With the rapid pace that upgraded technology is being released, consumers seem to have gotten into the practice of testing products as they are released. Because of this, it may not be the best idea to wait in line for the newest thing.
Marketing for technology companies does a great job of making technology look revolutionary — the most convincing of which have been Apple’s grand, dramatic press conferences. However, the truth of new technology is that it tends to be overpriced and full of bugs that, with a little patience, will be fixed in the next model or by a different company.
My family was always trying to be ahead of the technological curve. My dad bought a Qwest Pocket PC, a cellphone that was ahead of its time. It was a great vision and paved the path for the modern day smartphone, but the Pocket PC itself was basically worthless beyond making calls. It was several times thicker than the Samsung Galaxy and only worked through Bluetooth, which wasn’t nearly as common in the early 2000s.
Electric cars are showing the same developmental curve that cell phones did. The Nissan Leaf is one of the best fully electric cars around, but it would take four nights to travel from the U to Las Vegas including all the stops to recharge. Many problems with the battery have also already surfaced, which the first buyers did not expect to deal with. Now just a few years after its release, Bosch, a German manufacturer, plans to have a car that can go almost twice the distance before charging within the decade.
The Microsoft Surface, riding the iPad’s coattails as the next best thing, couldn’t download programs in its original release. It wasn’t until the Microsoft Surface Pro that the tablet could be treated more like an actual laptop than an oversized smartphone.
Waiting on purchases also saves a lot of money. The iPhone 4s has the same camera and the same capabilities as the iPhone 5 (such as FaceTime and Siri). Beyond running slightly smoother, the newest iPhone is not going to enhance life any more or even look more impressive than the versions before it, or its competitors like HTC and Samsung. Many improvements to technology are software based and can be downloaded on to an older device anyway.
Car dealers are the biggest culprit of selling “new.” A test car that has only ever been driven around the lot is sold at a used price if the odometer reads 10,000, and at the same time a car that has less than 100 miles drops in price the moment it is driven off the lot. The Nissan Leaf dropped in price by $6,000 between the 2012 and 2013 models after the electric revolution proved to be less innovative than predicted.
Before long, anything that can be bought is going to be out of date. Being first in line will either give you an unpolished progressive idea, or an expensive version of every other model in a new color. A little patience can go a long way.