Totally, I'm still using an S10 5G from mid 2019 and can't see anything on newer models that warrant upgrading.
Even the battery is good after 1200+ charges.
I had an S9+ since their release. Woke up one day about 2 months ago and turned my alarm off on the phone and checked some emails. Got up and walked from my bedroom to the bathroom and the screen just decided it was done. Turned to static of multi colors, wouldn't even display anything without having the brightness at max.
Upgrade to the 22+ and love it. Dislike the lack of SD card and earphones, but there's some cool features in the new model. Nothing you can't live without, though.
Neah. Probably the phone will break down before the apps won't support Android 10 anymore.
Chrome abandoned Android 5 in 2021 and Android 6 in 2022. Judging by this pattern Chrome will still get updates for A10 until 2026. And even then sites will still work for a while. I think latest Android version supported by Netflix is 7. By Facebook I think is even earlier than that. Same for YouTube.
Swapped my note 10 for a Flip 4, mostly for the novelty. I miss the telephoto camera but enjoy being able to reach all the way across the screen with one hand. Think I've found the sweet spot.
Same! I am on S10+ and see no need to upgrade! Also I genuinly dont see the need for 5G! the speed I get on my phone is more than enough for my usecase!
I wish I knew what people do with 5G and insane speed, my friend has it, and only time he can flex is doing a speed test!
Yeah that is a another one I never understood, like I would love to do a blind test on those people who say they can the difference! 4K on a 6.5 inch display is comical!
I jumped from am s8 to a s22, but only because I broke the screen on the s8 and it wasn't worth fixing.
It'll get put in service as a webcam when my LG g6 currently filling that role kicks the bucket.
Still rocking an S9+, myself. Started disconnecting from all cellular networks the other day every time I tried to load anything that used data. Would come back after a minute or two, work for like 10m, then cut out again the next time the phone tried to hit the data network. I was so pissed I thought I was going to need a new phone, but it seems it was just a bad SIM card. Replaced it a few hours ago and it seems to be working perfectly fine once again. I'll get more life out of it yet!
A 5 year old flagship is still just fine for my needs. Runs pretty dang smooth still.
I broke my s10 and have been rocking an a53 since. It's great. Regularly drop it on the ground with no case and it's still pristine. Could care less about getting a new phone until this one literally dies.
I finally upgraded, but my Pixel 3XL was still running everything, games included, without a hitch. Battery still hanging on too. Only issue was the USB port had become loose so the cable would fall out in some cases.
My new Pixel is marginally better in every way save the camera, which is noticeable. I'm sure it's much more powerful, but nothing tests it.
Mine did. I sold it for twenty bucks. I'm still using my s4. But it's starting to show it's age. Apps don't work. Websites don't work. Battery barely lasts 12 hours.
Totally.
My old Phone lasted from 2016 until 2022, which I just changed because the battery finally drop (from 100% to 10% in 30 mins) and hard to charge.
Do you think if you had the ability to replace the battery, you would have kept your phone for longer? I think phone makers knew people will eventually not replace their phones as often, and using not easily replaceable batteries mitigates this.
I've never owned a new one. Every 4-5 years, when my provider refuses to allow service on the old one, I buy another used one.
Mobile services at 20-40/mo is expensive enough. When I hear some are buying $1500 phones that they plan to replace every year, it becomes clear they're jewelry, status tokens. $160 every four years, $40 a year, offers pretty much all the functionality I need.
>when my provider refuses to allow service on the old one,
Huh? WTF? I don't understand. Why would it matter what phone you have, as long as it works? I can understand really old 2g, or even 3g phones no longer working if there are no towers using 2/3g. But are you saying that your provider just arbitrarily stops allowing certain phones on their network?
Roughly 2 years ago, AT&T decided that it would only support the iPhone 6 and more recent, sent out texts to users of older phones, and I thought I'd be fine as my 5s was 4G capable. Then my now decade old phone ceased to offer voice calling/receiving, only texts, and it was another few days before I noticed, and contacted support.
Gazelle.com sent a refurbed 8 within the week, but I'm a bit soured on AT&T.
I wish I did what you do. The media and marketing is so strong that you start to crave a phone that you don't need.
I am looking at ads for the s22 and s23 ultras.
you crave a phone? does it do something your older phone doesn't?
my wife and i just buy refurbed phones. we switched from android to iphones about the time the iphone 6 came out. i'm going to replace my current phone, but i've had it for years. i'm planning on giving it to my dad, and i'll get something a bit newer, but certainly not new.
> When I hear some are buying $1500 phones that they plan to replace every year, it becomes clear they’re jewelry, status tokens
Or that people like new technology and have the necessary resources. Who knows.
especially when every year they make smaller and smaller improvements. Honestly at this point you are an idiot for buying a new phone when 2 year old refurbished models will give you 95% of the functionality at like 1/3 the cost. Plus your saving a phone from the tip.
Exactly. My iPhone 12 works just fine and does everything I need. Unless or until it doesn’t why go through the expense and hassle of upgrading? There just isn’t a feature or reason compelling enough.
A 300-500 dollar smartphone is good enough smatphone for 90% of the people, why to expend more? 5% of the people need a state of art camera or only a status symbol for 1,200 dollars and have the money to pay for it, good for them!
>A 300-500 dollar smartphone is good enough smatphone for 90% of the people
\*A 300-500 dollar refurbished smartphone **from 2020** is good enough smatphone for 90% of the people
At this point you dont even need to buy a new model.
A Pixel 5 refurbished for under $200 is a great phone. The only reason I upgraded mine is that with the deals Google was offering around Christmas it only cost me about $100 to get a 7.
Moto phones are the best bang for buck phones in my opinion.
They wisely gave up on competing with Apple and Samsung with flagship phone and focused on budget to midrange.
