Asklemmy

Z fold user here. This thing has a limited number of times of being folded and unfolded. My early upgrade plan is kinda to prevent the inevitable happening while I'm the device owner.

Gaming? Most of them are p2w or microtransaction garbage

And? You may not like them, but there's clearly an audience.

Don't buy a new phone if you don't want one, but why be so mad that other people have reasons you don't?

I just use my phone until it either breaks or can't do what I want it to do.

Since having kids they break more often.

In Canada, for years, you were almost a fool for not upgrading your device every two years. The "regular" plans we all had involved a 2-yr contract in which time your phone would be paid off. But after that term was up, the monthly bill remained exactly the same. It was stupid, but a lot of Canadians just said, "Welp. Might as well upgrade then." Then the CRTC here stepped up and told the big three carriers here to knock it off.

I had a Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ that I held onto for three and a half years. That was the longest I'd ever kept a smartphone. It was going strong too. Alas, I found out security updates were knocked down to quarterly from monthly. And after this year, it would receive nothing more. I reluctantly looked into the Galaxy S23 Ultra as a replacement and thanks to a good deal, I have that phone now. It's an amazing device too and I hope it carries me for another 3+ years.

I like new cameras, higher refresh rates, and super fast page loads.

Selling my phone on Craigslist every year and buying new is about the same price as buying new every few years.

$1500 phone. 3 years. $500 per year.

$1500 phone. Sell for $900-$1000 at one year old. Buy new phone for $1500. $500-600 per year. And I have a always warranty (extended by my credit card).

Similar price per year, night and day better product.

There are people that like new things, there are people who prefer older things. I am willing to spend money on a new phone every 2 years because it is my main computing device. I, also, don’t miss a lot of things of older phones. I never used as SD card, I never replaced a battery, and I haven’t used wired headphones in a decade.

I like my iPhone 14, the LiDAR gives me a ton of cool applications, the camera takes the best photos I’ve ever taken before, it will be kept updated for the next 5 years and the always-on screen is very useful for unlock-free info.

If you trade-in a fairly new phone, you can heavily discount a new phone purchase as well. It’s more like leasing a car vs owning a car. Pay for the time you use the phone, return it while it still has value in the 2nd hand market and get a fresh phone.

On the other hand, my brother sticks his phone in his pocket all day and doesn’t look at it at home. He bought an iPhone SE a few years ago and it just works. He would argue buying a new phone is silly as well. But we use our phones very differently and so our purchase habits will be different.

There was a couple years where I could trade in last year's Samsung for like $100 below the cost of the new phone, and they'd give me $250 in accessories with that. It was honestly just the cheapest option for a bit.

For me it's just an unhealthy fascination. Tech is the one place where consumerism got it's dirty claws in me. We didn't have a computer in my household until I was 15 and it was a super slow and old PC my older brother bought for $500. This was back in 1999. I eventually became obsessed with finding the best value for money mobile devices and bought way too many phones, laptops and computers.

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.

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

Galaxy S10e gang checking in. Resoldered the USB port because it was corroded. Everything else is working perfectly fine. No plans to ditch it as of now.

My iphone is almost 7 years old and still runs great. No problems with the battery, speed is just fine, everything is fine. I paid about $1,000 for it and I'm determined to squeeze every last penny of life out of it. No plans to change until it breaks or becomes unusable somehow.

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.

IDK, I always buy used phones and pretty much use them until they either die or are no longer usable because they were abandoned by the manufacturer for too long. I haven't had a new phone in probably close to a decade now. The last new phone I bought was an Xperia Z3 Compact.

As mentioned by others, security updates and the camera. If the right 'phone comes along at the right price, then is when I'll consider doing the upgrade. Upgrading when the latest greatest 'phone is released is something I would never consider.

I was at work last week and two colleagues loaded on an apple update to their phones. Their phones slowed to a crawl and lost battery charge quickly through the day. The next thing I saw was one of them with the internet browser open putting his credit card details in to buy a new iPhone £650 gone just like that. iPhone users wouldn't balk at expensive contracts or spending £600 quid on a new iPhone. It seems to me apple deliberately trash their phones and users accept it and upgrade to a newer model. I could understand if it was a cheap phone but jeeze crazy money for something with such a short lifespan. Would you buy a ln expensive TV if you thought it wouldn't last you any more than a couple of years?

I just like new phones 🙈

I have Android 7 and Jerboa {the official Lemmy app) requires Android 8 or higher. So people told me to upgrade but I wasn't having that. It turns out there is a fork with Android 6 and 7 support that might get merged into mainline, so my phone will be cool for a while longer. But the upgrade pressure is out there.

I break them, then buy a new unlocked "last gen" phone cheap to replace it. I am usually one or two versions behind the "newest" phone, but I'm spending less than using carrier based device insurance. Phones have become like sunglasses to me. I don't buy particularly nice ones because I just destroy them.