I’d like to start today’s entry with a story about my PC. My primary PC is a Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo Pro v1000 (notebook). I know, it is by all measures a below average computer these days. When purchased eons ago, it was in prime with it’s 512MB RAM, 60GB hard-drive, CDRW/DVD-combo, 15.1″ display, 3 USB ports etc feature set. To keep it up-to-date, I’ve utilized several accessories / add-ons like USB-hub (which hooks up to Bluetooth, WLAN, external drive, optical mouse etc USB-devices), new memory etc. And as a display I’ve moved to external 22in TFT monitor.

With the help of peripherals and accessories, I’ve managed to push the lifespan of my notebook way beyond average; and if all goes well I hope it will pull up yet another year or two. As an rough estimate I’d say this “operation” has cost me somewhere around 1,000 euros - a price of new notebook. So why have I opted to stick with old instead of buying a new one?

If you’ve been reading my blog between the lines, you might have discovered some neo-green / anti-consumer advocate thoughts; and you are right. It burns my guts to throw away good and fully functional stuff to garbage just because some features are outdated. Instead, if possible, I wish to go with updates as long as it is reasonable both with environmental and economical causes.

So how does this all relate to mobile devices and lifestyle… This morning I had a “vision” as the paper had an advert of Samsung E900 - the phone itself captured half the advert space available, the rest was devoted to promoting peripherals and accessories you could hook up with this phone to make it more efficient.

The primary weight in advert was with Samsung E900 microSD expansion slot. Instead of building it within the phone to save costs, Samsung has opted to spend a bit more manufacturing dollars to locate the slot on the outside making it more accessible to users. In practise, this makes usage of expansion slot about as easy as using USB-devices with PC (a definite pro).

Like the advert says, it will “enable storage of additional music and pictures”, “behave as an easy back-up device”, “boost performance with PDF, Word and other files”. But what the advert had (intentionally) left out was the most important of all - it definetely opens up doors for longer lifecycle phones as people have easy and low cost alternative to expand cell phone feature set.

It might not be the easiest solution, it might not be the best looking solution, and like most enviromental aware actions it may not be the cheapest - but as cell phones and other mobile devices mature, microSD expansion slot and other possibilities to hook up accessories/peripherals to devices will make a greener lifestyle possible.