How do you know when it’s time to let go? That is a question that has been on my mind for the past few weeks.
While everyone else is busy scrubbing out their houses, it’s time for me to get to grips with the “drawer of death”, aka the tech graveyard. If I didn’t donate, rehome or recycle, I’d end up buried under the weight of my own inability to part with something that I might – just might – need some day.
And, yet, there are some things that manage to escape, year after year, under the guise of “nostalgia”. It’s a monument to the superseded, the obsolete and failures of the tech industry.
An old Blackberry Storm? Somewhere lurking in the bottom. Earbuds that monitor your heart rate but no longer charge? Underneath the Sony Ericsson PSP phone, which hasn’t turned on in more than a decade but I can’t bring myself to part with yet.
If you dig deep enough, you might find a first generation of Nokia’s N-Gage gaming phone (completely impractical as a phone, by the way), for which the battery has long since given up, and a meditation device that caused more stress trying to set it up than it cured.
It’s a catalogue of tech from the days when there was more choice than just Apple or Android.
Digging through the abandoned devices, however, I was wondering if they had any value beyond their rare earth minerals and nostalgia.
Every so often, a story hits the headlines where a rare piece of technology sells for an eye watering amount and makes you wish you had taken better care of your old devices.
In 2021, an original Apple One computer sold for more than $420,000, which seems like a nice pay-off for holding on to an obsolete computer for 40-odd years.
Hold your horses, though: this particular Apple One was one of 200 that Steve Jobs had hand-numbered – 60 of which are still in existence and one of only 20 that work. It was described at the time as a Holy Grail for collectors. Before that, an Apple One sold for close to $1 million.
One person’s rubbish is another’s treasure. But what exactly is valuable and what is too common to keep?
Good luck figuring that one out in advance. Limited edition is usually a winner, as is first generation technology or special editions. That is not a hard and fast rule though – the Humane AI Pin is in short supply, and also first generation, and if that becomes a collector’s item in the future, the people who returned the device in their droves will surely be kicking themselves.
Ditto for the Rokr phone, Motorola’s first attempt at a music phone with Apple, which had the capacity for around 100 songs and had to be connected to a PC for downloads. That was one phone that failed to make the junk drawer grade.
We have an original NES, complete with light guns and a copy of Duck Hunt. It is a relic from my husband’s childhood, along with a collection of Star Wars figures and an Optimus Prime that my son managed to yank the head off three minutes after getting his hands on it. Add to that an old GameCube, generations of PlayStations and Xbox 360 that has seen better days. None of these are likely to fund the lifestyle to which I would like to become accustomed.
It’s amazing what people will sell online. Those empty iPhone boxes you have been lobbing into the recycling? They could have made you a tenner on eBay each, and up to $50 in some cases. Apparently, having the original packaging increases the resale value of your technology, should you decide to part with it while it is still useful.
And if you don’t, some enterprising soul can make it for you, if the price is right. A Sega Megadrive box for €44 was particularly attention grabbing. It isn’t even an original box, and you have to glue the thing together yourself.
The Sega Megadrive itself can be picked up for as little as €50, although a few hopeful individuals were looking for multiples of that.
An auction of retro tech had several Atari consoles for sale. I resisted the lure of a 2600 – the 1987 console – the TV ad for which is burned into my brain. It would be another retro console to add to the pile, gathering dust.
Then, there is the e-waste factor. We are pulling minerals from the ground to create more and more tech devices, some of which are barely worth the price tag. They will find their way into a rubbish pile somewhere or languish at the bottom of a drawer until they are obsolete.
In an ideal world, easily broken, quickly obsolete technology wouldn’t be a thing. Devices could be repaired without several pieces of expensive specialist equipment, ensuring they had a longer lifespan than the food in your fridge.
So, what to do with that brand new technology you’ve just bought? You can keep it in the box in pristine condition, never to be used and hope your investment – and your patience – eventually pay off. For most, though, it will be another trip to the WEEE recycling centre and a vague sense of guilt when we swap it for a new model, just because.
Or, you can use it for as long as practical, before software limitations force you to upgrade to the new generation, extracting every last bit of value. It may not be quite on the level as a 40-year-old games console, but we can only do our best.
