> It seems strange to me, but it looks like 'personal mobile computers' have a requirement for "device freshness" that is much closer to the shelf life of sliced bread than it is to that of a comparably-priced television.
That's because the differences are still appreciable to the average consumers. Nobody cared about DVD-Audio, or SACDs, BluRay, 4k HD, 3DTV, etc... because they don't add an appreciable improvement to the experience.
People upgrade their phones or tablets frequently because the new one is almost always very noticeably faster and more responsive than the old one. Considering for many users this is the first time they've been able to outstrip their device in terms of speed (meaning they can navigate faster than the device can respond) I can easily see why upgrades are so desirable.