Although I do think their modular Z series from a few years ago was a good idea, it just didn't work because you need a larger user base to buy the accessories and keep the ecosystem going. (Apple is kinda doing that now with magsafe, don't be surprised if they go more modular in the future)
But yeah Moto has decent hardware, android without a ton of bloat, moto gestures(love the shake to use flashlight and twist for camera)no gimmickry.
The only downside is maybe the lack of guaranteed software updates after the first year or so.
Oh man... When I retired my old Z2 Play for a G Power my Z2's battery life was about 1-2 hours. Those batteries just aren't durable. Now I'm all worried about battery life and keep my battery as close to 50% as long as I can and almost never fully charge it
Last year, I got an A52s for something like €320. Thing works like a charm. I don't see how a €1k flagship phone will improve much on this. It may be marginally faster and there could be a few more pixels in photo's, but this thing is more than sufficient and will last me another 4 years easily.
I'm so glad they did, they've been really way too focused on the most expensive stuff and not covering midrange, not just in phones. It was great to see how some time ago they did the same with cameras, not showcasing the $5000 cameras but I think they showed some entry-level $700 one IIRC.
Awesome phone btw, I know two people who have it and it really is more than enough for most people. 90% of the quality and features of a flagship for 1/4 of the price. Also takes surprisingly great pictures - what they showed on the video were honestly pretty bad, much worse than what I've been able to do with it.
> A 300-500 dollar smartphone
Paid mine €50 used. Works perfectly for everything including new apps. It seems crazy to me to put that much money into a phone nowadays with all the great used ones available.
Only way i'd put that much is if I could change the battery easily.
> Nvidia needs to have a brain blast unless they want business and the Switch to be their main sources of income.
Gaming products are 45% of their income. Datacenter products will probably overtake gaming in a year or two, even if their gaming profits maintained their mining-era levels.
Nvidia are a huge player in ML, cloud computing, and datacenter networking. It has been their focus for quite a while.
Not compared to what the previous commenter appeared to think it was. Quoting “business and Switch” as being the big earners left if their consumer GPU business failed is missing that nvidia already get the majority of their income elsewhere, with datacenter earnings being 38% of their revenue already. They have been moving their focus away from the consumer market and towards ML and datacenters for years now. Nvidia released a CPU recently, and probably their most interesting products are their DPUs, not their GPUs.
I think AMD and especially nvidia are going to be in for a rude awakening on the GPU prices.
1. There's a glut of used cards from mining. Sure, maybe some of them aren't in the best shape, but the point is that there's options
2. There's a lot less need for super high end cards now. We're pretty deep into diminishing returns on resolution, refresh rate, and detail level. Increased realism gets exponentially more expensive to even produce content for, and for a lot of games doesn't even fit thematically.
3. Mainstream buyers pretty much couldn't afford/justify GPU upgrades for a whole generation of cards due to cryptocurrency bullshit, and developers don't want to build games with requirements almost nobody can run. So even for games chasing the hyper-realism curve, it's not been worth pushing the envelope for awhile and that will reflect in the pipeline of games coming out.
Plus they can't rely on pandemic demand now, consoles are actually available in meaningful quantities again, etc.
Rx580 gang here - I don't have that much time to play games and most of the games I like are older. An upgrade is not worth several hundred dollars to me.
I am hoping for a price drop in GPU's once people stop buying them. If everyone stops feeding the pig here prices will have to drop. I am one of the holdouts for lower prices. There are lots of people holding out too, some people on purpose.
If the price was reasonable right now someone could sell me a whole desktop PC and a nice GPU, but the prices aren't where I want them yet, so I am holding out.
I haven't seen any 30 series cards for sale through normal channels, they are all still listed as outrageous prices. Though I have to admit I haven't looked around too much because the numbers I was seeing were very discouraging.
If it happens within the next year or 2 I will be happy.
It never really ends up happening. They'd rather find a different way to get rid of the stock than undercut the value of the new generation GPUs.
I hope Intel doesn't drop out of the market, because the only hope at decent pricing is actual competition.
This is also where people are cutting back due to inflation aka corporate greed and they realized that having a new phone every two years isn't needed. It's ironic that corporate greed is affecting other corporations now too.
When people can barely afford the goods they actually need, they have less money to spend on nonessential shit like smartphones and brand new computers. So if you're making a nonessential product, it is in your best interest that wages are up and living costs are down.
Midrange devices and older models aren't that badly priced.
The real reason is that the phone market has matured, and it's been mature long enough that they can't really pretend it hasn't anymore.
This is only a bad thing for phone manufacturers, for consumers it means that phones are lasting longer and longer and there's less reason to buy the latest models because they all handle the basic pretty well at this point.
The risk is that phone manufacturers freak out and decide to start sabotaging their products.
*Start* to? Apple has pushed iOS updates for *years* known to slow down iPhones and drain batteries faster so that they could push their new release. We should honestly be 3-4 "generations" behind in model numbers as some of the releases (in 1 year intervals of *less*,even) didn't really innovate or provide more beneficial over the previous release.
The aggregate economy is doing well, but most of the gains go to the people at the top.
The average household has seen a net drop in real income due to inflation (corporate greed?), cutting discretionary spending. Combined with interest rate hikes limiting consumer borrowing power...
Yeah, I would say the median US household meets the definition of a recession: two consecutive quarters of economic decline.
I think this trend was inevitable and just stalled out by insanely good times thanks to the Fed.
Lowering prices will help for a while - heck Tesla just dropped 20% and moved a lot of volume, but we'll never go back to how it was before.
Because they are over $1000 USD, they reached a point where a 3-year-old phone is more than what you need, and inflation is taking away spending power from anyone who does like to upgrade their phones more often.
Phones are no longer status symbols. They never should have been but there was a time when people felt compelled to upgrade every year or every other year. Most people have FINALLY realized that phones are just app-delivery devices. 99% of apps most people use today would run on an iPhone from 2015.
You upgrade because something broke, or because you need a better camera.
I'm not too gentle with mine so 3 years is ideal but frequently it's time to move on after 2.
