I have a phone from over 5 years ago with a headphone jack, a micro sd slot, water resistance, a 120Hz screen, and mst payments. 0 new phones offer all of these features. Few new phones have a headphone jack and micro sd slot. To make up for removing all of these features, the price of phones has gone up by over 50%. I wonder why people aren't "upgrading"
It’ll be like tvs, eventually they will have enough features that the need to upgrade won’t be felt, at which point it’s a race to the bottom on price
Also inflation is wicked this year so smartphone upgrades are likely just not in the budget
batteries and screen damage are the only things that make me replace a phone at this point. if I could meaningfully get affordable repairs for this two things, I'd be on the same phone for a decade.
My current phone is a Galaxy S10, I found out the hard way that screen replacements are half as expensive as just buying a new one. I've replaced screens on previous phones myself for like $20 with little issue, but I think because of the beveled edges you have to replace the screen and digitizer together which is close to $200. So now that's going to be another thing I look for when it comes time for my next old phone.
It’s a shame the screens are shit. I was very against cases for a while but bought an otterbox for this one and I’ve been on the same iPhone 6 now for 3 years I think?
mines in a case and has a few cracks despite only being a year and a half old lol. I'm just a clutz. I think I'm gonna start shelling out extra for repairability when I replace this one. it's gotta be cheaper than replacing phones every 2-3 years.
Know a guy that shovels out like 1k everytime he gets a new phone and I just can't wrap my head around it. I can get a perfectly fine refurbished phone for like $125 and if the screen gets fucked up I'm not in shambles.
Damn I’m jealous. My favorite phone was still the old iphone 5C. It was the cheaper model with the plastic back, but it was good and did everything I needed a phone to do reliably. Shame I always end up breaking them sooner or later. I’d still have that one if I could. I miss my headphone jack man
IDC says it’s seeing people wait until 40 months after purchase to update their handsets “in most major markets.” We’ve witnessed this trend for years now, with AT&T and Verizon warning back in 2019 that upgrade rates had hit an all-time low thanks to fewer customers upgrading their devices. The smartphone market has matured and saturated in many countries, and there are fewer reasons to upgrade to the latest smartphone every two years.
Almost as if there are no new markets to exploit and now the rates of profit are falling. Now, where have I heard that before? :curious-marx:
Funny how the holiday season is the main furnace to power this shitty system at this point. Nobody has enough money to waste on pointless shit but through years and years of cultural shifts by capitalists insisting we need to give each other lavish gifts, even if they're not even wanted, it's now an expectation on everyone. Being around my coworkers this year at the holidays and Jesus Christ I don't know how people get so excited over the holidays that they need to just play the same 30 songs on repeat for an entire goddamn month when most of what they're getting hyped over isn't time with their family or community, but stuff.
it’s now an expectation on everyone.
i never feel an expectation to purchase "lavish" gifts, and many of my friends and loved ones are bougie goofuses.
Because nobody has money.
And holidays used to be a time where everybody had some much needed time off and got to relax. Now we don’t even get that. In fact, for most it’s even more stressful around the holidays.
Whaaaat's the deal with phones costing $1500 now? Anyone else remember when they were giving those things out like a cartoon drug dealer?
You'd walk into the mall and some sketchy lookin' guy would say, "Hey, wanna buy a phone? First one's free..." He'd open up his trenchcoat and he'd have about a hundred identical looking phones and a hundred page contract for you to sign. They don't even give you a contract anymore, what are you supposed to do, you're just expected to look it up online using the phone they haven't given you yet?
They were starting to drop down into the sub $200 range about 5 years ago, and then shot up to $1k and beyond! I thought capitalist innovation was supposed to bring down the price of products?
Turns out the holes they were cutting for aux inputs saved the manufacturers hundreds of dollars by recycling the plastic bits. But those darn consumers keep shouting from the hilltops and rooftops that they don't want aux ports and so the plucky phone companies have all acquiesced to their demands and started to charge thousands of dollars.
