Is newer really better?

Pictured is our Kelvinator refrigerator and rotary-dial telephone.

We got a notice in the mail the other day informing us that our cell phone was going to be obsolete come this next February because it is not digital. That’s a shame because it is a great phone and we like it. The analog style actually has more power than some of the newer phones and can make calls where other phones can’t. Of course it doesn’t take pictures, text message or play videos, but all those things are beside the point of a phone anyway.

Our household phone recently went bad. The cord kept falling out and when we pushed the buttons on the keypad they would not always work. We were going to get another one, but remembered an old phone collecting dust in the bottom of the closet. It was left there by the previous owners of our house. But does it work? We got it out and plugged it in and it did work! We haven’t used a rotary phone for years, but it works fine and beats putting out money for a new one.

In our opinion, the rush to newer and fancier stuff is just a little over-rated. Not only can one tie up a lot of money with all the new gadgets, but many of them don’t work as well as some of the older things. For example, we were in a used book store recently looking at an old National Geographic – the March 1958 edition. The colors on the photos were outstanding – the reds, blues and greens were brilliant. Compared to newer books and magazines the old photos were far superior.

After coming back from a week of vacation a few years back, we found our refrigerator had died, so we got a new one. Today that refrigerator is on its last legs. The door seals are going out, the ice maker doesn’t work and the insulation is breaking down. It still does keep the food cold, more or less. Awhile back we acquired a Kelvinator refrigerator that is over 50 years old and it still runs fine. It does need defrosting once in a while, but the door seal is as tight as the day it was made and the insulation hasn’t broken down. They don’t build them like that anymore.

We got a new clothes washer a few years ago, but didn’t keep it long. It was one of those super energy efficient kinds that used less water and was electronically controlled. We had no end of trouble with it and had to have it serviced several times. It did use less water, but it did not clean the clothes until they were run through two wash cycles each. We finally just sent it back to the store and got a standard mechanical washer. Now our clothes come out clean after one wash cycle and the machine keeps working load after load.

Our vehicles are older but less complicated than new ones. One is a 1989 and the other one is a 1978. We like them because they are easier to work on than the new cars. Many parts in the newer vehicles are no longer serviceable by the home mechanic, or they at least require expensive test equipment. We can do almost all of our own repairs on both vehicles, the 1978 in particular.

On the news the other evening we heard our television will not be usable after 2009. That is one item we will probably not replace. We do like new things, but now we take longer to evaluate the positives and negatives of an item before making a purchase. We try to make the technology work for us, not the other way around.