What's the point of buying new phones every years?

Other than your carrier give it for free or cheap, I don’t really see the reason why should you buy new phone. I’ve been using Redmi Note 9 for past 3 years and recently got my had on Poco F5. I don’t see the point of my ‘upgrade’. I sold it and come back to my Note 9. Gaming? Most of them are p2w or microtransaction garbage or just gimped version of its PC/Console counterpart. I mean, $400 still get you PS4, TV and Switch if you don’t mind buying used. At least here where I live. Storage? Dude, newer phone wont even let you have SD Card. Features? Well, all I see is newer phones take more features than it adds. Headphone jack, more ads, and repairability are to name a few. Battery? Just replace them. However, my Note 9 still get through day with one 80% charge in the dawn. Which takes 1 hour.

I am genuinely curious why newer phone always selling like hot cakes. Since there’s virtually no difference between 4gb of RAM and 12gb of RAM, or 12mp camera and 100mp camera on phone.

Fluid, (edited )
@Fluid@aussie.zone avatar

Because they welded the one consumable that needs replacement to force you to buy new every few years: the battery

jemorgan,

I don’t think a phone where the battery is welded to the body exists.

I know you’re probably being hyperbolic, but sealing a phone’s body construction to make it waterproof is very different from ‘welding’ the battery in.

Fluid,
@Fluid@aussie.zone avatar

The point is that virtually every mobile on the market has a non-replaceable battery, and that’s a huge factor driving over-consumption via planned obsolescence.

Catch42,
@Catch42@kbin.social avatar

They do? That sucks. I've only had iPhones and have gotten the battery replaced in both of them. It's increased the lifespan of my phones by a couple of years, but it doesn't double it. I usually start to sick of my hardware after about 5 years.

CmdrShepard,

Your iPhone is the same and requires you to take it to a service center and pay someone else to do something that we’d been doing ourselves in 5 seconds for the previous 30 years.

jemorgan,

The person you’re replying to is trying to push the narrative that modern smartphones (iPhones in particular) have bodies that are sealed with adhesive in order to force people to upgrade sooner, instead of to provide waterproofing/dustproofing.

That claim makes no sense in light of how Apple meaningfully supports phones for significantly longer than any other major OEM and goes to great lengths to preserve the usability of older devices. That doesn’t deter people from making that claim because they’d much rather believe apple bad, and other phone manufacturers bad because they’re trying to copy apple.

Inb4 but x phone from 2016 had a removable backplate and was “waterproof,” or but y phone with 0.01% market share is serviceable with a spudger and is “waterproof”.

Fluid,
@Fluid@aussie.zone avatar

Apple literally admitted it engages in planned obsolescence practices and has been fined in multiple jurisdictions for doing so.

Not sure why you feel the need to support shady business practices. There are designs that achieve waterproofing/dustproofing while still enabling replaceability. The obvious question then is why would the majority of manufacturers choose a design approach which restricts replaceability?

jemorgan,

Gosh, that narrative is one of the most pea-brained things that I’ve seen circulating on the internet in my lifetime.

As the link you provided clearly states, apple was fined for not disclosing to users that iOS was underclicking the CPUs on phones that had batteries that were too degraded to provide the required power consistently under heavy load.

Anyone who used an Android phone from that era can tell you about how a >12 month old phone would start randomly powering off between 10% and 30% remaining charge. When a lithium ion battery degrades, it’s no longer able to output its original nominal voltage in a sustained way. Instead, I’ll output the requested voltage, then suddenly the voltage will drop. When the CPU in an older phone was under heavy load, it would put heavy load on the battery, and the battery would fail to provide consistent voltage, which would cause the phone to power off.

On the Android side of things, we could try to replace the battery if we knew that was the issue, but most people would just feel pressured to buy a new phone.

The obvious solution to that problem is just to undervolt the phone’s CPU if the battery isn’t capable of providing consistent peak voltage. Doing this is objectively the opposite of planned obsolescence, it lets people use older phones reliably for longer.