I know right, I HATE having a 3.5mm port, I love only being able to use expensive bluetooth headsets that sound like crap.
tfw my headphones don't support the latest bluetooth standard and there's no update :deeper-sadness:
We could easily wait a year or two with no phone upgrades until the design team has an actual innovation to show, and it wouldn’t hurt anyone.
Why would people bother upgrading when phones are all exactly the same? The only distinct, interesting phones today are foldables, which are enormously expensive. If you aren't shelling out $1500 or whatever for those, then what are you getting with a phone upgrade?
Also, the availability of cheap, sturdy cases and high quality glass means phones last longer. So basically most people are at the point where they use a phone until it doesn't work any more, and that takes longer than it used to.
The only distinct, interesting phones today are foldables, which are enormously expensive.
I used to get mocked mercilessly for sticking with a Caravan flip-phone for so long; and now look where you are, dinguses.
then what are you getting with a phone upgrade?
120 watt charging 🔥
Gonna need a dedicated circuit to charge my phone in ten years
People in the UK still use "you have a smartphone" as some sort of indicator that you spend your money badly. As if there are any phones these days that aren't smartphones.
It's no surprise that that mindset results in it being one of the first items to take a major hit to sales when people really start struggling.
Eventually the phone market will start to look a lot like the car market because they're all the same now anyway.
People in the UK still use “you have a smartphone” as some sort of indicator that you spend your money badly.
A bizzare, but unsurprising attitude. It's like Americans talking about car ownership as if it's some sort of luxury instead of a necessity. For better or for worse, smartphones are becoming necessary for modern life.
It's been like 10 years since I bought a new phone and I'm much better off that way. There's no appreciable difference between a $400 phone and a $1500 phone, they are both going to start shitting the bed in two years but one of them will leave me $1100 poorer. The expensive one might have a slightly better camera, but if I really want a nice picture of something then my cheap DSLR will blow it out of the water anyway.
I only buy used "flagship" phones after getting a cheaper Samsung model forever ago, it was trash.
The camera, processor, amount of RAM, let alone custom ROM support, is worse on a new cheap Android phone than a Galaxy S or Pixel from 2-3 years before.
The camera is always much worse on cheap phones, in my experience. A pixel 3 from 5 years ago has a comparable or better camera than a cheap Android phone today, OnePlus excluded. I have a camera but don't have it with me all the time and want to take decent pictures when I need to.
I went to the cell phone store with my mom to help her pick out a phone a year or two ago, I usually buy mine used or refurbed online. The salesman had to be told firmly to stop trying to sell her an iPhone. He straight up had nothing nice to say about anything that wasn't an Apple product. I ended up ordering a phone for her online because the store had like a grand total of ten models to choose from and they were all overpriced flagship models.
How do you take care of a smartphone battery long term?
Smartphones are environmentally disastrous so I'd like to use mine for as long as possible too
Newer Samsung phones have a Battery Protector mode that stops charging at 85% batter. I use that most days, and then will top it off to 100% if I know I'm going to need the battery life the next day. An environmentally friendly approach would be to maybe do it the other way around, where you design phones around those battery limits, and then have a Battery Killer option to "overcharge" your phone (which communicates better that you're hurting your long term battery life when you do that).
How do you propose for me to know when my phone is charged to ~80% without me having to look at it constantly? Genuine question.
Keep it charged between 10-90% (hitting those top and bottom extremes shorten lifespan) and don't let it get too hot or too cold.
I last went to get a phone in (late) 2021.
I did not have one for about 2 years prior so I basically needed to go in store to get one.
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The prices are ridiculous nowdays
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They weren't even carrying anything older than a year. Straight up trying to force you to start at ~$500-700 if you wanna use Apple or Android OS
Don't buy from the store. Order a cheap unlocked midrange. I got a OnePlus Nord N10 5G (love phone names) a year or two ago for like $300.
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