I plan to buy an iPhone when it's available. Thre are a myriad of reasons why I want it, from the Internet connectivity and Mac compatibility to the oversized-screen iPod features. (I've had about the 10 minutes of hands-on with the iPhone - no, I'm not as important as other media members who got more time with the iPhone.)

But the main reason why I want an iPhone: My current mobile phone is a piece of crap. Here it is.

Buh-bye T68i. Hello, iPhone.

It's a Sony Ericsson T68i. It's over five years old, which is about 143 in mobile phone years. People have laughed at the vintage of my phone - I might as well be using a DynaTac. It actually isn't a bad phone. I just haven't taken good care of it. (I also used to carry around a Palm V PDA, but after a couple of years, it mysteriously stopped working.)

My phone has certainly had a tough five years. As you can see, the buttons are worn out. The volume switch snapped off three years ago. There's a good amount of dust inside the LCD (how the dust got in there, I don't know). A couple of years ago, my son (then two years old) got a hold of my phone, and it suddenly had “A 11” posted in the middle of the screen. I have no idea what this means, and I’ve never been able to deactivate it (I lost the manual a while ago).

To top it off, the "0" button is broken - if you keep pressing the "0" button, you eventually get it to register. During Mac Expo, I had to call a PR person whose phone number was something like 415-000-0000. I got a blister on my thumb from dialing that number.

Why have I held on to this phone for so long? I like to run things into the ground before it needs to be replaced. For example, I drive a 1994 Ford Explorer with over 170,000 miles on it. Only recently have I started to have age-related problems with it; otherwise, it's been very reliable. Another example: My household still uses a seven-year-old Sawtooth Power Macintosh G4. For basic word processing, Web, and email, it works just fine, especially with its Radius PrecisionView 17SR CRT display.

It’s time to let go of my phone (and I promise to take better care of my new one). It’s tempting to wait for iPhone 2.0, which will probably have 3G support - but isn’t there always something better around the corner? It’s the nature of technology, and you can get caught up in the perpetual cycle of waiting for the next best thing and never ever get anything.

I’d like to hear your stories of using old products in this day and age of disposable goods and constant upgrades. Is there something you got years ago that you continue to use, despite it being outdated and the better products on the market? And how do you decide when it's time to upgrade? Post it in the comments below.