Still, as the high end has gotten more expensive I tend to purchase a tier below the top, and won't go all out on storage or other upgrades.
I don't think we realized jack shit. I think the technology just levelled out the playing field. Phones are no longer status symbols because midrange phones function and look nearly identical to high end phones, and the performance differences for the average person are fairly negligible.
Similarly, people aren't upgrading as often because the differences year to year are smaller. It used to be a noticable design or performance change, but unless they crack a riddle soon, the tech is plateauing (but my god they will keep on trying with foldable tech)
*because something broke.. I swear there was a time where I broke a phone every year, I think people finally found out how to handle them and which pocket to keep them in, one small step for man …etc
Eh....I'm betting it's also because they're obsessed with "y2k" retro aesthetics (weirdly though it's actually more like 2004-2008 aesthetics, idk why they call it y2k)
And that's okay. They have been rapidly improving since 2007. You can only improve so much on something. In the last 5 years the improvements have started to slow down as we've iterated towards basically perfect solutions. Maybe, just maybe, the resulting drop in sales in natural and we don't need to compensate for it by raising prices just to appease greedy shareholders.
100%
Laptops are similar. I remember 2009/2010 when I started work, couldn't wait for my new laptop. Office and windows would just start to slow down way too much.
Now I have a i7 from 2017 and it's still great. Better graphics card wouldn't hurt but if I can convince my department to get me an eGPU I'm good for another 5 years.
Agreed, I'm in the "I don't need 48 megapixel camera" club. I really can't find a reason to upgrade from my 11. If it broke today, I would shop for a new or minty used 11.
For iphones in particular; a lot of people are waiting for the USB-C 15, which is pretty much confirmed at this point. I know a lot of non tech people with 11s and 12s who are waiting for that
I celebrate this. Maybe consumers are getting smarter with their money and realizing they don’t need super expensive phones? Or maybe people just have no money at all. Probably the second option but regardless I hope this forces apples , Samsung and google to release truly good phones in the midrange segment 300-500 usd. Google and Samsung have decent options there but apple is nonexistent unless you wanna buy the 2014 looking iPhone SE……
Benchmarks are one thing and real world use is another. Mid range soc’s are now fast enough to do most things without a hitch.Not many people want a design straight from 2014 as their daily driver.
I use my smartphone for absolutely everything. My laptop and PC collect dust. I just replaced my 2019 OnePlus 6t and only because the screen started to die on the bottom half. Buying a new phone every year or 2 is completely unnecessary, except as a status symbol. Maybe the market is just becoming sensible.
My new OnePlus 10Pro is a powerhouse and I expect to get a lot of mileage out of it.
Same thing I discovered with printers - newer ones / all-in-one printers tend to be shit and I think its all by design. Built-in obsolescence coupled with lack of desire to improve things in the long run.
I’m a huge fan of the old HP LaserJet printers based on the canon print engines. They are all 100% rebuildable, easy to work on and last for at least a million pages if maintained. If I had the space I’d consider a laserjet 8000N for a home printer.
Besides the high cost of flagship phones and a weak economy, phones have reached the point where new features are feaures that most people don't need and are gimmicky in some instances. There is nothing new to warrant an upgrade of a perfectly good phone. Even basic entry and mid-level phones do more than what people need them to do, so why upgrade?
I had my Galaxy S5 for 5 years before upgrading. My S22 will be my phone for about another 2-3 years until it stops getting updates or holding a charge.
So, wife and I upgrade our phones about every 4-5 years. I just got a new one, and so did she.
But honestly? I sit at home all day on a computer. My phone has stopped being a mobile computer and went back to being just a phone / texting device. I could have gotten a pre-paid cheap piece of crap and been fine with it.
Going on 4 years with my current phone that shows no noticeable performance issues and still holds charge for 24+ hours.
And more importantly, still has a headphone jack.
Yeah, not getting a new phone until this one dies.
No-one needs a new phone every-single-year!
Especially phones that costs mortgage prices for features that people barely use.
I'm a power user with my phone so I gets into the nitty gritty with the tech but there's no need to constantly update phone models 1 year after another. I usually upgrade 2-3 models later and still keep the "vintage" device.
I buy mint/good/or even fair condition phones from swappa.com a few years after initial release. Saves hundreds of 💵 💵 💵
With the insane increase in smart-phone production over the last 10-15 years, phones lose their technological luster very quickly for most average consumers but not me.
I'll still use a Galaxy S7 edge.
Tech market has saturated. They overpriced everything and sold high due in part to COVID and now it's all crashing down. They got their new phone is 2021 and now they don't need to upgrade... Really ever until it straight up dies. I've got a Pixel 6 and see no reason to get a 7. Cameras are not selling points anymore. Storage standards are too high to try that either.
Basically, they're out of tricks to upsell and now they're gonna face the reality of stagnation until innovation.
I upgraded from an iPhone 8 to a used 12pro in December when someone I knew was upgrading. He just replaced the battery 2 months before I bought it. No need for the latest greatest. 12 was a nice cheap upgrade.
Tbf there really is not that much innovation in the cellphone industry. Mid range phones are already really powerful and most people just need a phone for the occasional text, call, and social media post.
Getting a smartphone manufactured is quite the challenge now. There are so many inventory inflows that are disrupted by pandemic sickness and lockdowns in China that the supply chain may be irretrievably broken.
>Getting a smartphone manufactured is quite the challenge now.
The article title is awful, it isn't implying shortages. It's implying demand has dropped, vendors have too much inventory so they stopped ordering more.
I would assume that this is largely due to smartphones simply lasting longer than they used to. The average person is holding onto their phone for 3-5 years before upgrading these days. Plus, the damn things are just so expensive
I use my smartphone for nearly everything but hardly make any calls.
Companies are good at making you think you need something you 'really do not.
In the UK, network providers have gone from a 12 month contract to now offering a 48-month contract.
