The Disposable Computer

In the over 20 years we have been involved in the tech world there have been many, many major shifts in technology. It has been wonderful watching personal computer technology shift from big desktop machines with huge, heavy CRT monitors to the tablets of today.

My first computer was a Tandy PC from Radio Shack. It had an 8088 (not an 8086) processor, 384k of RAM, 16 color graphics, one 3.5” floppy drive and no hard drive or modem. I learned more about computer hardware and software by upgrading that computer than I ever would have guessed. By the time I sold it a few years later it had a new 80-286 processor, 640k of RAM, an additional floppy drive (a 5 ¼” drive) and a 20MB hard drive. It also ran Windows 3.3 instead of DR-DOS!! As you can imagine, I spent a lot of time inside that case!

Of course, computers back then were specifically designed to have user changeable parts. The tablets and laptop computers we use today are exactly the opposite. They are totally sealed machines that are never meant to be opened up and upgraded, or even repaired. They are designed and built to be disposable.

I still have “old” laptops and netbooks (from about three years ago) that have easily swappable batteries and easy to access hard drives and RAM modules so they can be upgraded. Every single product we’ve looked at in the past few months is totally sealed and can never be improved upon. Do you want more memory? Did your battery die (as they all do) then you have no choice but to buy a new product.

This is the price that has to be paid for the low profit margin CE products we buy today. You get what you pay for and consumers don’t want to pay very much any more.