Ironically, a small minority of weirdos are so desperate to hate Apple that they spun a feature that’s obviously intended to increase the longevity of an iPhone into an entire narrative about apple slowing your phone down to get you to buy another one. Which doesn’t stand up to scrutiny, because not undervolting the CPU in a phone where the battery can’t provide consistent peak voltage is way more likely to push people to want to replace it.

I hate consumerism and mega corporations way more than most, and I’m definitely not suggesting that Apple is any kind of moral or ethical company. They’re a company that exists to maximize profits at the expense of anything else, on the backs of exploited workers.

But when the most widespread complaints about a company are things that make the complainers look like idiots who are desperately searching for something to complain about regardless of how disconnected from reality it is, it makes it seem like there aren’t any legitimate complaints about the company. If I were wearing my tinfoil hat, I’d be inclined to speculate about whether that’s actually intentional. The ‘Apple is slowing down my phone to make me buy a new battery’ narrative is so ridiculous that I can almost believe that Apple’s behind it to draw attention away from valid criticisms.

CmdrShepard,

Gaskets, o-rings, and screws exist. The waterproof argument is a weak one that doesn’t hold water. There’s no reason why it needs to be glued together and past phones have had waterproofing with a removable back and replaceable battery.

jemorgan,

Yeah I’m sure you’re more informed of the engineering trade-offs with regard to smartphone manufacturing than literally every major smartphone manufacturer.

blackbrook,

Yeah I’m sure phone companies communicate engineering truth to us, and not what their marketing departments find most in their interest.

jemorgan,

Of course they don’t, I’m not saying anything about what phone companies communicate, I’m talking about what they do.

The smartphone market is extremely competitive, they are very highly motivated to find the most efficient way to engineer a device that maximizes consumers’ purchasing preferences.

A world class product team produces a design that matches customers’ preferences according to world class market research. World class engineers figure out how to maximize features that satisfy those preferences. That virtually always involves trade-offs.

When one company does a better job of maximizing features that match consumer demands, their market share goes up.

When a company focuses on maximizing features that a vocal minority of users want, they struggle to move units.

It’s not some conspiracy to provide inferior products, it’s just capitalism being capitalism. Companies make what people will buy.

blackbrook,

Marketers do not just passively give users what they already want. They also manipulate what users want. This isn’t some conspiracy theory, the marketing discipline is quite open about this. When something is in the interest of the company making more profit, they convince users that it is in their own interest. This is just capitalism being capitalism. Not being able to easily replace your battery is as clear an example of such a thing as you could ask for.

jemorgan,

Except it’s not, you just live in an echo chamber where people endlessly repeat the misconception that the average consumer as any interest in replacing their own battery. They don’t. Marketers aren’t manipulating millions of people into thinking they don’t, either.

If companies like Apple wanted to force people to upgrade, all they would have to do is stoop to the level of the competition by not offering 6 years of OS upgrades on new phones. Or they could not offer first-party, warrantied battery replacements for ~90 dollars. Honestly, apple constantly goes out of their way to make their devices last longer than the competition, and still the bigbrains on Internet forums walk around with their heads in the sand.

You go ahead and do you homie, nobody is going to be able to change your mind from something you’re so desperate to believe.

CmdrShepard,

Implying manufacturers want us to be able to repair our devices more easily yet can’t design them that way because of some impossible feat of engineering required to add an o-ring and some screws? Give me a break dude. None of this is groundbreaking territory.

jemorgan,

That’s not what I’m implying at all.

Manufacturers want to give consumers a device that meets consumers’ purchasing requirements better than their competitors’ products do.

They only want us to be able to repair our phones inasmuch as consumers will buy more easily repairable phones instead of more tightly sealed phones, which is absolutely not the case. Sealed phones consistently sell waaay more than non-sealed phones, likely because they can be slightly thinner with marginally larger batteries. Every once in a while an OEM will release a phone that has a hot-swappable battery, but nobody outside of niche online electronics communities cares.

