The overall trend has been the opposite though, hasn't it? People used to buy a new phone (or new laptop/etc) every couple of years because the underlying tech was improving so quickly, but now that the improvements have slowed down, they're holding onto their devices for longer.

There was an article[1] going around about that recently, and I'm sure there are more, but it's also a trend I've seen first-hand. (I don't particularly care for the article's framing, I'm just linking to it to illustrate the underlying data.)

[1]: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/23/how-device-hoarding-by-ameri...

> Some people do put off buying cellphones and laptops when they know a new model will come out every year.

Don't confuse technical deflation with the Osborne effect:

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect