Is Your Technology Slowing You Down?

How long has it been since you bought a new laptop or smartphone? Upgraded your Windows or Mac operating system software? Switched to a new, better web browser? If you're like Michael Phelps in the Intel TV commercial – and the tech tools of your trade are more than two to three years old – then your technology is slowing you down.

At Tech Helpline, the real estate industry's number one tech support service, we tapped the brainpower of our tech analysts to shed some light on this topic. They work with real estate agents every day and have a combined IT experience of nearly 300 years.

Here are the three big reasons you need to upgrade – and update – your technology.

Speed

Have you ever heard of the phrase Moore's Law? A simplified version of this law states that processor speeds, or overall processing power for computers, doubles every two years. So if your laptop is just a couple of years old, it likely has half the processing power of a new one. What if it's five years old? It would be like owning a horse today as your primary transportation, which has a top speed of about 25 mph, when you could have a car that goes over 100 mph... so at least you could go the speed limit.

Seriously, today's computers and smartphones are wickedly fast and make older ones seem nearly unusable. For example, the iPhone 7 processor is 40 percent faster than the iPhone 6 processor. With your old laptop, it's probably collected many excess files and programs that are slowing it down.

Plus, you get better features with newer technology. Did you know that an iPhone 7 has four times the storage of an iPhone 5, and can take pictures with a resolution that is six times better? With a new laptop, you'll increase your speed and that should mean an increase in efficiency. Most importantly, a new laptop - with a speedier processor, significantly more storage, the latest operating system and best browsers all pre-installed - will likely cost you less than half of what you paid for your old laptop.