What I’m debating is the idea that there’s some nefarious conspiracy to withhold hot-swappable batteries from consumers to force them to upgrade their phones. That’s ridiculous. OEMs make sealed phones instead of easily disassemblable phones because consumers buy sealed phones instead of disassemblable ones when given the choice.

And it’s not that hard to figure out why, honestly. Personally, I would rather take my phone to an Apple Store and have them swap the battery for what I can be certain is an OEM replacement for $90 than spend $50 on eBay on a probably fake battery, take time out of my day to swap it myself, and assume the liability in the event of an improper seal. And consumer purchasing patterns show that I’m in the company of the majority of phone buyers in the US.

CmdrShepard,

Sealed phones consistently sell waaay more than non-sealed phones

OEMs make sealed phones instead of easily disassemblable phones because consumers buy sealed phones instead of disassemblable ones when given the choice.

Give some examples of the phones you’re referring to here because I’d bet you’re referring to recent phones like the XCover Pro which use ancient hardware that appeals to nobody.

For 30 years, manufacturers sold phones with replaceable batteries and consumers gobbled them all up with nobody demanding that they instead glue phones together.

You claim phones are thinner when glued yet my Note 4 from 2014 is thinner than my current Galaxy S21 Ultra even though the former had a removable back and replacable battery.

The reason why they’ve all gone to sealed phones is because they ran out of innovative ideas years ago with the yearly release cycle and have now resorted to raising revenue by making phones harder to repair yourself, removing accessories, locking down firmware, and building them with more fragile materials. It’s the same enshittification that we’re now seeing in social media and streaming services. Don’t fall for the marketing propaganda that these companies are pushing because it’s all bullshit.

jemorgan,

My guy, you’ve got absolutely no idea what you’re talking about and it’s embarrassing.

Manufacturers used to sell phones that you had to have plugged into the wall at your house, and consumers gobbled them up. The market has innovated, and now consumers expect something different. How is “consumers used to buy x when it was all that was available so obviously they must prefer it over y” anywhere close to a rational argument?

My claim was that phones are thinner with bigger batteries. Your s21 ultra has a 5000 mAh battery, the note 4 had 3200 mAh battery. The s21 ultra has a much bigger battery in a smaller footprint.

The smartphone market is insanely competitive, if any manufacturer were deliberately making their phones worse, other manufacturers would be capitalizing on that and taking their market share. Phones are easier to repair today than they were 3-5 years ago, you can check out the ifixit repairability scores if you want. Phone firmware is no more locked down now than it has been in the past, unless you’re specifically talking about how much worst modern pixels are than they and nexus’s were in the past. I don’t know about Androids since 2020, since that’s when I switched, but the steel bezels and flat glass on iPhones since the 12 pro make them FAR more durable than any phone I’ve used. Haven’t had my phone in a case for 3 years, and there have been a handful of times it’s fallen out of my pocket while getting into my truck. The stainless bezel doesn’t deform like aluminum, so side impacts aren’t transferred to the glass. Countless drop tests corroborate this.

You think phones are getting worse because you want to think that, despite the objective reality. You personally want a feature set that’s not widely popular, and you’re mad about it. Which I actually totally get.

CmdrShepard,

and now consumers expect something different.

So your argument is that consumers expect their batteries to be glued inside the phone because it’s “something different?” That doesn’t make much sense.

How is “consumers used to buy x when it was all that was available so obviously they must prefer it over y” anywhere close to a rational argument?

That’s the argument you made in your previous comment, that people are buying up phones with sealed batteries because that’s what they want even though that’s the only option available. I’m still waiting for your examples of two comparable phones being sold at the same time, one with a sealed battery and one without and the sealed phone selling better. I suppose you skipped over that because it’s never happened.

The s21 ultra has a much bigger battery in a smaller footprint.

You claimed that phones are thinner now because they’re sealed. The S21 Ultra is larger than the Note 4 in every dimension. It has a larger footprint to accommodate the larger battery.

If any manufacturer were deliberately making their phones worse, other manufacturers would be capitalizing on that and taking their market share.

Based on what? There is barely any competition these days. Two companies control a majority of the market.

