Interesting that the author assumes smartphones need to be upgraded almost yearly. My smartphone upgrade path in the last 10 years has been HTC Typhoon -> iPhon

Interesting that the author assumes smartphones need to be upgraded almost yearly. My smartphone upgrade path in the last 10 years has been HTC Typhoon -> iPhone 3GS 32GB -> iPhone 5S 64GB, and a large part of the most recent upgrade was a crumbling plastic case on the 3GS. At no point during the 4-year tenure of the 3GS did it stop being astonishing to me that I had flat-rate, always-on internet in my pocket, all my music, ebooks and audiobooks, videos that I took of my wedding, and photos that I took of our first child, who's now inherited it and mostly uses it for In the Night Garden. Personally I think that because of the reduced horizons of smartphones, they're actually every bit as long-lasting as your PC. Sure, at some point OS updates stop coming, and with that app upgrades, but the performance of the 3GS was fine, and I'm not afraid to admit that part of the latest upgrade was just embarrassment at having such a naff old phone, as much as I loved it.