iPhone G3

[Kolar]

Computers suck at holding any kind of value, because the market develops so quickly, what is the "best" product today, is run of the mill in 3 months tops.

Same applies to mobiles, the flagship model is outdated in 3 months, you paid 500$ for it at launch, after 3 months its worth maybe 100$.

Cars depreciate like fuck, my car is just over a year old, its already dropped over 10k from new.

If you want something that can hold its value, buy gold bricks or houses. (although i dont know how well that would work in America atm )

Cars and computers depreciate at the fastest rate of any consumer item. I don't know about cars but for electronics unless you're a fanboy and must aboslutely have that new apple product don't buy something that just came out last week.

I did with my former PSP, I think I paid 450$ CAD for the thing including the warranty which the store and Sony didn't honor in the end. I didn't research it at all. I really wanted something that could do video and music easily. What it could play was a crappy proprietary video format which you had to trans-code to taking hours, the UMD thing was stupid 20$+ plus per disc, the music playback and organization sucked and the hyped wireless connection and associated products were terrible. In the end the screen cracked because it was of poor quality.
After that I looked around in the portable Divx player market and found Creative was very popular and well reviewed. I waited on the Zen Vision W (released in September 2006) and got it mid 2007. Go with something well reviewed that has had some time in the market then focus on the controls and features you want. Otherwise you'll get stuck with a lemon and possibly a 3 year contract (Canadian iPhone).

Data services in Canada are too costly so I wouldn't consider a smart phone for a long time. Maybe once I am established somewhere (Eric? ) and actually need it.

f'ing beaurocracy, wtf does COO stand for?

why can't they just write crap like this out? CEO CFO COO, it's three fricking words (i'm guessing, idk!@#) write it out. If you're so damn proud about your title than spell it out for me people. Boo to acronyms (or whatever they are) shorter than five words. Leave it at NASCAR, RADAR, LASER and SCUBA, and DVDA

There's a lot more then CFO, COO and CEO. On the technical side there's half a dozen, the only one I can remember right now; chief information security officer (CISO).

[Ricko]

what ever happened to writing a good old letter with pen and paper??

[Burzum]

I'll get one of the new iphones smuggled from the US just for the fuck of it, seeing it'll cost me half a day's work, I can still downgrade to my moto slvr should anything go wrong.

[Eric is God]

Something else I found out is that the cost for 3G iPhone data plans will be $10 more per month than the original iPhone. Seeing as you will have to sign a minimum 2 year contract with your carrier, which is an extra $240 that should be factored into someone's decision when buying a smartphone. I'm not trying to be anti Apple as this may be the carrier's decision, but it definitely helps explain why the carriers are willing to subsidize the device cost.

[TagMor]

WIth apple it is not just depreciation.. they purposely release upgrades in quick succesion to cause people to buy more than one..
like when the ipod video came out.. they knew alot of people would go out and buy it.. so instead of releasing the 80gig to begin with, they first release the 30gig... all the punters rush out and buy one.. then 6months later they release the 80gig... alot of those punters will go back and get the 80 and boost sales considerably.
Its bs marketing and i for one refuse to participate.

[Cops]

consumer goods as investments. that's funny.

I don't think anyone said they view it as an investment, but dumping out $2000 instead of waiting 30 days and spending half of that is truly a piss off. The markets fucked and the functionality of the device doesn't necessarily change so it's not a huge deal but I'd rather buy technology whole sale or used because there's no point in buying new, because within weeks it's no longer 'new'.

WIth apple it is not just depreciation.. they purposely release upgrades in quick succesion to cause people to buy more than one..
like when the ipod video came out.. they knew alot of people would go out and buy it.. so instead of releasing the 80gig to begin with, they first release the 30gig... all the punters rush out and buy one.. then 6months later they release the 80gig... alot of those punters will go back and get the 80 and boost sales considerably.
Its bs marketing and i for one refuse to participate.

People are fucking stupid, I have a few buddies that have perfectly good working ipod videos that went out and bought the touch. It's nice and all don't get me wrong, but they have a perfectly good working mp3 player. I guess I'm just bitter when it comes to spending money on technology, like everyone else I should just suck it up and release the markets gonna fuck me over one way or another.