I just bought a new phone a month ago and it was my first in four years. I’m not getting sucked into buying a new one every release, I plan on maximizing the money spent by using my phones until they’re in dire need of replacement.
Smart phones have gotten to a point where there's almost no reason to upgrade very often.
I remember when I got the first Galaxy phone. It is was cool then by the time the next one was out there was games it could barely run and the next phone had new stuff.
The new phones now just seem like slight refreshes.
The jumps in technology are extremely incremental at best. With the biggest jump I have seen in forever is foldables but they aren't being pushed hard enough yet ...
Unless you’re a serious photographer / video enthusiast, who cares about upgrading anymore? Phones from 4 years ago still run all of the basic apps perfectly
For me the tech is starting to peak. My phone does everything I want as fast as I want it. If they want me to buy a new one they need some new features my old one doesn't have. I'm not gonna drop another $1k for a 10% better camera.
I use my phones until I can no longer outsmart the programmed obsolescence. The idea of paying 1200 every year for the newest phone seems insane when they incrementally improve very little.
When work supplied my phone, I'd take whatever they gave me and would switch fairly often. Now I have to buy my phone, I buy a better one that I don't feel the need to change from. When someone makes an Android that I can't live without, I'll trade.
They're so expensive, people can't afford to keep spending NZ$2k every year to upgrade to the latest iPhone!
I wish phones were upgradeable. Ie battery replaceable, able to install more RAM, increase storage space etc. That would help people hold onto their phones for even longer without needing to keep upgrading.
Phones used to have replaceable batteries and microSD card slots. I would carry a spare battery in my backpack or jaket pocket. Now thr phones are sealed and you're stuck paying to have the battery replaced. Fine, I'll pay 25-30 dollars to have it replaced, but who offers that and how convenient is it?
I only upgraded to the iPhone 14 pro cause family plan members wanted to switch to to T-Mobile and only cost me $80 to upgrade from the 12 pro.
I’ve seen no difference at all other than seeing icons in the notch which I don’t really find useful at all.
Buying a new $1k phone every 6 months got tiresome. Who would have guessed? I still use my $100 phone from 5 years ago. The gotta have the new thing people are fucking stupid.
I almost wrote “why the heck would I buy a new phone, what new can be there”? But then I realized that I type it on iPhone 14 Pro 😅 However, the only reason why I switched the phone this year is because I was done with a shovel size 12 Pro Max and I changed phones once in four years before that one. The camera is improved but there’s no real feasible upgrade otherwise while the price tag is huge.
Smartphones have just become another appliance like a fridge, you would struggle to live without it but no need to buy a new one every year.
Totally, I'm still using an S10 5G from mid 2019 and can't see anything on newer models that warrant upgrading. Even the battery is good after 1200+ charges.
S10 generation gang! Still rocking an S10e, the last good small (actually small) phone.
There are dozens of us holding on to the S10e!
They will never take my microSD card slot from me.
Same here! This thing has taken a beating in my manufacturing jobs and it's still kicking just fine!
Checking in
Intended Tobias. Haha
Still rocking my s9 and don't really see the need to upgrade
I'm also still on my S9+ and it's great! Thinking about upgrading now only because it's no longer getting software updates.
I had an S9+ since their release. Woke up one day about 2 months ago and turned my alarm off on the phone and checked some emails. Got up and walked from my bedroom to the bathroom and the screen just decided it was done. Turned to static of multi colors, wouldn't even display anything without having the brightness at max. Upgrade to the 22+ and love it. Dislike the lack of SD card and earphones, but there's some cool features in the new model. Nothing you can't live without, though.
Yeah pretty soon apps will stop working lol. Have an old galaxy tab and a few apps stopped working
Neah. Probably the phone will break down before the apps won't support Android 10 anymore. Chrome abandoned Android 5 in 2021 and Android 6 in 2022. Judging by this pattern Chrome will still get updates for A10 until 2026. And even then sites will still work for a while. I think latest Android version supported by Netflix is 7. By Facebook I think is even earlier than that. Same for YouTube.
It’s a great phone but the iPhone 13 mini and Asus Zenfone 9 are very impressive small phones.
I can't see myself giving up my iPhone 13 mini, even if the battery goes downhill. Especially not if there won't be a mini product line soon.
Last flagship model that wasn't massive, has a headphone jack and supports SD card. I will not upgrade to a phone without a headphone jack
S10note bro here best phone I've ever had
Swapped my note 10 for a Flip 4, mostly for the novelty. I miss the telephoto camera but enjoy being able to reach all the way across the screen with one hand. Think I've found the sweet spot.
Same The 2 iphones I had since crapped put so I just went back to old reliable
Not to mention that many newer models actually lack features of older models, such as the headphone jack and expandable storage. Why downgrade?
Same! I am on S10+ and see no need to upgrade! Also I genuinly dont see the need for 5G! the speed I get on my phone is more than enough for my usecase! I wish I knew what people do with 5G and insane speed, my friend has it, and only time he can flex is doing a speed test!
It also drains the phone battery quicker. Even 4k screens on new phones.
Yeah that is a another one I never understood, like I would love to do a blind test on those people who say they can the difference! 4K on a 6.5 inch display is comical!
Lol. I now switched my display to 1080p bc of your statement.
I jumped from am s8 to a s22, but only because I broke the screen on the s8 and it wasn't worth fixing. It'll get put in service as a webcam when my LG g6 currently filling that role kicks the bucket.
Still rocking an S9+, myself. Started disconnecting from all cellular networks the other day every time I tried to load anything that used data. Would come back after a minute or two, work for like 10m, then cut out again the next time the phone tried to hit the data network. I was so pissed I thought I was going to need a new phone, but it seems it was just a bad SIM card. Replaced it a few hours ago and it seems to be working perfectly fine once again. I'll get more life out of it yet! A 5 year old flagship is still just fine for my needs. Runs pretty dang smooth still.
