o Your Plex system is a home server, which have always typically been lower powered desktops even 10 year ago (I know because I was building home servers back then. In fact 10 years ago I was running ZFS off an old desktop PC with some really budget consumer RAID controllers)

o and you're comparing that to a gaming machine which are systems which are typically at the higher end of spectrum). To put things into perspective, in 1999 I most certainly did not have a 3D accelerator. Yet I was still using my computer for software development and web development (including, by the way, 3D markup via VRML). In fact I don't think I even had a P2 considering my upgrade a few years later was to Celeron. I have a feeling my '98 PC was a Cyrix.

o It was really common even in the 90s to run old PCs. Even in 1995 I was still seeing 386s and even the occasional 286 in use running Windows 3.x.

o Lastly you cannot really compare a watch to a PC. Sure, smart watches are basically just computers these days; but the point the OP was making was peoples expectations are different for watches. I mean we have digital watches from the 80s that still work as well today as they ever have done, yet smart watches made 2 years ago are already junk. Before people comment on the difference in tech, yes I already know. But that's not the point. The point is people's expectations - which frankly I think are more than reasonable. If there's anything we have learned in the last 20 years it's how to futureproof our products.

The Plex Server has to transcode all types of formats to H.264 in real time. My old 2006 Core Duo 1.66Ghz Mac couldn't handle it. It is still being used by my parents running Windows 7. I also tried using a 2Ghz Pentium Dual Core.

* (I know because I was building home servers back then. In fact 10 years ago I was running ZFS off an old desktop PC with some really budget consumer RAID controllers)*

They weren't transcoding 1080 video to H.264 real time in 2008.

o and you're comparing that to a gaming machine which are systems which are typically at the higher end of spectrum). To put things into perspective, in 1999 I most certainly did not have a 3D accelerator. Yet I was still using my computer for software development and web development (including, by the way, 3D markup via VRML). In fact I don't think I even had a P2 considering my upgrade a few years later was to Celeron. I have a feeling my '98 PC was a Cyrix.

Would you still be using that computer in 2008? Could it run the latest version of Windows? Could it take advantage of the fastest speed internet that was available to home users in 2008?

o It was really common even in the 90s to run old PCs. Even in 1995 I was still seeing 386s and even the occasional 286 in use running Windows 3.x.

My 2008 Core 2 Duo can run the latest software and the latest version of Windows well. Could those 10 year old computers run Windows 98 in 1998?

Lastly you cannot really compare a watch to a PC. Sure, smart watches are basically just computers these days; but the point the OP was making was peoples expectations are different for watches.

How is a watch that runs a phone OS that makes phone calls not considered more of a phone than a watch?

I mean we have digital watches from the 80s that still work as well today as they ever have done,

The difference is that my 10 year old computer can do the same thing as a modern computer - run the latest OS and software, has just as much memory and storage (HDD vs SsD) and has a slightly better display (1920x1200 vs 1930x1080). Can that 10 year old digital watch do the same as a modern smart watch?

If there's anything we have learned in the last 20 years it's how to futureproof our products.

The only reason that my old Core 2 Duo is "future proofed" is because useful improvements have slowed down dramatically in the last 10 years. In 1998 the typical computer was coming with 32-64Gb of RAM and couldn't be upgraded to 4GB. My computer from 2008 came with 4GB RAM, the same amount as some low end computers today and can be upgraded to 8GB.

My 2008 computer has gigabit Ethernet. Which is still the fastest consumer internet connection.

I have four Core2Duo tower computers that I bought last year for $10 each. Three of them have 8GB of RAM and the other has 4GB. Each one has an Nvidia 1050 or 1060 GPU in it and they run TensorFlow just fine, though the computers are PCIe 2.0, so I'm "only" getting a little over 5 GB/s data transfer between the cards and the CPU. Gigabit ethernet makes that mostly irrelevant.

For the most part, when the GPUs are running all-out on something, the CPU is 75% idle or more.

That that's more than 10 years old. Your original point was that you're using a 10 year old system.

> They weren't transcoding 1080 video to H.264 real time in 2008.

Again you're comparing apples to oranges because most people wouldn't have had a need for transcoding 1080p videos from home servers back then. Most broadcasters still weren't sending HD streams or had only just started to. So a 10 year old PC in 2008 doing HD would be like a 10 year old PC in 2018 doing 4k.

>* My 2008 Core 2 Duo can run the latest software and the latest version of Windows well. Could those 10 year old computers run Windows 98 in 1998?*

The examples I gave were from around 1994/5 and as I had already cited they were running Windows 3.x (Windows 95 hadn't been released at that time). So yes, the latest OS.

> How is a watch that runs a phone OS that makes phone calls not considered more of a phone than a watch?

I'd already address that point as well. One word: "expectations". I don't expect a watch to be obsoleted after 2 years regardless of the tech it includes. If said tech means my expectations cannot be met then I simply will not buy any more watches made by that company. After all, I already have a phone; what I need is a watch.

> The difference is that my 10 year old computer can do the same thing as a modern computer - run the latest OS and software, has just as much memory and storage (HDD vs SsD) and has a slightly better display (1920x1200 vs 1930x1080). Can that 10 year old digital watch do the same as a modern smart watch?

I've already addressed that point too. Watches are not PCs (forget the technology and thing about it's form factor and what it's actual usage is). Thus comparing the two doesn't make much sense.