Phones are easier to repair today than they were 3-5 years ago

So what? Phones were much easier to repair 5+ years ago. Why did you choose 2018 as your cutoff when smartphones existed for an entire decade prior to that?

Phone firmware is no more locked down now than it has been in the past

False. Most phones can’t be rooted these days when it used to be a common thing.

the steel bezels and flat glass on iPhones since the 12 pro make them FAR more durable than any phone I’ve used.

Well based on your prior comments, I’m assuming you’re fairly young and didn’t have a smartphone prior to sometime around 2018. I’ve had smartphones since the original Android on the HTC G1 and it wasn’t until getting my S21 Ultra that I’ve had to buy a case since Samsung and Apple decided to encase their phones in glass. I’d hate to break it to you but glass is not in fact a durable substance. I still have my 9 year old plastic and aluminum Note 4 running with zero damage and it never once lived in a case and has been dropped hard enough to leave gouges in the aluminum. That isn’t possible with glass encased phones regardless of how much you want it to be true. Deformed aluminum was an issue with the iPhone because they cheaped out on the materials and made them so thin that you could fold the phone in half with your fingers.

I think smartphones are getting worse because I’ve been using them for 16 years and can tell the difference. I’m sure if all you use your phone for is checking social media and snapping photos of your lunch for Instagram, you wouldn’t notice the difference, but some of us actually want more out of a $1500 computer.

jemorgan,

Consumers used to expect their phones to be attached to the wall with a wire, the market innovated, now their expectations are different.

… which is exactly what I just said, but you’re apparently dead set on interpreting every bit of information you run into in a way that supports your worldview, which honestly is consistent with your whole argument here.

You presumably have access to the internet, you’re capable of doing 10 minutes of research for yourself to find the numerous phones released in the past 5 years that have easily serviceable batteries. I could not care less if you do so or not. I’ve had this exact conversation half a dozen times, I already know what that list will look like. If you want to know what the list looks like, you can do the work yourself, I don’t care either way.

The s21 ultra has more mAh per cubic mm of phone, which is a more explicit way to say more battery in a smaller size. Regardless of that, the fact that you’re resorting to pedantry shows me that you know that you can’t respond to my point in a meaningful way. I claimed that sealing smartphone internals allows manufacturers to fit larger batteries in smaller form factors, the fact that a phone with a 30% larger battery is 5% bigger than another phone isn’t a refutation if that.

There’s plenty of competition globally, but less so in the US. Regardless, there was a ton of competition when smartphones first started having sealed internals. Interestingly, the two manufacturers that leaned the hardest into sealing the biggest possible battery in the smallest possible footprint are the two manufacturers that currently dominate the market, which is another point against you.

5 years was an arbitrary number highlighting the fact that manufactures are trying to make phones more repairable within the same dimensional constraints, which would not be the case if they had an agenda to force people to upgrade by making phones less repairable. Again, your only response to my argument is pedantry.

And finally, thanks for yet another wildly off-base assumption. I’m a 32 year old SWE who works in mobile app development. I’ve had probably a dozen android phones over the past 15 years. I could enthrall you with anecdotes about how much more durable a modern iPhone is than any flagship android phone that’s been made, but I don’t have to. There are plenty of reasonably high quality drop tests that paint an objective picture.

Smartphones are immeasurably better than they were in the past. They’re faster, have multiple days of battery life, have incredible displays, and vastly better software.

I am certain that you don’t use smartphones in any way that’s more demanding than the way I use smartphones, so you can take that whole condescending monologue and shove it right back where it came from.

Saneless,

I’ve had a waterproof phone with a removable battery. It’s not crazy. Within the last 6 years or so even

narwhal,

Samsung galaxy s5 👍

MystikIncarnate,

They’ve been a “not user serviceable” component since before phones got water proofing.

Additionally plenty of things can be disassembled with screws and such, that are waterproof… Watches come to mind.

The fact that they’re making it impossible for we the people and owners of the products, to change the battery isn’t a technological limitation, nor a practical one. They did it so people will be forced to seek help to get a new battery, at which time, the vendor/carrier/whomever, can simply upsell the end user.