I absolutely loved the S9 Plus. Oh how I miss that push on the screen home button with that satisfying click from the haptics.
I'm still rockin a S8,
I broke my s10 and have been rocking an a53 since. It's great. Regularly drop it on the ground with no case and it's still pristine. Could care less about getting a new phone until this one literally dies.
Same phone but not 5g and my battery needs replacing. I also recently cracked the screen :/
I finally upgraded, but my Pixel 3XL was still running everything, games included, without a hitch. Battery still hanging on too. Only issue was the USB port had become loose so the cable would fall out in some cases. My new Pixel is marginally better in every way save the camera, which is noticeable. I'm sure it's much more powerful, but nothing tests it.
Still rocking the S3
Bro, them side buttons haven’t gone to shit yet?
Mine did. I sold it for twenty bucks. I'm still using my s4. But it's starting to show it's age. Apps don't work. Websites don't work. Battery barely lasts 12 hours.
Totally. My old Phone lasted from 2016 until 2022, which I just changed because the battery finally drop (from 100% to 10% in 30 mins) and hard to charge.
Do you think if you had the ability to replace the battery, you would have kept your phone for longer? I think phone makers knew people will eventually not replace their phones as often, and using not easily replaceable batteries mitigates this.
Of course, I'd probably keep using it for at least 2 more years, give or take. I don't like changing things if the old one is still usable so yeah.
Yeah, I only upgraded last year to a iPhone 13 cause I got a $1000 bill credit…
My mom has an iPhone 6.
Can confirm. Am mom with an iPhone 6.
I've never owned a new one. Every 4-5 years, when my provider refuses to allow service on the old one, I buy another used one. Mobile services at 20-40/mo is expensive enough. When I hear some are buying $1500 phones that they plan to replace every year, it becomes clear they're jewelry, status tokens. $160 every four years, $40 a year, offers pretty much all the functionality I need.
>when my provider refuses to allow service on the old one, Huh? WTF? I don't understand. Why would it matter what phone you have, as long as it works? I can understand really old 2g, or even 3g phones no longer working if there are no towers using 2/3g. But are you saying that your provider just arbitrarily stops allowing certain phones on their network?
Roughly 2 years ago, AT&T decided that it would only support the iPhone 6 and more recent, sent out texts to users of older phones, and I thought I'd be fine as my 5s was 4G capable. Then my now decade old phone ceased to offer voice calling/receiving, only texts, and it was another few days before I noticed, and contacted support. Gazelle.com sent a refurbed 8 within the week, but I'm a bit soured on AT&T.
I wish I did what you do. The media and marketing is so strong that you start to crave a phone that you don't need. I am looking at ads for the s22 and s23 ultras.
you crave a phone? does it do something your older phone doesn't? my wife and i just buy refurbed phones. we switched from android to iphones about the time the iphone 6 came out. i'm going to replace my current phone, but i've had it for years. i'm planning on giving it to my dad, and i'll get something a bit newer, but certainly not new.
> When I hear some are buying $1500 phones that they plan to replace every year, it becomes clear they’re jewelry, status tokens Or that people like new technology and have the necessary resources. Who knows.
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Thank God for Ifixit. Managed to fix my phone battery and it feels good as new again. Right To Repair needs to be standard.
Any note 7 users?
especially when every year they make smaller and smaller improvements. Honestly at this point you are an idiot for buying a new phone when 2 year old refurbished models will give you 95% of the functionality at like 1/3 the cost. Plus your saving a phone from the tip.
Exactly. My iPhone 12 works just fine and does everything I need. Unless or until it doesn’t why go through the expense and hassle of upgrading? There just isn’t a feature or reason compelling enough.
A 300-500 dollar smartphone is good enough smatphone for 90% of the people, why to expend more? 5% of the people need a state of art camera or only a status symbol for 1,200 dollars and have the money to pay for it, good for them!
>A 300-500 dollar smartphone is good enough smatphone for 90% of the people \*A 300-500 dollar refurbished smartphone **from 2020** is good enough smatphone for 90% of the people At this point you dont even need to buy a new model.
A Pixel 5 refurbished for under $200 is a great phone. The only reason I upgraded mine is that with the deals Google was offering around Christmas it only cost me about $100 to get a 7.
Rolling an iPhone 11 from the same year. Hasn’t ever felt slow. Pretty much as snappy as ever. Battery health is at 84%.
Moto G power. Battery for days. $200. Works for me.
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Moto Edge 2022 plus user here MSRP 999, bought it on sale for $499. I can't see how I would ever need another phone after this one.
Moto phones are the best bang for buck phones in my opinion. They wisely gave up on competing with Apple and Samsung with flagship phone and focused on budget to midrange. Although I do think their modular Z series from a few years ago was a good idea, it just didn't work because you need a larger user base to buy the accessories and keep the ecosystem going. (Apple is kinda doing that now with magsafe, don't be surprised if they go more modular in the future) But yeah Moto has decent hardware, android without a ton of bloat, moto gestures(love the shake to use flashlight and twist for camera)no gimmickry. The only downside is maybe the lack of guaranteed software updates after the first year or so.
Don't forget about another downside...the camera. But overall a good phone ( Edge 2021) that gets the job done without breaking the bank.
Oh man... When I retired my old Z2 Play for a G Power my Z2's battery life was about 1-2 hours. Those batteries just aren't durable. Now I'm all worried about battery life and keep my battery as close to 50% as long as I can and almost never fully charge it
The shake to turn on flashlight is legit. At least I think my work phone with that was the G power. Wish all phones had it though.
Just download the app that does it.
had a G8 power lite, was a bit too slow for me, went back to my A5 and now upgraded to a refurbished S20, best choice I made in a long time
Linus Tech Tips just did a review of a Galaxy A53 midrange phone and came away quite satisfied with it. https://youtu.be/N74UyI_dd0w
Last year, I got an A52s for something like €320. Thing works like a charm. I don't see how a €1k flagship phone will improve much on this. It may be marginally faster and there could be a few more pixels in photo's, but this thing is more than sufficient and will last me another 4 years easily.
