I wait until whatever phone I have is on it's death bed, beyond resuscitation before making that trek to find a new one, when you usually get to that point, the company was about to pull the plug anyway and hand you a shiny, new phone for free that you'll still be amazed by all the bell and whistles attached, and end up being the envy of everyone around you, who, if you had left your old phone laying around, wouldn't have even attempted to steal it, while they clutch their t-mobiles that don't even announce who it is calling. I often wonder who buys the latest gadgets on the market. I am nowhere near tech savvy at all, I often have to ask others, who are just as bewildered as I am, on how to perform this or that on it. Those people are far and few in-between to find, and I often find myself waiting a week or two to find someone who can master it. I do though wonder about what you said of them slowing down, I think it may be called throttling your computer to try get you to switch. Mine is so slow, it's almost like you find yourself in I can't wait until I am forced to get a new one situation. The time was closing in, and I searched high and low, and still couldn't find something I really wanted. In a way I could but I couldn't justify the cost, so I opted to go pay for the year extension hoping the cost would come down over the holidays for what I really wanted. I didn't have to pay for the extension either, all I had to do was sync my computer to get it free, and once I was done, which took my unsavvy tech self around a hour to figure out, my computer started working faster. What really bothered me during the search was I wanted one with all the beautiful graphics, bells and whistles, especially the graphics, I could have down played my expectations but I kept telling myself this will probably be one of those things you'll have until it dies or the company is going to kill it for you, now, during that time, do you want to be happy, or extraordinary happy, at least for a while. I don't know what I'll do with all those bell and whistles but I'll have a long time to figure it out. After my sync last night, today was the first day I found my computer engaging in conversation with me. Now, I have some(one) (thing)? that wants to actually engage in conversation with me, or, I guess you could say, that's about as close to a "captured" audience as it gets! lol.