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I'm one of those people who, once buying a device that meets my needs, tends to keep it as long as it still works. For me, long term warranties usually make sense, especially if they include accidental breakage.
What bites my backside (beside tall dogs) is when advancing technology forces me to replace a perfectly good device before its time. I have a 7 year old HP LaserJet 1300 printer that works just great except HP discontinued support for it several years ago. Besides the trouble with finding replacement toner cartridges that haven't expired (they are chipped to discourage refilling, a bad idea anyway since the drum is part of the cartridge and tends to fail after the initial toner fill; an expired cartridge blocks access to the tool box which tells the amount of toner left and allows access to certain settings), it will not work with anything higher than XP (one reason why the new computer I bought a couple of years ago to replace the dying 7 year old one came with XP instead of Vista).
My Epson flat bed scanner also works as well as when I got it 7 years ago (which isn't anything to write home about but it does meet my needs) but will not work with anything higher than XP, again because it is no longer supported.
My first netbook died 2 months out of warranty at a very inconvenient time so I replaced it with another one just like it and it died three months later, again at an inconvenient time. It was under warranty but since it had proved to be an unreliable brand (Acer Aspire One; I learned after getting the second one that the Aspire Ones had a high failure rate), I decided to replace it with an Asus which has had better consumer reviews. It also has XP because the Windows 7 Starter that comes with netbooks now is a piece of crap and because some of the software I have will not run on anything higher than XP. I probably will run XP until its last, dying gasp in early 2014 for that reason. Win7 is much better than XP but XP still meets my needs.
My cell phone is a 4-5 year old Oystr (sic). It makes and takes phone calls. The battery always was gutless when making or taking phone calls, about an hour or so worth, but will last for months between charges as long as I don't leave it on. I turn it on only to make a call or if I'm waiting for a call, neither of which is very often. I don't text and I don't need to be connected at the lip to someone 24/7 so it meets my needs.
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