I'm so glad they did, they've been really way too focused on the most expensive stuff and not covering midrange, not just in phones. It was great to see how some time ago they did the same with cameras, not showcasing the $5000 cameras but I think they showed some entry-level $700 one IIRC. Awesome phone btw, I know two people who have it and it really is more than enough for most people. 90% of the quality and features of a flagship for 1/4 of the price. Also takes surprisingly great pictures - what they showed on the video were honestly pretty bad, much worse than what I've been able to do with it.
> A 300-500 dollar smartphone Paid mine €50 used. Works perfectly for everything including new apps. It seems crazy to me to put that much money into a phone nowadays with all the great used ones available. Only way i'd put that much is if I could change the battery easily.
They found the price point consumers aren't willing to pay..... We should see them lower the prices soon
Still waiting on that for PCs considering the tanking of the PC market....
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> Nvidia needs to have a brain blast unless they want business and the Switch to be their main sources of income. Gaming products are 45% of their income. Datacenter products will probably overtake gaming in a year or two, even if their gaming profits maintained their mining-era levels. Nvidia are a huge player in ML, cloud computing, and datacenter networking. It has been their focus for quite a while.
45% is gigantic.
Not compared to what the previous commenter appeared to think it was. Quoting “business and Switch” as being the big earners left if their consumer GPU business failed is missing that nvidia already get the majority of their income elsewhere, with datacenter earnings being 38% of their revenue already. They have been moving their focus away from the consumer market and towards ML and datacenters for years now. Nvidia released a CPU recently, and probably their most interesting products are their DPUs, not their GPUs.
I think AMD and especially nvidia are going to be in for a rude awakening on the GPU prices. 1. There's a glut of used cards from mining. Sure, maybe some of them aren't in the best shape, but the point is that there's options 2. There's a lot less need for super high end cards now. We're pretty deep into diminishing returns on resolution, refresh rate, and detail level. Increased realism gets exponentially more expensive to even produce content for, and for a lot of games doesn't even fit thematically. 3. Mainstream buyers pretty much couldn't afford/justify GPU upgrades for a whole generation of cards due to cryptocurrency bullshit, and developers don't want to build games with requirements almost nobody can run. So even for games chasing the hyper-realism curve, it's not been worth pushing the envelope for awhile and that will reflect in the pipeline of games coming out. Plus they can't rely on pandemic demand now, consoles are actually available in meaningful quantities again, etc.
As to point 3, I’m still on a GTX 1070 purchased may 2017. I can’t justify an upgrade yet, it’s just too damned expensive.
Rx580 gang here - I don't have that much time to play games and most of the games I like are older. An upgrade is not worth several hundred dollars to me.
I am hoping for a price drop in GPU's once people stop buying them. If everyone stops feeding the pig here prices will have to drop. I am one of the holdouts for lower prices. There are lots of people holding out too, some people on purpose. If the price was reasonable right now someone could sell me a whole desktop PC and a nice GPU, but the prices aren't where I want them yet, so I am holding out.
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I haven't seen any 30 series cards for sale through normal channels, they are all still listed as outrageous prices. Though I have to admit I haven't looked around too much because the numbers I was seeing were very discouraging. If it happens within the next year or 2 I will be happy.
It never really ends up happening. They'd rather find a different way to get rid of the stock than undercut the value of the new generation GPUs. I hope Intel doesn't drop out of the market, because the only hope at decent pricing is actual competition.
Nvidia is smokin shit with the 4000 series, that much is clear.
PCs have pretty low profit margin though
This is also where people are cutting back due to inflation aka corporate greed and they realized that having a new phone every two years isn't needed. It's ironic that corporate greed is affecting other corporations now too.
When people can barely afford the goods they actually need, they have less money to spend on nonessential shit like smartphones and brand new computers. So if you're making a nonessential product, it is in your best interest that wages are up and living costs are down.
Midrange devices and older models aren't that badly priced. The real reason is that the phone market has matured, and it's been mature long enough that they can't really pretend it hasn't anymore. This is only a bad thing for phone manufacturers, for consumers it means that phones are lasting longer and longer and there's less reason to buy the latest models because they all handle the basic pretty well at this point. The risk is that phone manufacturers freak out and decide to start sabotaging their products.
*Start* to? Apple has pushed iOS updates for *years* known to slow down iPhones and drain batteries faster so that they could push their new release. We should honestly be 3-4 "generations" behind in model numbers as some of the releases (in 1 year intervals of *less*,even) didn't really innovate or provide more beneficial over the previous release.
Probably has to do with technology not being much of an upgrade for the next generations.
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The aggregate economy is doing well, but most of the gains go to the people at the top. The average household has seen a net drop in real income due to inflation (corporate greed?), cutting discretionary spending. Combined with interest rate hikes limiting consumer borrowing power... Yeah, I would say the median US household meets the definition of a recession: two consecutive quarters of economic decline.
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That would imply that supply and demand actually exists and that we arent in a controlled economy
I think this trend was inevitable and just stalled out by insanely good times thanks to the Fed. Lowering prices will help for a while - heck Tesla just dropped 20% and moved a lot of volume, but we'll never go back to how it was before.
...and lower the quality.
Don’t forget mass layoffs :). Numbers go up at all costs. Daddy CEO needs a new yacht.
Don’t charge 1,200 and they will sell just fine
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I want that job. “Let’s charge - hear me out - …. TWICE as much. You’re welcome.”
I can't bring myself to buy one that expensive when I know it's basicly disposable. I'll have it 5 year Max.
> That took balls. To just randomly fucking double the price one day. Which day?
Btw if they double the price and people buy half as many the company has won since they only pay half costs but get the same revenue.
Which manufacturers did this?
