Still rocking my iPhone 7, and I’m planning on using it until it completely gives out. I agree that there’s very little reason to get a new phone, these days pretty much all of the improvements are just incremental and have no effect on the basic functions—calls, texts, web browsing, etc. Hell, even the fancy new cameras aren’t really needed, past 12mp (~4K) your camera quality doesn’t really make a big impact on image quality (most people have 1080p or 2k displays anyways) and you can only get so far with multiple lenses and AI stuff.
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My mother in law died after long sickness and she kinda connected phones, not the best, not the most expensive, but now I'm stuck with 8 phones, all ok for me, this one has that, and that one has this, I'm very confused what I should do, but on principle I'll never to buy a phones for 1300 € plus, that's about what a decent one would cost me these days, nope, never. Now I'm up to rooting My collection of Chinese spying apparati, yeah! I WILL SURVIVE THIS! Cheaply!
Huawei P30 Lite. 4 years. More or less 1:1 size of S10e, compact enjoyer with big hands. Got battery replaced for a whopping $20, officially. No security problems, keep my Firefox with uBO updated, solid firewalling and app permissions in check.
I have a whopping total of 5 closed source apps (including Whatsapp and Discord sandboxed in work profile) with internet connection, all of which are fully safe as far as security goes, if not privacy. One of the other apps is safe for privacy as well. All of my apps that are not these 5, are installed from F-Droid.
I will upgrade though, because the camera on this at night is no longer competent enough, and there are camera sensors far superior than 1/2.8" on main and 1/4.0" on ultrawide. (1/1.0" main and 1/1.5" ultrawide are peak hardware these days, amounting to atleast 2x better photos and videos which is significant and worth it.)
I upgraded twice from Redmi note 7 to Redmi note 9 to poco X4, only reason I updated was because my siblings lost their phones and I saw it as an opportunity to try a newer version of something I liked.
I don't think I'll upgrade unless the new phone also has an IR blaster and headphone jack. The IR blaster is so incredibly convenient
I normally upgrade every two years when my contract runs out. It's cheaper than what I'd be for for an unlimited 5g sim only deal.
Plus this time I want away from my Fold!
I'm only replacing my Galaxy S8 because apps are beginning to malfunction and some apps are even emailing me to warn about end of software support for my phones OS, which I cant upgrade because of the age of the phone lol.
I think you would notice a difference between models with the specs you list at the bottom of the post though...
Exactly this. I bought a Oneplus 7 Pro for AUD $750 ($500 USD) in early 2020 and tried to "upgrade" to an iPhone 13 Pro recently. Ended up giving it to my husband and have no plans on getting a new phone again until this one dies. This phone was the last good Oneplus phone before they started transitioning to...whatever they are now. I've rooted it, I've switched ROMs a few times, I've unrooted it and gone back to stock ROM. Love this 2019 phone that seems to be unlike anything else available in the market rn.
I'm tempted to upgrade for:
- Wireless charging
- 5G
But I'm not that tempted so I haven't done it, still very happy with my Oneplus 7T from 2020.
I upgrade when the opsys gets hopelessly outdated (as in apps no longer supporting it) or the device physically breaks. My last phone (Huawei Ascend P7) lasted for 7 years, but the Android 4.4 got just a bit too old, plus I cracked the screen a month after removing the battered to hell glass screen protector...
I don't care much about the phone not getting OS updates since I don't keep anything important on a phone in the first place and I don't care much about CPU/GPU performance since I don't run intensive apps on my phone—that's what my desktop and server are for. My current phone I bought last year will last probably for 5 more years.
I've felt this way for a long time. After paying off an expensive contract for a S7 edge, I swore to never pay more than £100 for a phone. My S7 lasted 5 years before the battery gave out and the phone started to struggle.
I replaced it with a Redmi not 9 and after a year and a half i was having problems running my most used apps, bit to mention the ammount of bloatware was shocking.
I have just bought a refurbished Pixel 6 for £250 and the difference is in quality and performance is staggering! I have never been happier with a phone.
So my advice would be avoid the cheap brands and buy something future proof, but i totally agree there is no need to get a kew phone every year.
I try to milk my phones as long as possible. But that’s mostly because I’m lazy and moving all the 2FA and getting things set up how I like and whatnot is a ball ache.
I have been using same phone for 5 years now. Never visited to service center. Always used cover & screen protector. I usually see two strategies either buy very cheap phone and keep upgrading in 2 year or buy a mid-range use it for 5-10 year before upgrading. There is usually no significant upgrade in tech in 1 year but wait for 5 and you will feel you are actually getting something new and better