Are you coerced to buy new over hyped computer products?

When we buy digital camera or handphone with camera, we always go for high megapix one. However, is that all necessary? How many of you will print a 2592x1944 (5MP) picture real sized all the time? Put it another way, how many of you would print a picture more than 5R [2100x1500] at 300dpi (equivalent to 3MP [2048x1536])? More crude question is "how many of you actually prints the picture you took with a digital camera?"

If you are not one of those rare people who dons professional or specialist skills, then what is the use of having a high MP camera? Of course, some may argue that if there is an occasion that requires higher MP pictures then they can't do it. True! You happened to be one of those camera geeks. The majority of the people don't.

Now, lets talk about the cost of having a high MP camera. It takes about 1MB to store a 5MP picture. If you only have a 4GB memory, you can take 4000 pictures. That's is a lot of pictures for one trip. No problem while you are on a trip. The real problem is posting it online. Facebook, Flickr generally automatically shrinks it for you. Picasa allows you to post real size pictures. But if you want it free then you can only post 1000 pictures (5MP). Beyond that, you have to pay. In order to get it free you will need to post 800 pixels or less. That is actually below 1MP.

You can have your own web sites to store/show the pictures. True. The cost is that you need to pay every month for the storage. How many of you actually have a personal web site?

I am sure you normally want to view the pictures on your computer or tv. HDTV 1080i can display 1920x1080 pixels. That is only less than 3MP size. What is the use of 5MP then?

I once saw and ads about Canon printer. It can print a picture with a sequence of actions with the same background. Nice huh? How often do you do such a print? Rare right. Would you buy one just for this rare feature?

Smart phones. A phone that can use to surf net, take pictures, make calls, send sms/mms, navigate via GPS etc. Very nice feature. You need to pay for the phone call, sms/mms and Internet separately. Many people don't mind paying. Many others could not even afford the phone bills alone. Cuba as surveyed in 2011 has only 12% mobile phone in use compared to its 11 million people. Erricson reported in 2011 that 65% of world population had mobile subscriptions. Looking at the other end - there are 35% who never have a mobile phone not to mention smart phones. In USA and Singapore the smart phone penetration rate is only 50%. and 54% respectively. To those who never have smart phone, NFC, 3G, 4G, ICS, iPhone5 is nothing. They don't really need them.

Windows OS. It almost monopolized the market. XP, Vista, Wn7,Win8, looks like it keeps on having new things - or is it. Would you be surprised to know that Microsoft even advice user to turn off Vista Sidebar? I used 3 out of the 4 OS listed. I turned all new features off so that it works like an XP. Why? It is useless to me. Would you rather concentrate on using the applications than worry about how it looks in the background?

3G vs 4G. What is the difference? It is just an improvement of the Internet speed. For those who find that they cannot live without internet on mobiles, maybe this will be good. For general users, it is just something nice to have. Just wait till you go to a place where there is no network access or when you go overseas then you tell me whether it is good. Singtel "bridged dataRoam Unlimited" cost $20 a day.

It feels good to get a new device. When your warranty expires, it costs you a bomb to repair it. I had a HTC phone which breaks down after one and a half year. It is estimated that it costs hundred plus to repair it. A new subsidized one costs around the same price. For all you know, local hanphone workshop don't even want to repair my hand phone. So, the policy is use and discard. You just need to keep paying. Those of you who have plenty of money to spare will not feel the pinch. Those who had not, will think thrice of getting a new device. "If it is not broken why fix it"?