The General Technology Thread

[jedi]

Well duh!!! Its NOT fair that they have so much debt.
Its NOT fair that they expect a 90k+ entry level out of college job.
Its NOT fair that .....
But dont worry coronavirus is going to correct this.

 

[jkaetz]

The insanity won't stop until all the carriers stop hiding the real cost in monthly payments. Too many people plan their budgets by monthly payments. Those of us that can do math try to minimize the monthly payments.

 

[jedi]

ARE YOU CRAZY!!!
YOU CANT SHOW THE THE REAL FINAL COST!
(Yes yelling!)

Just like if the people had to send a monthly payment for their REAL taxes the people would roit!!

Instead taxes are "hidden" and most get a big refund thus making them happy without really knowing the true cost.

 

[jkaetz]

Just like if the people had to send a monthly payment for their REAL taxes the people would roit!!

Your not kidding. Gas tax, sales tax, car registration tax, income tax, property tax, gas guzzler tax, Tuesday tax, weather tax...

 

[ArcadiaGP]

Twitter is suspending 70 pro-Bloomberg accounts, citing 'platform manipulation'

 

[bwframe]

I think we can blame the auto industry for the monthly payment vs outright cost.

I have family who, young to old, all lease their cars.

 

[actaeon277]

I think we can blame the auto industry for the monthly payment vs outright cost.

I have family who, young to old, all lease their cars.

No.
The auto industry encouraged it, but I blame people for falling for it.

 

[jamil]

One thing to consider. Many of these plans don’t have interest. So you divide the exact price of the phone over 2 or three year monthly payments, plus the cost of the services you want. So overall cost is a wash whether you pay cash for the phone up front or break it into monthly payments.

I prefer paying cash. But I don’t think there’s much financial advantage of that over splitting it into payments when there’s no interest. At least that was the deal last time I bought a phone. If they charge a fee up front and/or interest then sure. You’re worse off doing the payments.

 

[eldirector]

0% interest only works if you are buying something you can already afford. Otherwise, it is simply a way to encourage you to spend above you means by breaking the too-large cost into smaller payments that (individually) you can afford.

 

[jamil]

0% interest only works if you are buying something you can already afford. Otherwise, it is simply a way to encourage you to spend above you means by breaking the too-large cost into smaller payments that (individually) you can afford.

As a principle of responsible personal finances, this is true. But lots of people are making it work for them, at least as long as they don't run into some financial hardship which ends up ruining them.

 

[ArcadiaGP]

One thing to consider. Many of these plans don’t have interest. So you divide the exact price of the phone over 2 or three year monthly payments, plus the cost of the services you want. So overall cost is a wash whether you pay cash for the phone up front or break it into monthly payments.

I prefer paying cash. But I don’t think there’s much financial advantage of that over splitting it into payments when there’s no interest. At least that was the deal last time I bought a phone. If they charge a fee up front and/or interest then sure. You’re worse off doing the payments.

Dont those plans also require you to give the phone back?

 

[jedi]

Dont those plans also require you to give the phone back?

Yes.
Also while your phone payment is divided into 24 or 36 months (interest free) depending on your credit score you will have to put some type of down payment from 0 to 40% of the phone. If you break the contract you have to pay the balance at that point (you keep the phone).

At the 50% mark (of what the phone cost) you have the ability to upgrade to a new phone and restart the "slave" contract again.

 

[bwframe]

Well, I've gone the same direction with my phones as I did with my cars a long time ago. No new stuff for me. Used stuff priced in the range of the product's actual worth.

My S7's are working fine. I'm watching a few S9's on eBay, so they are happy to let me know as more become available. Maybe when they hit the $125 range?

Prices will be coming down with the S20 out.

 

[jamil]

Dont those plans also require you to give the phone back?

No. The last AT&T deal I had was 2 or 3 years same as cash, or you pay cash. I paid cash. But there wasn’t really an advantage to doing that other than I don’t like owing.

 

[historian]

What happened to the s11-s19? Those just get skipped?

 

[Phase2]

Samsung is using a logarithmic scale, first counting by ones, then 10s, then 100s...

 

[bwframe]

AT&T's is only a grand. They don't seem to offer the Ultra version though.

 

[ArcadiaGP]

So glad to still get subsidized pricing with our Verizon business plan... Even the 1-year contracts are only $30 or so more than the 2-year... and they work on AT&T.

Verizon won't have the regular S20 until Q2 2020, something about the version of 5G they'll be on.

Wonder if it's that "5G" label that's inflating the price... that's how the Note10 was... the 5G had a hefty premium on it.

 

[Cameramonkey]

The insanity won't stop until all the carriers stop hiding the real cost in monthly payments. Too many people plan their budgets by monthly payments. Those of us that can do math try to minimize the monthly payments.

What happened to the s11-s19? Those just get skipped?

Slightly related CSB:

There is no windows 9 because there were too many scripts written after XP came out that would look at the OS version and if it started with 9 (win95, 98, 98SE) it would report that the OS was too old to run the software. So they were too worried about any of those scripts freaking out thinking the brand new windows 9 was actually really a decades old version of windows and refuse to install even though it was compatible.

It was literally easier to avoid the problem than to fix it.

 

[bwframe]

I'm upgrading my car/EDC/go bag. Looking at how to best have a data backup in the bag. Is this a good way to go?

https://www.newegg.com/orico-tcm2-c...&om_mid=4944&email64=bmV3ZWdnQG1lZXRlYy5jb20=