Asklemmy

i upgraded from a samsung galaxy S9+ to a S21

Reason?

better battery. the old was too poor to last more than half a day.

the apps are the same, and honestly apart from the ultrawide camera, the pictures look so identical i cant really tell them apart.

i did notice a slight improvement in loading times of a game, but.. its 2 second difference. nothing major. and also the new screen is a bit brighter, but the resolution is lower.

i miss my S9+. it was great.

My S21 is 2 years old now, and still holding strong. It'll probably be replaced in 2025 or something. It'll all depend on the battery. but i live in EU, so i may be holding on till we see the EU law with replacable batteries come into effect. then i can use the same phone for even longer. spend my money on more interesting things, like graphics cards and mechanical keyboards.

Only reason I see is because of phones breaking. My current Mi 10T Lite was great for the first two years, then it started getting annoying. I can no longer use Wallpaper Engine because of a stupid system update, notifications started getting stuck, sometimes it has other minor annoyances. The hardware is still fine, there's no reason this phone shouldn't work, but it doesn't. Xiaomi clearly wants me to go buy another phone.

So I did. Just not from them. My Fairphone should be arriving any day now. My friend already got hers, and she got me super excited for it.

I have a Note 10+

With the way it's measuring up today for performance and battery life, if it were going to keep getting OS updates and security updates it'd keep being a great phone for another couple of years yet.

...And compared to some I know, I'm updating frequently.

I really do wish they'd squeeze another 1-2 OS updates into it's life-span. But at this rate I'll still be replacing it with whatever its up-to-date peer is in another year or so...

...and re-purposing this one - it's still awesome (awesomer if it allowed root without losing updates and pay-services)

I previously thought it would be a way to upgrade phones faster without losing (much) money.

Say, you have a 800$ phone and you want a new 800$ phone. Most people would just buy a new one for 800$ (outright or installment, doesn't matter) after 2-3 years. My idea was to buy a new phone every year, sell the older one for half the price and voila - you paid the same amount but got two phone upgrades.

The problem with that logic is that reselling takes time, energy and luck to get the price you want, plus it is possible to buy new phones for cheaper by just waiting anyway.

I used to get a new one every two years. Back then the changes were big enough to make it worthwhile. Nowadays there is not much to get from a new phone other than the hardware keeping up with the software and an improved camera.

I'd say, as with any device, keep it until it annoys you or doesn't get any more security updates.

My iPhone 11 from 2019 starts to feel laggy and the touch screen is not responding as well anymore. Battery health is still over 90% but due to higher energy demand of the newer OSs and apps I often still need to juice up during the day. So this year I'm finally going to get the new model but I'll keep the 11 as a webcam.

For me, I just like "fun" phones. I don't update purely due to specs. I recently updated to a fold phone because I'm a bit bored with glass slab phones. A lot of phone manufacturers have decent trade-in deals where I'm at so I never pay full price for them. I might trade in this phone and get the new one if the build quality was improved but it needs to be a notable difference between versions.

I do it because it might fill the terrifying emptiness inside me for a moment or two. Looking forward to trading my Z Fold 4 in for a Z Fold 5 soon!

There is no point. We realised it only recently. If you remember the cell phones from the time before smartphones, there hadn't been much technological progress. My first cellphone, a Nokia, could store up to 10 short messages. It's pedecessor had the same storage capacity. Of course, there were technological milestones that have been passed, e.g. antennas which didn't protrude out of the phone, vibration motors, (in comparison to today) really shitty photo-cameras (and the buggy software that was needed to transfer the photos to the computer), etc.

The point is, that they all were capable to do the same thing: calling and texting. Looking back, there was not really a need to replace the old cellphone. Advertising made us want new shiny things.

This changed when smartphones emerged. Hardware wise, there are not many differences. Some have faster processors than others, others have better cameras. The storage capabilities are sufficient. For the normal user these specifications don't matter. All smartphones are capable of accessing the (real) internet. The main difference today is in the software (operating system). Older phones run on software that is too outdated to keep pace, and the software support is often limited, which as a result leads to possible security flaws - because the user is supposed to upgrade the hardware, not the operating system only. And that's why new phones are bought, despite the old ones would still do.

My smartphone ist running on Android 8 (Nougat). It's still working and is sufficient for my needs. But I wouldn't run my online banking with that phone. Also, it gets pretty hot and slow when navigating with Google Maps.

Conclusion: It's not the hardware specifications which lead to the replacement of smartphones. It's the more complex (security wise) software requirements certain applications (online banking apps, medical apps, e.g. insuline tracking apps, overall more sophisticated apps that runs slow on an outdated smartphone) demand today.

Each year new products & models are launching, so that those in need of it can aquire them. These companies are delivering OS updates for these smartphones so they last longer as realistically possible.

If when yours is broken or far too old, then you should consider aquiring this year's model. So that you can use something that is compatible with studies, work, activities etc.

Obviously each individual/ family/ organization does their own analysis regarding if there is a need or desire to aquire said products. Also what for.

The camera technology advances significantly every year, so it really matters if you’re a photographer.

Beware of your phone going out of support and losing security updates. Android manufacturers tend to drop devices after 2-4 years, Apple after 4-5.

I kinda have to buy a new phone every few years because I only get a handful of years in terms of updates (Pixel 5). After my phone is unsupported by GrapheneOS I might turn CalyxOS and by then maybe I'll buy a new phone.

Sorry for hijacking this thread, how do you like the Poco F5? It's currently on my radar

I only upgrade every 3-4 years, but there's a lot of subtle differences that make it worth it. For example my current phone is far more reliable with Bluetooth connections than the previous one. It's got a better camera with AI photo touching. It's waterproof. Its fingering sensor is more sensitive and quicker.

There's a lot of reasons. Single people can spend a lot on tech without thinking. People have lot of money. People don't like their current phone. I say let them spend and keep the companies in business. If all of us stopped buying phones every year and only bought once in 4-5 years, the companies producing phones will have to shut down sooner or later and we'd have just one or two left. I only upgraded recently after 6 years because the phone OS was too old and the cpu was like snail.

my previous phone, the mic pickup broke. works just fine in every other way so it's now an alarm clock. used (as a phone) maybe 1 year.

phone prior to that, the charger port stopped working. used 2 years

phone prior to that, the phone battery needed to charge every few hours. used 2 years.

phone prior to that, I had it for 4 years & it was getting slow.

a lot of these issues I could have had repaired but I chose not to, as it just wasn't worth it - a new phone would be a tiny bit more expensive & for a device I use at least 5 hours a day, I need it to be reliable.

my current phone cost $130 and is just as capable as a phone from 8 years ago - same amount of ram, storage space. way better SoC though, battery lasts longer, camera is more capable though I don't really care much about that aspect of a phone.

For me, I kept my last phone for 3 years and upgraded because I didn't have enough storage. New phone is a little nicer, has a few new features, but I may well keep it for a few years again.

I buy a new phone anytime a new innovation comes out. I ordered the Google pixel on day 1 and am loving it.

I just enjoy new tech and trying new things in that arena. So new phones before I technically need to is one of the things I spend disposable income on when something in that arena catches my interest.

Does have a nice side effect of constantly reenforcing the use of platform agnostic services and retaining ultimate control of my data if it is something I care about, since it really allows me to just move the sim to a new phone and be up and running in a hour or less with more or less any Apple or Android phone.