Well there is a reason I'm driving a 13-year-old VW with 200k miles. But to answer your question, it's not the same thing at all, especially in my specific sit

Well there is a reason I'm driving a 13-year-old VW with 200k miles. But to answer your question, it's not the same thing at all, especially in my specific situation. First of all, I have a job that requires a lot of travel, which means I rent a lot of vehicles - those extended "test drives" help a lot in terms of including or excluding potential cars from consideration. There's also the fact that new cars generally all come out at the same time, so I'm not worrying about the "next big thing" coming out next week. Finally I have friends and colleagues who drive a variety of vehicles and I can add their experiences to my decision tree. When I pick I car, I make sure to maintain it to the best of my ability in case I can't find another car I like as much (hence the reason why I've had the same car for 13 years and decided to put $2000 into it for a new clutch last fall rather than get another car). Smartphones aren't similar at all - like I wrote above, there's always the next hot new phone around the corner which makes me hesitate. I don't have an opportunity to try out most phones since most people I know who have a smartphone generally have an iPhone or a Motorola Droid (yay marketing!) And there's the issue of which Android phone will be upgradable in the future. It may not be a problem for you, but it is a headache for me, especially when I'm dropping several hundred dollars for a phone.