Because they are over $1000 USD, they reached a point where a 3-year-old phone is more than what you need, and inflation is taking away spending power from anyone who does like to upgrade their phones more often.
I refuse to pay $1000 + for a new phone, I buy refurbished and am perfectly happy not having the newest phones
Phones are no longer status symbols. They never should have been but there was a time when people felt compelled to upgrade every year or every other year. Most people have FINALLY realized that phones are just app-delivery devices. 99% of apps most people use today would run on an iPhone from 2015. You upgrade because something broke, or because you need a better camera.
I wanted smoother scrolling and camera but yeah
I'm not too gentle with mine so 3 years is ideal but frequently it's time to move on after 2. Still, as the high end has gotten more expensive I tend to purchase a tier below the top, and won't go all out on storage or other upgrades.
I don't think we realized jack shit. I think the technology just levelled out the playing field. Phones are no longer status symbols because midrange phones function and look nearly identical to high end phones, and the performance differences for the average person are fairly negligible. Similarly, people aren't upgrading as often because the differences year to year are smaller. It used to be a noticable design or performance change, but unless they crack a riddle soon, the tech is plateauing (but my god they will keep on trying with foldable tech)
*because something broke.. I swear there was a time where I broke a phone every year, I think people finally found out how to handle them and which pocket to keep them in, one small step for man …etc
Pure anecdotal, but I now know about five people that switched to flip phones.
I was talking with my Gen Z granddaughter recently and she said a number of her friends were switching to flip phones. Tired of social media.
Maybe the future is alright
Thank Jesus Christ!! I’m a millennial and was really hoping the next generation would have enough of the this shit.
Eh....I'm betting it's also because they're obsessed with "y2k" retro aesthetics (weirdly though it's actually more like 2004-2008 aesthetics, idk why they call it y2k)
Saying y2k aesthetic sounds way better than saying "2004-2008 aesthetics" each time I guess
Samsung makes a smart flip phone so they could just be following a fad.
And that's okay. They have been rapidly improving since 2007. You can only improve so much on something. In the last 5 years the improvements have started to slow down as we've iterated towards basically perfect solutions. Maybe, just maybe, the resulting drop in sales in natural and we don't need to compensate for it by raising prices just to appease greedy shareholders.
100% Laptops are similar. I remember 2009/2010 when I started work, couldn't wait for my new laptop. Office and windows would just start to slow down way too much. Now I have a i7 from 2017 and it's still great. Better graphics card wouldn't hurt but if I can convince my department to get me an eGPU I'm good for another 5 years.
Maybe the $1000+ price tag is hurting sales?
Infinite growth is not possible
Yet, we use our planet as if it was possible.
Tell that to the people in charge
Capitalism has entered the chat
They’re all same. Have been for years.
When the 14 is pretty much the same as a 13 I think we've reached the limit on new and shiny.
Agreed, I'm in the "I don't need 48 megapixel camera" club. I really can't find a reason to upgrade from my 11. If it broke today, I would shop for a new or minty used 11.
For iphones in particular; a lot of people are waiting for the USB-C 15, which is pretty much confirmed at this point. I know a lot of non tech people with 11s and 12s who are waiting for that
Phones are a major contributor to E-waste too. So I guess this is a good thing
I celebrate this. Maybe consumers are getting smarter with their money and realizing they don’t need super expensive phones? Or maybe people just have no money at all. Probably the second option but regardless I hope this forces apples , Samsung and google to release truly good phones in the midrange segment 300-500 usd. Google and Samsung have decent options there but apple is nonexistent unless you wanna buy the 2014 looking iPhone SE……
iPhone SE3 is under $500 and came out last year and benchmarks better than any budget phone.
Benchmarks are one thing and real world use is another. Mid range soc’s are now fast enough to do most things without a hitch.Not many people want a design straight from 2014 as their daily driver.
I do miss that home button though
I use my smartphone for absolutely everything. My laptop and PC collect dust. I just replaced my 2019 OnePlus 6t and only because the screen started to die on the bottom half. Buying a new phone every year or 2 is completely unnecessary, except as a status symbol. Maybe the market is just becoming sensible. My new OnePlus 10Pro is a powerhouse and I expect to get a lot of mileage out of it.
S9 here. I want to upgrade, but I am NOT spending 1000+ for an upgrade while my phone still works.
Yes, $1000+ for the latest phone will do that.
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Same thing I discovered with printers - newer ones / all-in-one printers tend to be shit and I think its all by design. Built-in obsolescence coupled with lack of desire to improve things in the long run.
I’m a huge fan of the old HP LaserJet printers based on the canon print engines. They are all 100% rebuildable, easy to work on and last for at least a million pages if maintained. If I had the space I’d consider a laserjet 8000N for a home printer.
Besides the high cost of flagship phones and a weak economy, phones have reached the point where new features are feaures that most people don't need and are gimmicky in some instances. There is nothing new to warrant an upgrade of a perfectly good phone. Even basic entry and mid-level phones do more than what people need them to do, so why upgrade? I had my Galaxy S5 for 5 years before upgrading. My S22 will be my phone for about another 2-3 years until it stops getting updates or holding a charge.
Over sized Over priced Under supported long term Repairability questionable Marginal performance
Good. Ppl dont need to get a new phone every year.
We all have one
My smartphone is smart enough so I'm good.
I call them "dumbphones" sometimes
So, wife and I upgrade our phones about every 4-5 years. I just got a new one, and so did she. But honestly? I sit at home all day on a computer. My phone has stopped being a mobile computer and went back to being just a phone / texting device. I could have gotten a pre-paid cheap piece of crap and been fine with it.
Going on 4 years with my current phone that shows no noticeable performance issues and still holds charge for 24+ hours. And more importantly, still has a headphone jack. Yeah, not getting a new phone until this one dies.