They did it to sell more phones. If you believe anything other than that, I have some land in Alaska to sell you.

jemorgan,

Yeah, of course they did it to sell more phones. Phone OEMs sell more units when the units are as compact and water/dust proof as possible. Sealing phones with adhesive maximizes both of those metrics, with virtually no (non-hypothetical) trade-off to the vast majority of users.

Maximizing profits by maximizing the characteristics of smartphones that customers care about is not only a perfect explanation for sealed internals, but it’s the only explanation that stands up to any amount of critical thinking.

The “they want to force you to upgrade” narrative is popular because people want to believe it. I mean, obviously they want you to upgrade, but they also know that consumers are more likely to buy their products over competitors’ if the product has a reputation for longevity. Which is why OEMs like Apple support their devices for as long as they do, and even tailor software to provide a consistent experience with a degraded battery. If they wanted to plan for there devices to become unusable after a certain time, it would be a lot more straightforward for them to just stop doing the things they’re doing to make sure devices are usable for 5+ years.

burndown,

This is so pedantic and competely misses the point.

jemorgan,

The literal second sentence of my comment clearly demonstrates that I understand the point that the other commenter was making, that I’m aware that they’re being hyperbolic, and gives a direct response to the point being made.

If you can’t manage reading past the first dozen words of a comment, maybe you’d be better served by keeping your reply to yourself.

LimitedBrain,
@LimitedBrain@beehaw.org avatar

Luckily for us Americans, the Europeans have their head on straight and can force companies to fix this by the end of the decade. So that’ll be nice at least

oxjox,
@oxjox@lemmy.ml avatar

It used to be that a new phone came with a relatively substantial new feature set. People have become accustomed to this and businesses have been built around this. At this point, it’s mostly about consumerism.

I’m still rocking an iPhone 12 Mini without the slightest hiccup as well as an original iPhone SE as my main music player. I used to be the person who got every new phone because there used to be such a jump in performance and hardware features. Now I have no reason to upgrade at all. Honestly, I’d love to get rid of my phone all together and just use an iPad, Apple Watch, and my camera and journal.

theragu40,

Yeah this is really it. The answer is that there used to be significant technical reasons to do so. Technology improved enough each year that last year’s phones were really showing age.

At this point even basic phones are so fast and so feature rich that no one except niche groups needs anything faster than what came out several years ago. Everything basic like watching videos, maps, internet browsing, and messaging works perfectly fine on anything.

So the reasons shifted to renewing battery life and OS updates. Which are both at least somewhat artificial since manufactures could easily implement longer updates or replaceable batteries.

NENathaniel,

I like having high-end cameras and screens on my phones.

I keep my phones in excellent condition and sell them whenever I upgrade, which doesn’t make it a crazy expensive process.

SeaJ,

I finally dropped my S10e too many times. I tried switching to my backup phone which was a Pixel 2 but it is pretty limited in terms of bands for my carrier. So I bought a Pixel 6a. I would love a Zenfone 9 but it is a tad pricey.

Would I have upgraded of my phone hadn’t died? Probably. It stopped receiving security updates. The battery was starting to not last all day. There were some things it was starting to get slow on. The camera was okay in good lighting but shit in bad lighting.

Newer phones are not actually selling all that well. Still good but there aren’t really likes it the door on release day like there used to be. People are keeping their phones for a lot longer now or opting for midrange ones.

MythicWolf,

I drop my phone so often that how easy or hard it is to replace the screen on my own and how cheap a replacement is factors onto deciding to buy a phone.

jordanlund,
@jordanlund@lemmy.one avatar

The big reason is updates. Phones will only get Android and security updates for so long. After that point, you buy a new phone or run the risk of being exposed.

cuppaconcrete,
@cuppaconcrete@aussie.zone avatar

Yeah I should bite the bullet and get a Pixel, they normally get the longest updates support or am I wrong? This habit of going for a budget phone and it becoming unusable/unsafe after 3 years is just a hidden cost I’m in denial over 😞

Mr_Vortex,

The Pixels get 3 years of major version upgrades and 5 years of security updates from Google. After that point if the battery is still working well enough for you, you could always try installing something like Graphene OS on it.

