on the front? Music is data, and many multifunction devices can handle it along with many other kinds of data (like video, e-mail and apps). The one exception may be if you enjoy music while exercising. In that case, a tiny player like the $49 iPod Shuffle might be a better accessory than a larger, heavier smartphone.
meh, maybe for some people? my phone has a bigger hard drive than most - 32Gb, or thereabouts. i've got over 40Gb of music, not counting podcasts and videos. my ipod handles it all no problem, and it's an old one. so yeah, gonna hang on to that one.
but if you've got a small music collection and a phone with a lot of memory, or only need it for working out and you're gonna load new playlists constantly, sure, drop the mp3 player.
ALARM CLOCK Keep it. Smartphones can be terrific alarm clocks. They can ramp up the volume gradually, display weather information and awaken you to your favorite song. And when on the road, they are still light-years ahead of the incomprehensible alarm clocks in hotel rooms. But a recent daylight time glitch in iPhones that fouled up the clock could give some early risers pause. Furthermore, setting and resetting smartphone alarms may require a dive into one submenu too many; turning a little knob on the back of a clock and flipping a switch is still simplicity itself.
hell yeah. plus, alarm clocks are generally louder than most phones - and a lot less likely to turn off during the night. and my alarm clock won't wake me up at 2am because someone sent me a text. they're small and cheap. and i like having clocks around anyway.
GPS UNIT Lose it. The least expensive GPS units cost around $80. But your smartphone can do the same thing, if not more, for half that price, or even free. Android smartphones already have Googleâs turn-by-turn navigation app built in. And earlier this month, Google announced that the company would be including live and historical traffic data in route planning, so you hopefully get to where you are going faster.
unless you can't upgrade your phone yet and really want GPS, i completely agree. $80 vs free is no contest, but $80 vs $600 for an OTC smartphone is no contest, either.
btw, google maps and google's directions app are freaking awesome.
BOOKS Keep them (with one exception). Yes, e-readers are amazing, and yes, they will probably become a more dominant reading platform over time, but consider this about a book: It has a terrific, high-resolution display. It is pretty durable; you could get it a little wet and all would not be lost. It has tremendous battery life. It is often inexpensive enough that, if you misplaced it, you would not be too upset. You can even borrow them free at sites called libraries.
FUCK YES. i've got four full bookcases in my room at my parents' house, and there are a whole ton more throughout the rest of the place. i brought back a duffle bag full of 'em last time i visited - i love, love, love books. plus, most of my collection isn't readily available anywhere (out of print stuff). i love the library, especially inter- and intra-library loans.
(fyi, the exception they point out is cookbooks, since electronic versions can have more pictures and video - i live by my Joy of Cooking and never pay attention to recipes anyway, but i can see the point. would work nicely for other how-to's as well.)
yup. i lurves me some technology.
DESKTOP COMPUTER Lose it. You may have one now, but are you really going to replace that deskbound PC when it becomes out of date? Assuming you are not a hardcore gamer or a video editor, laptops have all the necessary computing power the average user needs. If you want to replicate that desktop experience, you can always connect your laptop to a larger display and keyboard.
very wrong, imo. not because they're completely wrong, but because most people still don't "get" desktop computers. a laptop, aside from software, barely gets upgraded. when your laptop is out of date, you buy a completely new one.
this should not be so with desktop computers. opening one up is not scary, and you're not going to ruin it by poking around. have a friend or relative who's very comfortable with it handy the first time, if you like, but replacing a part is easy - and vastly cheaper to keep your desktop up to date that way compared with buying a new one (much less a new laptop!).
laptops are only superior to desktops in one category - portability. sure, you can get a bigger screen and a keyboard. and a mouse. but odds are the graphics card isn't all that excited about really high resolutions, unless it's a gaming laptop already. and you're not gonna bring the screen around everywhere. then there's speakers, the external hard drive, and everything else - you're gonna need a docking station pretty quickly. and then you just have a very, very expensive desktop.
my advice: cheap laptop if you really want that portability (once or twice a year, maybe, i use my laptop outside of the house), and build your own desktop (or get a pre-made one and upgrade as you go). it's not just gamers that like nice big screens and everything plugged in and running well - and it's everyone that should like the idea of buying a new component and sticking it in compared with buying a whole new computer.
HIGH-SPEED INTERNET AT HOME Keep it. With the advent of devices like the MiFi, which converts a 3G mobile signal into a Wi-Fi cloud for multiple devices to share, you might be thinking about giving your Internet service provider the boot and using your cellphone as your Internet connection, even when at home. That would work â provided that you get a strong data signal where you live; that you never intend to stream video from Netflix, YouTube or Hulu; and that you have an unlimited data plan from your wireless provider. Given all these caveats, it probably makes more sense to stick with your I.S.P.
agreed. if you only use the internet to check your email once a week, drop the ISP and use your smartphone. better yet, just use your smartphone for emailing instead of a computer. for the rest of us, a steady high-speed connection at home is pretty necessary.
CABLE TV Depends. While you may and should hold on to a good broadband connection at home, it is debatable whether you need to pay for cable TV. Sports fans probably will want to keep it, as many leagues restrict online content, but casual viewers who mainly want some shows and movies to watch could get by with a good Internet connection and some low-cost subscriptions to services like Netflix, Hulu Plus and Amazon Instant Video.
i'm not the target audience, here. i can see sports fans wanting it, sure. but i have made do without tv most of my life, and don't miss it (except during the olympics or the world cup) at all. of course, i do watch tv shows and movies....but you couldn't put my method for that in the NYT.