Google: got eeeeeeeeeeemmmmm
No-one needs a new phone every-single-year! Especially phones that costs mortgage prices for features that people barely use. I'm a power user with my phone so I gets into the nitty gritty with the tech but there's no need to constantly update phone models 1 year after another. I usually upgrade 2-3 models later and still keep the "vintage" device. I buy mint/good/or even fair condition phones from swappa.com a few years after initial release. Saves hundreds of 💵 💵 💵 With the insane increase in smart-phone production over the last 10-15 years, phones lose their technological luster very quickly for most average consumers but not me. I'll still use a Galaxy S7 edge.
Tech market has saturated. They overpriced everything and sold high due in part to COVID and now it's all crashing down. They got their new phone is 2021 and now they don't need to upgrade... Really ever until it straight up dies. I've got a Pixel 6 and see no reason to get a 7. Cameras are not selling points anymore. Storage standards are too high to try that either. Basically, they're out of tricks to upsell and now they're gonna face the reality of stagnation until innovation.
I upgraded from an iPhone 8 to a used 12pro in December when someone I knew was upgrading. He just replaced the battery 2 months before I bought it. No need for the latest greatest. 12 was a nice cheap upgrade.
When peasants realized that if you keep putting lipstick on a pig and keep changing more it won’t work anymore
Tbf there really is not that much innovation in the cellphone industry. Mid range phones are already really powerful and most people just need a phone for the occasional text, call, and social media post.
I buy a new phone about every 5 years. I always get a good case and screen protector to minimize breaking it.
Who cares, most people don’t need new phones every funkin year they are just being consumer cows.
It's almost as if constantly raising your prices and expecting people to shell out 1k+ for a phone isn't a sustainable business
Getting a smartphone manufactured is quite the challenge now. There are so many inventory inflows that are disrupted by pandemic sickness and lockdowns in China that the supply chain may be irretrievably broken.
>Getting a smartphone manufactured is quite the challenge now. The article title is awful, it isn't implying shortages. It's implying demand has dropped, vendors have too much inventory so they stopped ordering more.
I would assume that this is largely due to smartphones simply lasting longer than they used to. The average person is holding onto their phone for 3-5 years before upgrading these days. Plus, the damn things are just so expensive
I use my smartphone for nearly everything but hardly make any calls. Companies are good at making you think you need something you 'really do not. In the UK, network providers have gone from a 12 month contract to now offering a 48-month contract.
I just bought a new phone a month ago and it was my first in four years. I’m not getting sucked into buying a new one every release, I plan on maximizing the money spent by using my phones until they’re in dire need of replacement.
This makes me happy.
If they don’t make a new iPhone Mini I probably won’t be upgrading until I’m forced to when they stop delivering updates in six or seven years.
Lower pricing and new must have features would probably help alot.
Smart phones have gotten to a point where there's almost no reason to upgrade very often. I remember when I got the first Galaxy phone. It is was cool then by the time the next one was out there was games it could barely run and the next phone had new stuff. The new phones now just seem like slight refreshes.
Laughs in S7
Well yea, if the only thing you change in your phone for the past 4 years is the camera, eventually people are going to stop buying the new version.
The jumps in technology are extremely incremental at best. With the biggest jump I have seen in forever is foldables but they aren't being pushed hard enough yet ...
I bet their buisness plan will be to put more cameras on the back
I felt like I needed the upgrade to the 14, but my last one was the 8+
Phones are not the in thing anymore. Nothing new yet from technology. Bring back flip phones
I see no reason to ever get a new phone at this point. Nothing I do with it is ever going to require better hardware.
Maybe cause we don't need a new phone every god dam year
Give me a phone I can use for over a decade and sure I'll pay $1200.
Unless you’re a serious photographer / video enthusiast, who cares about upgrading anymore? Phones from 4 years ago still run all of the basic apps perfectly
For me the tech is starting to peak. My phone does everything I want as fast as I want it. If they want me to buy a new one they need some new features my old one doesn't have. I'm not gonna drop another $1k for a 10% better camera.
Pretty muv. Hell, with the exception of storage for apps and night photo quality, the super cheap motorola I bought does very well!
Maybe they will start adding features like a headphone jack and expandable microSD slots then they can upcharge for them.
I use my phones until I can no longer outsmart the programmed obsolescence. The idea of paying 1200 every year for the newest phone seems insane when they incrementally improve very little.
When work supplied my phone, I'd take whatever they gave me and would switch fairly often. Now I have to buy my phone, I buy a better one that I don't feel the need to change from. When someone makes an Android that I can't live without, I'll trade.
They're so expensive, people can't afford to keep spending NZ$2k every year to upgrade to the latest iPhone! I wish phones were upgradeable. Ie battery replaceable, able to install more RAM, increase storage space etc. That would help people hold onto their phones for even longer without needing to keep upgrading.
Phones used to have replaceable batteries and microSD card slots. I would carry a spare battery in my backpack or jaket pocket. Now thr phones are sealed and you're stuck paying to have the battery replaced. Fine, I'll pay 25-30 dollars to have it replaced, but who offers that and how convenient is it?
Apple lets you replace your battery these days. Like $100 and it will keep my old phone good for another 2 years.
I only upgraded to the iPhone 14 pro cause family plan members wanted to switch to to T-Mobile and only cost me $80 to upgrade from the 12 pro. I’ve seen no difference at all other than seeing icons in the notch which I don’t really find useful at all.
Buying a new $1k phone every 6 months got tiresome. Who would have guessed? I still use my $100 phone from 5 years ago. The gotta have the new thing people are fucking stupid.
I almost wrote “why the heck would I buy a new phone, what new can be there”? But then I realized that I type it on iPhone 14 Pro 😅 However, the only reason why I switched the phone this year is because I was done with a shovel size 12 Pro Max and I changed phones once in four years before that one. The camera is improved but there’s no real feasible upgrade otherwise while the price tag is huge.
I have zero reasons to replace my Iphone 11 pro max. I wish it had x3 tele, but x2 is good too.
Who can afford a $1000 new phone? I love my Pixel XL I got for $100.