Double_A,
@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

Yeah but not one year. Even the shittiest brand will give you security updates for at least 3 years.

dan,
@dan@upvote.au avatar

I don’t understand it either. The only reason I upgraded from my Galaxy S10 was because the USB port no longer worked. I could still charge it via wireless charging, but it was annoying not being able to plug it into my car to use Google Maps. If the USB port didn’t break, I’d probably still be using the old S10.

UnelectedReimu,

I bought a Redmi Note 11 pro last year and it’s a great phone! Really though, buying new phones every year is something only well off people can afford (or people who are ok getting into lots of credit card debt). There really is no point right now, newer phones just aren’t that much better and in fact smartphone sales worldwide are slowing down exactly because everyone who wants a good enough smartphone already has one. My current phone does absolutely everything I need, in fact it’s much more powerful than my first laptop ever was, I can emulate most retro consoles, watch uhd videos, use any app I need, listen to all the music I want, I can even do things like use microsoft office on it. I don’t need a new one, this works just perfect for me. The only thing that would make it better is to get it rooted so I can install a custom rom and get rid of xiaomi’s bloatware infested android rom

AdmiralShat,

I buy used flagships.

A 1.5 year old flagship costs the same as a brand new midrange phone, but is significantly better.

I just got a S21 Ultra for cheaper than I would have paid for an A54. (Also Exynos is hot fucking garbage. I wanted to get away from Samsung altogether, but the price on this made sense and I has a snapdragon. Significantly better)

Tom_bishop,

I follow my life rule of changing phone every 5 years. But my phone broke and become unusable after 4 years. Was xiaomi user for yrs, i bought s23 ultra now as xiaomi prices became expansive. Buy good phone mainly for the picture quality.

VioletteRei,
@VioletteRei@lemmy.world avatar

Also have a S23 Ultra because my old one died, the picture quality is incredible. I know i’ll keep this phone for at least 5 years too

alsivx,
@alsivx@feddit.it avatar

My current phone is 6. I have changed battery once. The only problem is internal memory.

burningquestion,

The only real argument I’d make is that most manufacturers only push out security updates for a given model for a couple of years, but different companies have different support timelines.

fidodo,

The only feature that motivated me to upgrade to my latest phone was a much better camera and I wanted that for traveling.

where_am_i,

The world around you uses Instagram daily. They do need a better camera and all the AI photo enhancement filters. Plus, consumerism, you know.

Other than that, there’s no technical reason to buy anything better than what flafhsips were a few years back. I have one and it’s constantly underutilized.

I mean, maybe 5G or wifi 6 could be a reason to migrate.

aliceblossom,

maybe 5G or wifi 6

This is why we need phones with swappable modules. I’m pretty sure my current phone could last for decades if I could replace it’s radio equipment to keep up with modern standards.

heimchen,

I would love to build a smartphone like a Desktop Pc.

Kyoyeou,
@Kyoyeou@lemmy.world avatar

Framework Phone When

nudnyekscentryk,
@nudnyekscentryk@szmer.info avatar

Fairphone

itsJoelleScott,

Or – Christ it’s 2023 – Apple’s first fucking USB-C phone. Holy mother of god, having one stupid cable for the devices I want was a siren song of a mad god, but we’re finally here.

In 2023

drekly,

I had an S10E that I loved. But then I had a baby and wanted better pictures as memories. So I upgraded the camera I had on me at all times, and went for an S22U. Took a while to get used to the huge size difference, but I couldn’t be happier.

Also got it ‘used’ from Facebook marketplace, brand new in its box for almost half price. The guy had it as a free upgrade from his service provider, didn’t want to change phones, and wanted some quick cash for it. Had all the paperwork and everything.

Kyoyeou,
@Kyoyeou@lemmy.world avatar

That’s a very wholesome story

Ildar,
@Ildar@lemmy.world avatar

I just like new phones 🙈

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