>* The only reason that my old Core 2 Duo is "future proofed" is because useful improvements have slowed down dramatically in the last 10 years. In 1998 the typical computer was coming with 32-64Gb of RAM and couldn't be upgraded to 4GB. My computer from 2008 came with 4GB RAM, the same amount as some low end computers today and can be upgraded to 8GB.*

Nope. I've already demonstrated that software likes to keep up with hardware. This it as true now as it was 10 years ago (even 20). What's changed is:

o we've moved back towards a time sharing model where processing is offloaded to the cloud

o we've learned lessons about security after the mistakes of the 90s and 00s where PCs were basically just honeypots for malware. Granted we still make lots of mistakes even now (particularly around the area of IoT where we seemed doomed to repeat past mistakes) but in terms of actual PCs the groundwork was put in 10 years ago.

o software development processes have matured and also include better automated testing frameworks making it easier to detect problems and test on a wide range of platforms

o Microsoft also got their fingers burnt with the whole "Vista Compatible" thing on backstock Intels that clearly weren't capable. So invested more in the future releases of Windows to ensure that didn't happen again.

You could also argue that the pace of "useful improvements" in OS development has sped up over the last 10 years because more time has been invested in making platforms stable, secure and performant instead of just throwing new shiney feature after new shiney feature.

>* My 2008 computer has gigabit Ethernet. Which is still the fastest consumer internet connection.*

Another meaningless comparison because my 1998 computer had 100Mb ethernet, which was several orders of magnitude faster than the then fastest consumer internet connection. If anything I think the state of networking gear has stagnated because I was handling gigabit switches back in 1998 (with AppleTalk - yuk), which took forever to reach consumers and still many ISP routers only offer 1 complimentary gigabit port. Yet most offices / server rooms are still only on gigabit switches some 20 years later and most home users are probably on WiFi or Powerline adapters (neither of which will come even close to 1GbE). So I guess the real question is, how fast does one actually need their LAN to be? Either way, it's wildly off topic.

My 10 year old computer is doing real time transcoding in 2018.

The examples I gave were from around 1994/5 and as I had already cited they were running Windows 3.x (Windows 95 hadn't been released at that time). So yes, the latest OS.

Again. That's the point. My 10 year old computer is running the current latest OS in 2018. A 10 year old computer in 2008 couldn't run the latest OS.

My major point being that in the first few facades of PCs, technology was moving so fast that to run the latest software, you had to upgrade your computer more frequently. Now, a 10 year old computer can run the latest software.

The smart watch and the phone to a lesser extent is still seeing the type of rapid improvements that you saw in computers until 10 years ago.

An electronic watch from 10 years ago can't do everything a modern smart watch can. A 10 year old computer can.

As far as the actual usage. A modern smart watch is used for a lot of things that a 10 year old watch wasn't.

Yes, I got that point. And I'm saying 10 year old computers in 2008 were doing transcoding as well - just with standard definition streams rather than HD (the "HD" part seemed important to you but I was making the point that you're not doing 4k transcoding in 2018 with your 10 year old PC so why fixate on HD recording in 2008 when HD was just as new as 4k is today)

>* Again. That's the point. My 10 year old computer is running the current latest OS in 2018. A 10 year old computer in 2008 couldn't run the latest OS.*

Maybe I'm not making myself clear enough because this is the 3rd time I've now had to say that I've used 10 year old computers both in 2008 and in 1998 - all of which were running the latest OS. Like I said, in 1995 I was still supporting Windows 3.x on a 286s.

> My major point being that in the first few facades of PCs, technology was moving so fast that to run the latest software, you had to upgrade your computer more frequently. Now, a 10 year old computer can run the latest software.

And I'm saying that is bullshit. I have first hand experience - originally as an owner and a support engineer; and then as a developer and systems administrator - with examples over the last 20 years that directly disprove your point. Examples I've repeatedly cited. Frankly if I've seen any trend it's people replacing hardware quicker now that laptops have gotten so cheap - which is the exact opposite of the point you're trying to make.

> The smart watch and the phone to a lesser extent is still seeing the type of rapid improvements that you saw in computers until 10 years ago.

I've repeatedly demonstrated that your argument about rapid developments in the PC landscape is completely baseless and given numerous examples why.

>An electronic watch from 10 years ago can't do everything a modern smart watch can. A 10 year old computer can.

Again you're comparing apples to oranges. A watch is not a PC. Hell why don't we just compare it to cars and have the same meaningless discussion: a digital watch is like a small hatchback and a smartwatch is like a campervan. What we've now proved is that smartwatches have running water....oh wait.

> As far as the actual usage. A modern smart watch is used for a lot of things that a 10 year old watch wasn't.

That is literally the only accurate thing you've posted. The real question is whether the other stuff is enough to make people want to upgrade their watches (as well as their phones) every two years. I don't think it is. I think those kind of people are the exception and most people wouldn't want their smartwatch to become obsolete so quickly. I think most people see their smartwatch as a digital watch on steroids rather than a PC. And thus I think most people's expectations would be for their watch to outlast their phone.

At risk of repeating myself (but let's be honest, you've missed the other points I made on 2 separate occasions) the hardware is irrelevant to most people. Most people aren't techy. Most people will look at a smartwatch and see "something-watch" not "computer-something" like you and I.

Turned out that it runs OS X El Capitan (= gets security updates) and supports 8 GB of RAM. You can upgrade the 2.5" SATA HDD to SSD. Basically it's usable as a modern computer, only the 1280x800 display resolution being modest by today's standards.