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You have undoubtedly met people who worship all of the latest tech gadgets. They were first in line for the iPhone, second in line for the Wii, and they’ve got a flat screen in every room. I love new tech just as much as the next guy, but I take far more pride in the tech ‘beater’ - the worn, obsolete piece of technology that your friends laugh at, but still gets you from A to B. It’s the gadget equivalent of my first car, a rusty 1982 Volkswagen Rabbit.

Delight in Every Scratch, Ding and Lifeless Battery

The Rabbit took me back and forth to high school, to my minimum wage job, and around town with friends. There were many times that you’d find me under the hood banging the starter motor just to get her going. In fact, if I wanted to go more than 100 miles I found another way because you didn’t want to push the flaky old girl. There was rust and scratches, duct tape and rattles. That’s what made it great!

My beater tech is similar. People can tell just by looking at it that there have been some sleepless nights breaking it in. I’m not concerned about scratching the shiny finish or downloading the latest skins so I can look hip, it just blends into my lifestyle until I forget it’s there. I’ve embraced the degrading battery life of my mobile tech too. What else would provide timeless memories of crouching by airport outlets for a precious few minutes of juice?

Is Beater Tech the Next Design Trend?

I’m convinced that some day we will go to the store to buy gadgets that look like they’ve been used for 10 years. We’ll crave the laptop worn smooth by the palms of fake hands resting beneath the keyboard, or digital cameras whose lens covers are held slightly open by factory inserted grains of beach sand. If people lust pre-soiled jeans for their more ‘authentic’ look, then trust me when I say that Beater Tech is coming to a store near you. 

Make Beater Tech Work for You

To make beater tech a practical reality you have to live by one mantra: Buy the best tech of the time and use it until it is obsolete. With the pace of technology change, you will never be able to live the beater tech lifestyle otherwise. Need proof? How many Yugo’s are there listed on Beater Car? They were junk the day people bought them, and didn’t last long enough to actually be cool. A beat up iBook on the other hand reeks of style.

My Current Stable of Obsolescence

• Cell phone: Blackberry 7290, bought in 2005 discontinued 1 year ago. This replaced my HUGE Kyocera 6035 that had been discontinued 4 years before I retired it.
• Work Laptop: IBM T40. Installed in 2004, discontinued 2 years ago
• Tunes: iPod 4G, bought in 2004 discontinued 3 years ago.
• TV: Toshiba 36″ Tube TV, bought in 1998 and weighing 187 pounds.
• Home Media Servers: Gateway Performance 500 circa 1998, and a Mac G4 Tower circa 1999.

My favorite beater tech; until I get an iPhone 3G that is.

All Good Beaters Must Come to an End

There comes a time when putting putting another $500 into your beater to fix a loose tie rod just doesn’t make sense any more. Likewise, living with beater tech means knowing when to send it to the museum and move on. I realized this when I had a chat with our IT department. For the first time in my working life, they thanked me for giving my equipment such long service. They suggested that I go out and replace the equipment immediately because they could not support it anymore. Now THAT’s what beater tech is all about.

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