Keeping up with technology can be something of a wild-goose chase as products become “out of date” within months of their launch. If you are willing to sacrifice pointless frills and street cred, however, and buy and upgrade older models, you can get all the quality and functions you need at a fraction of the top-end price.

Here, Times Money rounds up ways to save in five key areas.

Mobile phones

Even budget prepay handsets now feature decent cameras, web browsers and MP3 players. Ian Peel, author of The Rough Guide to eBay, says that you can enjoy almost all the functions of an iPhone or BlackBerry by downloading free Google Mobile software to a standard phone via text message (go to mobile.google.co.uk). Available services include e-mail and sat-nav-style maps with local information, such as restaurant reviews.

Meanwhile, Matthew Bath, of Which? magazine, says that the Nokia 2610 handset, which costs about £20 on prepay, is the best model for the many people who simply want to call and text.

Home phone

Skype, available at Skype.com, enables users to make free telephone calls over a broadband connection to other users anywhere in the world. This brings big savings on landline rates. You will need to buy a headset, from about £5, and note that sound quality may be inconsistent and you must pay for calls made to a landline or mobile phone rather than to a computer.

Computers

Extra memory can be an affordable quick fix for a slow, older computer, and may add several years to its lifetime. A pocket-sized 250Gb external hard drive costs about £50 at PC World and will more than double the capacity of many recent machines.

If your current model really does need replacing, miniature laptops offer a reliable platform for normal internet use and word-processing, from about £100. Mr Peel says that the best-value example is Maplin's minibook Ultra-Portable laptop (£109.99), while Which? magazine recommends the Acer Aspire One, at about £200. Mr Bath says: “It strikes a great balance between cost and performance, and is a good all-rounder. It does not include a DVD drive, but for on-the-go word processing and web access via hotspots, it's a winner.”

Websites such as myhotspots.co.uk list free wireless internet hotspots. If you live close to one - which is likely in cities and larger towns - and are a light internet user, you may not need to pay for a home connection at all.

For a full-size laptop, with DVD drive and all standard extras, Mr Bath says that the Dell Studio 15 is a great buy at about £650. He says: “You can pay double that for a high-end Mac, but most families get little extra use from it.”

Mr Bath adds that there is no need to pay for software, pointing out: “You can fully equip your PC with office, photo-editing and antivirus software for nothing. Many free tools, such as AVG 8 antivirus software, hold their own against commercial software.”

Getsafeonline.org, the government website, has links to free antivirus and other protection software. Go to Which.co.uk/advice for links to other free software, such as Gimp, a photo-editing package that the website says is as good as commercial alternatives costing £500.

Audio

The Apple iPod may be a design icon, but experts say that a number of alternative MP3 players deliver comparable sound quality at a fraction of the price. Mr Bath says that the “incredibly portable” 2GB Philips SA2820 is a “terrific” example at about £28. This holds 450 songs and has a menu, rather than the shuffle system of Apple's cheapest models, so you can select tracks, rather than take pot luck. “The capacity is not huge,” he says, “but it's enough for most people who want to listen to music on the go. You can keep other song files on your PC and swap them when you want.”

Mr Bath adds that mini-systems offer a great sound for much less than full-size hi-fi systems. He recommends the Denon D-M33, which has a CD and MP3 player, plus a digital radio tuner, and costs from £150 (£300 with speakers).

Meanwhile, cut spending on CDs and music downloads by listening free at Spotify.com - if you can put up with limited advertising between songs. About 10,000 songs from leading record labels, such as EMI , are added every day. The Apple iTunes store also gives away one free track a week from an up-and-coming artist.

Televisions

The easiest way to upgrade an old analog TV is to buy a digital set-top box to access 48 free channels, including Film4. The boxes cost as little as £20. Visit Freeview.co.uk for details.

Those buying a new digital TV can make big savings by shopping around. For example, the cheapest high-definition (HD) set recommended by Which? is the LG 32LG5000, at about £340. This is several hundred pounds cheaper than the competition but it competes on quality, Mr Bath says.

He adds that another way to obtain excellent value is to purchase older models of top brands. He says: “I bought a 2007 Panasonic, which cost hundreds of pounds less than recent models but offers almost the same picture quality.”

Where to offload unwanted kit

The auction website eBay no longer charges a fee where an item with a starting price of less than £1 does not sell. This means that you have nothing to lose by listing old technology. Retro items, such as the Sony Walkman and early Nintendo games consoles, are big sellers and can fetch hundreds of pounds in their original packaging.

You can list goods for sale or exchange at Gumtree.com, a free website. Users are encouraged to trade face-to-face to avoid scams.

Members of Freecycle networks list unwanted goods online for others to collect. Following their example will save you disposal costs on less saleable items - and you may spot something you want.

For a quick cash sale (at a low price) consider trying Cash Converters. The auction website's retail stores are listed at CashConverters.co.uk/sell.

If you think that an item may be rare or collectible, take it to your local auction house for a free identification and valuation. It may be worth putting early computers and “brick” mobile phones, for instance, into a specialist sale.