I’m writing this on my phone using a keyboard that’s like more than 15 years old or maybe years older. I can’t remember now how I got it, where I bought it, and for how much. What’s important right now is that it still works like a charm.

Old, aging technology is still technology. One wouldn’t readily know from interactions online what phone they use. Even if they say that they use iPhones, we wouldn’t know if one’s using an iPhone 11 or a brand-new 2TB iPhone 17 Pro Max paid in cash. Of course, those who use the latter are most prone to “flaunting” their device for all the world to know that they spent a ₱100,000 for a phone.

They both still work, backed by Apple’s security updates and app updates from vendors.

The same is true with Android smartphones. We wouldn’t be able to easily guess which brand a person uses.

American tech bloggers and vloggers regularly churn out content that ask “would this piece of tech from five or 10 years ago still work?” I’m pretty sure hundreds of millions of people worldwide know the answer. Outside of the US, and even in parts of the US, the overwhelming majority of people use “old” or “aging” smartphones. The second-hand phone market is worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

The problem is that American tech bloggers and vloggers have come to believe and preach that every year when Apple or Samsung introduces new models of the iPhone or the S series, the old model becomes somewhat “obsolete.” It is as if the old model stops working or can no longer fully function as a smartphone. They help Apple and Samsung sell the brand-new models that way.

And so when you visit YouTube, you will encounter videos of Americans marveling at how “old” iPhones still work. Of course, they do! It is not impossible that these “tech experts” don’t know that Apple continues to support iPhone models for many years with software and security updates.

Here in the Philippines, there are certainly a number of Filipinos who upgrade to the new iPhones every year. We see many lining up for hours or days in the lead up to the midnight launch events. But whether there’s tens of millions of iPhone 17 users right now, that cannot be true. The stingy telcos still have stocks, as well as the authorized resellers. It defies logic to expect a majority working-class nation to be a majority iPhone 17 country, especially how expensive the phones are and the proliferation of much cheaper Androids.

According to multiple sources, the most-used iPhone models are still the iPhone 11, 12 and 13. Yes, old models. But phones that still work for every conceivable purpose. No new bells and whistles, and no non-monumental changes found in the iPhone 17, but the old phones still work, still supported, still could post, do ChatGPT, and so on.

Some would argue that devices from the past were once touted as future-proof, and so they find that out for themselves. That’s something good for the planet and for their wallet.

In fact, the second-hand market for tech devices is quite popular in the Philippines. Titos and titas, and other elders who are in the know (most probably younger GenX and senior millennials) would advise Gen Zs to opt for previously-owned high-end phones and laptops instead of buying brand-new but cheap lower-end models that tend to be disposable, not upgradable and have a lot of limitations like having relatively-ancient components.

The truly ancient tech right now are the Pentiums (circa 1993) and Celerons (circa 1998) from Intel, and the Symbian, Palm and WindowsPhone OS. Which is why there was an uproar when it was found that a government agency acquired during the pandemic el-cheapo Celeron laptops at high-end prices.

Today, the cutting-edge tech have AMD processors, and the latest OS from Apple and Android. Prices are expected to rise because of a global memory-chip shortage. More people may choose not to upgrade or get priced out by new, more expensive tech. Apple has in fact said that price increases are inevitable.

Whether for school, for work, or for personal use, we are bound to grapple with tech options. Second-hand or new. Entry-level or bleeding-edge. Mac or Windows. Apple or Android. We thus have to read and be informed so we could get the “best bang for the buck”, so to speak. Here, Filipino tech bloggers and vloggers should be able to help.