POINT-AND-SHOOT CAMERA Lose it. Yes, a dedicated camera will probably take a better picture than the small lens and image sensor of a smartphone, but it will not be that much better. And a point-and-shoot has limitations of its own. It is hard to share photos until you have transferred them to your computer, and there are no apps for cameras, as there are for smartphones, that allow you to quickly apply cool filters and treatments to the shots you took. Perhaps most important, a camera may or may not be close by when a photo-worthy moment arises, but itâs very likely that your phone will.
pretty much agree. the flash and zoom are generally a lot better on a dedicated camera, and i've got mine around basically for taking pictures of the furballs. it's a great 10Mp camera....but my new phone has an three-level LED flash, a zoom decent enough for my needs, and it's 8Mp. plus, when taking pictures, i can just tap the screen to let it know where to focus - and it automatically adjusts the light settings at the same time, so you can get a shot of something in [private] even with a bright light source in the frame.
but yeah, if you really want a nice camera, you probably already know exactly what you want. for most people, the newest smartphones definitely have the goods.
CAMCORDER Lose it. Camcorders get squeezed at both ends of the video spectrum. On the low end, smartphones can capture video, and while it may not be Imax quality, many people do not care. At the high end, new digital S.L.R. cameras (like Canonâs EOS Rebel T1i, which costs around $750 with a lens) can shoot full-HD video while taking advantage of all the interchangeable lenses that were created for still photography. That camcorder you have now is probably the last one you will own.
yeah, ditto. i've never owned one, actually - just cameras that take video.
USB THUMB DRIVE Lose it. File sharing does not require hardware anymore. In almost any case you can think of, you can move files around digitally via the Internet. That could mean signing up for a service like Dropbox, which creates a private, shareable hard drive in the cloud, or by simply e-mailing yourself attachments and storing them in the drafts folder of Gmail, Yahoo Mail, etc. A USB drive is just something to misplace or break.
completely disagree. if you misplace or break USB drives on a regular basis, i'd hate to see your phone/ipod/keys/etc. i don't think i've ever broken one. and they are extremely useful for size and cost - i want to get a tv show off my desktop onto my laptop, for instance. it takes less time to do it with a USB stick than over my home network - and it's far more reliable. i've got a hundred pictures i want from my mom's computer - USB stick, in my pocket, no problem. emailing all that? gimme a break! saving it to the cloud? nah.
if USB sticks were still $50 for 2Gb, yeah i wouldn't bother. but they're tiny and cheap. you can put one on your keyring - over a friend's house and want a file? nothing easier.
DIGITAL MUSIC PLAYER Lose it (probably). Do you have a smartphone? Then you have a music player. Why load yourself down with an extra gadget? Apple popularized the music player with its iPod, but when was the last time you saw that iconic white box with the dial on the front? Music is data, and many multifunction devices can handle it along with many other kinds of data (like video, e-mail and apps). The one exception may be if you enjoy music while exercising. In that case, a tiny player like the $49 iPod Shuffle might be a better accessory than a larger, heavier smartphone.
meh, maybe for some people? my phone has a bigger hard drive than most - 32Gb, or thereabouts. i've got over 40Gb of music, not counting podcasts and videos. my ipod handles it all no problem, and it's an old one. so yeah, gonna hang on to that one.
but if you've got a small music collection and a phone with a lot of memory, or only need it for working out and you're gonna load new playlists constantly, sure, drop the mp3 player.
ALARM CLOCK Keep it. Smartphones can be terrific alarm clocks. They can ramp up the volume gradually, display weather information and awaken you to your favorite song. And when on the road, they are still light-years ahead of the incomprehensible alarm clocks in hotel rooms. But a recent daylight time glitch in iPhones that fouled up the clock could give some early risers pause. Furthermore, setting and resetting smartphone alarms may require a dive into one submenu too many; turning a little knob on the back of a clock and flipping a switch is still simplicity itself.
hell yeah. plus, alarm clocks are generally louder than most phones - and a lot less likely to turn off during the night. and my alarm clock won't wake me up at 2am because someone sent me a text. they're small and cheap. and i like having clocks around anyway.
GPS UNIT Lose it. The least expensive GPS units cost around $80. But your smartphone can do the same thing, if not more, for half that price, or even free. Android smartphones already have Googleâs turn-by-turn navigation app built in. And earlier this month, Google announced that the company would be including live and historical traffic data in route planning, so you hopefully get to where you are going faster.
unless you can't upgrade your phone yet and really want GPS, i completely agree. $80 vs free is no contest, but $80 vs $600 for an OTC smartphone is no contest, either.
btw, google maps and google's directions app are freaking awesome.
BOOKS Keep them (with one exception). Yes, e-readers are amazing, and yes, they will probably become a more dominant reading platform over time, but consider this about a book: It has a terrific, high-resolution display. It is pretty durable; you could get it a little wet and all would not be lost. It has tremendous battery life. It is often inexpensive enough that, if you misplaced it, you would not be too upset. You can even borrow them free at sites called libraries.
FUCK YES. i've got four full bookcases in my room at my parents' house, and there are a whole ton more throughout the rest of the place. i brought back a duffle bag full of 'em last time i visited - i love, love, love books. plus, most of my collection isn't readily available anywhere (out of print stuff). i love the library, especially inter- and intra-library loans.
(fyi, the exception they point out is cookbooks, since electronic versions can have more pictures and video - i live by my Joy of Cooking and never pay attention to recipes anyway, but i can see the point. would work nicely for other how-to's as well.)
yup. i lurves me some technology.
which gadgets are obsolete? - 79