[Translations: Japanese]

Buying tech Smartly IS Difficult. Sam Grobart Reduced a lot of hard-Earned and complex wisdom to Seven Rules of thumb in the New York Times. I WAS Pretty impressed with this list Because I think his Advice IS Sound and he WAS ABLE to reduce it to short rules of thumb. Here are his seven rules, each one a trade off, as annotated by me.

When buying hi tech ….

* Pay for RAM, not speed. The speed of the computer chip does not matter; the attention-span or RAM memory does matter.

* Pay for Messaging, not minutes. On your phone, your Texting IS more expensive than your voice time.

* Pay for components, not Cables. Buy the best components, and the cheapest Cables.

* Pay for speed, not channels. For cable Internet, with enough speed you CAN Watch TV channels on the Internet for free.

* Pay for AppleCare, not MobileMe. For Applefans, the Apple Insurance IS worth it, but Their Cloud service IS not.

* Pay for screen size, not refresh rate. On TV screens, bigger size Makes a difference while refresh rate does not.

* Pay for sensor size, not pixel count. On today’s Cameras you’ll Have enough megapixels; better quality Comes from Larger sensors.

Relative sensor sizes in Various camera Families form here .

. Those seven got me thinking about other tech shopping rules of thumb Here are a few others that come to mind:

* Pay for reliability, not Mileage. On a car, you’ll Spend more of Repairs and maintaince over its lifetime than you Will on a difference in gas.

* Pay for comfort, not Weight. A Bicycle’s feather Weight IS Moot once you add Water Bottle, a Bag, any extra clothes you Wear, while its comfort Never Disappears.

* Pay for foam, not down. The biggest difference in the Warmth of a Sleeping Bag IS the Insulation under you, not the down over you.

* Pay for glass, not shutters. In Professional Cameras, great Lenses endure, while the camera Bodies Change and Go OBSOLETE.

Any others?

From the comments (so far):

Pay for speakers, not the amp. – – – When Purchasing a Sound System, better quality speakers Will make more a difference than a better amp.