As I walked my daughter yesterday I found my mind was also off on its own adventure. For some reason I posed a new question to myself

what would you downgrade your equipment to?

I’ve asked myself what I’d like to upgrade to many times, but I’ve never asked myself what I could downgrade to.

The default for many of the items I considered was simply the previous version. In a few cases there wasn’t a clear choice but the most interesting cases were the ones where there was a clear option that, while it had downsides, also had benefits subsequent versions didn’t.

An example is my Fuji x100t, a great camera but the x100 is claimed to have better image rendering…but with fewer pixels. Another example, though not relevant to me, would be downgrading from a current MacBook Pro to the 2013 MacBook Pro. It wouldn’t be as thin or powerful but would instead have some good port options.

I wonder if I could recreate this thought experiment before a purchasing/ upgrade decision as it might shine some extra light on the merits and downsides of a choice.