Same here, typing this on a Thinkpad T42p 'maxed out' with 2 GB. OK, it does contain an SSD (connected using a PATA-SATA converter which just fits between the drive and the connector, no external modification necessary) so it has seen some updates since being hatched but the thing is about 12 years old and still going strong. Not that I'd mind a bit more memory or CPU every now and then, mostly when confronted with 'modern' web pages... fortunately NoScript comes to the rescue there. Running Debian/Xmonad on the thing, works fine.

I use a 5 yo phone (Motorola Defy+). It runs Android 4.4.4, thus far I've not seen a valid reason for wanting something newer. It still runs for about 4 days on a single charge, using the original battery.

Things start looking bad for the tech industry when people start showing off with 'old' stuff instead of brand-spanking new.

> It runs Android 4.4.4, thus far I've not seen a valid reason for wanting something newer.

I have an Android 4.4 phone, and while it has worked acceptably for me right now as I am self-employed, if I were working for a company that required me to have access to sensitive customer data, having a phone that still received security updates would be a hard requirement.

Well, yes, security updates can be important. However, since I run a home-built Android distribution on the thing I can keep it up to date with the most egregious bugs (SurfaceFlinger bug etc.). This leads to the odd situation where my oldish phone is more secure than my wife's much newer Xperia C3 running a stock 4.4.4 distribution.

..which reminds me I have some more work to do, given the recent publication of https://source.android.com/security/bulletin/2016-07-01.html

Home-built as in you merge in bug fixes yourself?

I understand that we talk about this sort of thing quite a bit, but I can't imagine actually doing it myself. My phone is just supposed to work for me so I can get my real work done and have time to enjoy outside of it. I'm not supposed to work for it.

I'd guess you have to really enjoy working on that sort of thing, but then again you called it "work to do", so I'm not sure.

Yes, I partly merge them myself, sometimes it is done by others. The results are shared through the XDA forum where the Defy used to have a lively community. That community has mostly disappeared, but some die-hards - like me - still try to keep the thing up to date, if only to show the futility of planned obsolescence and locked bootloaders...

Working at such an employer, they'd also likely require remote-wipe capability on the phone. That was the case for my job. I opted to carry two phones, instead (one completely provided and paid for by my employer).

What sata-pata converter did you get? I have a T42 too that I don't want to give up but the HD needs upgrading. I had a look for converters but the number available is a baffling array of wares.

I have seen SSDs on ebay with the converter built in, maybe kill two birds with one stone?

I got this one: http://www.ebay.de/itm/280794425758 almost two years ago, it just fits between the drive and the connector when using a modified drive hatch. The modification I made was simple, I removed the mounting brackets and the plastic edges around them from the inside of the hatch, replacing it with a bit of foam to keep the drive in position. Put the adapter on the drive, slide the drive into the bay as if it is a PATA-drive, push the hatch into place and fasten it using the special screw. Ready.

Performance is more than acceptable, the thing boots (Linux) in a few seconds (that is, a few seconds after BIOS has done its thing of course). In other words, those 3€ for the adapter (incl. shipping) were well spent...

Impressive. likewise my five years old Thinkpad still runs like new (with Windows 10 startup improvement over 7 it felt even faster, but even faster is Ubuntu. it runs incredibly fast).

For tech enthusiast who enjoy smartphones unfortunately a 8 year old phone won't cut it. I have 4 year old Nokia Lumia that still runs fine and with an average 1.5 days of battery life (it used to live 2 days, it's aging). It works well for me because I care about basic apps, GPS, internet browser, and email. But for more apps heavy users most apps won't work if the phone isn't on the latest OS version, and most old phones can't upgrade to the latest OS version. For instance if Facebook stops maintaining messenger on windows phone 8.1, I'd loose my most used app. Fortunately the market share for 8.1 in emerging markets is still important enough for fb to keep a quality app.

I had probably about the same Thinkpad, and I was amazed at how much faster Windows 8.1 and 10 were. Granted, I was also making a huge upgrade because some tech-illiterate person bought us 32-bit Windows licenses and 4GB RAM (2.9 usable.)

I've much more often been frustrated by my phones. My last phone was at the point where I'd expect ~1 second delay for any interaction, whether that was opening an app or scrolling in a webpage. I think as the current one ages I'm going to start eliminating apps and wiping the phone more frequently than I do now, because I'd rather have all that money going toward my desktop and laptops.

> Granted, I was also making a huge upgrade because some tech-illiterate person bought us 32-bit Windows licenses and 4GB RAM (2.9 usable.)

A bit off topic topic, but is there any reason 32-bit Windows is still a thing? Every Intel processor I've seen since Atom failed is 64-bit.

Devices like lower end tablets often have 2 gigs of ram and 32 gigs of flash, which would be problematic because a 64 bit version of Windows uses 3-4 gigabytes more disk space, which would be further amplified by needing that much more space for the recovery partition. These devices are useful, if limited purpose, so putting a 64 bit OS on it doesn't make a lot of sense.

Here's an Intel blog post from last year talking about it: https://blogs.intel.com/evangelists/2015/07/22/why-cheap-sys...

So because tablet makers don't want to spend a few extra dollars on a dedicated flash chip for recovery, 32 bit is still a thing?

Buying licenses and having 4GB of memory (and being disappointed about it) implies a desktop PC, and even a $80 refurb on eBay has at least an 80 GB hard drive.

There wasn't much technical reason for 32-bit windows to be limited to 4GB in the first place, so I wouldn't try too hard to make sense of it all.

I thought Windows 32 bit supports PAE?

They do, and they use it to support the NX bit, but they artificially restrict memory to 4GB on everything except the most expensive server SKUs.

> even faster is Ubuntu. it runs incredibly fast

Heh, I use Linux (NixOS) with XMonad, st and Emacs, so it's always pretty responsive. Not used Windows in over a decade, so I can't comment on its speed.

> But for more apps heavy users most apps won't work if the phone isn't on the latest OS version, and most old phones can't upgrade to the latest OS version.

My phone runs Debian, so I haven't had any problems keeping up to date :)

Which model phone is that? I would love to have a linux phone or cheap tablet I could lend to my children that is not Android.

Which phone can run plain Debian??

Debian doesn't have a Linux kernel package for that. You can run Debian on almost any phone by using a fork of Linux for that phone.