Are we there yet?

The evolution of smartphones has slowed: there's little the latest model can do that can't be done with the existing (unless you count bragging rights for having the latest and greatest). Unless I have exceptionally deep pockets, there's really no need to upgrade.

But what about the AI? Ya know that super magical thing we all didn't realise we needed, that Samsung 'might' charge for in 2025. Surely that's got to sell a few phones? Don't upset them by telling them there's actually no need to release a 'new' phone every year.

They should probably concentrate on selling their existing inventories and bring back a sane refresh cycle for consumers now. We are at peak smartphone until electronics we gadget fans can use as toys are able to fit within the chassis.

I would unironically and immediately buy the latest and greatest Samsung Swhatever Ultra Max Pro, if I could remove all the bloat/ tracking or just install GrapheneOS. I am paying you the average monthly salary of a middle class worker, I don't know why I must also pad your data pockets with my personal information, while not being able to do whatever I want with my device (locked bootloaders and proprietary software).

I only upgrade because my contract has a "new phone every two years with tacit renewal" and the no-phone price is the same. So, might as well benefit.

I use my new phone for Netflix, for video and photography, and basically as a SIMless mini tablet.

My actual phone that I take with me (and am writing this on)? A Samsung S9 that was purchased when the S9 was a hot thing (and a rebate from Samsung that practically paid for it). It's, what, six or seven years old now? Suffers screen burn and the battery ain't what it used to be, but it's good enough and I really can't be arsed with the hassle of transferring everything over to a new device. But, works good enough for basic internet use and the odd phone call. But, honestly, I think we've reached peak phone spec. What does a new one do that a slightly older one can't?

Fair play to you but this does suggest you don't have the best contract for your use: the phones have to be paid for somehow.

If your phone contract makes you pick a new phone every two years then you might consider changing your contract. That phone every two years isn’t free, you pay for it full price.

little they can do to improve except hold a decent quality voice call...

There's a resson i dont speak to anyone, its not because I prefer text/whatsapp is cos I hate the sound dropping out every 2nd or 3rd word

You need deep and wide pockets these days. The days of miniaturization are gone and every phone must be bigger than the last. I'd probably be more inclined to update mine if I could get something in the 5 inch range. Even if it's a bit fatter I'd be happy, I just don't want a huge slab.

Agreed. I only replace phones when they stop functioning, which they usually do after about 3+ years. Having said that, my Flip 4 is awful enough that I'll replace it as soon as I've paid it down in 6 more months.

The entire smartphone industry continues to be evolutionary. Faster CPU, more storage, more pixels. The industry hasn't been revolutionary for a long time. No big & compelling WOW to get people to buy a new device.

Not to mention iPhone prices range from $429 to $1599. That is more than I paid for my first car, and I got 10 years service out of it. As the prices have gone up, the expectation for a longer life span makes more sense. Dropping that much money on a top line phone, I should get at least 5+ years life out of it (assuming unexpected damage is avoided).

Icon is for the customers with disposable income who must have the latest status symbols models.

Bloody expensive, and the top-line phones are overkill for most users.... I admit it is pretty cool to carry around a terabyte of storage in a pocket.

First time I saw that much storage it took two racks, 240v power, 50 amps, extra cooling, and specialized disk management software.

It's a maturing market and the majority of users have found that their mobile phones largely do what they need. Once a phone meets the requirements that the user has, they have no real need to replace it.

There will always be the marks in the world who need to have the latest phone and think that it's "free" because that's what the sales spiel for their £60/month contract said, and their inability to multiply 48 (months) by £60 (less the cost of a SIM only deal) to work out that they are usually paying 30-50% more for this "free" phone than if they just bought it themselves. These same people often upgrade their phones after only half of the period, often paying a lump sum to do so, and still can't do the maths for their next "free" phone.

The only place where continual churn on mobile devices is a good thing is the device manufacturers.

Rather like Windows XP or Windows 7.

Apart from the swiss cheese security, terrible driver model, lack of a decent terminal etc etc

It's sad but there are legitimate reasons to keep old versions of Windows and other software around, usually because short-sighted developers fuck shit up and/or remove user choice for reasons and expect you to eat it. Frankly, that's why I switched to Linux, because at least I can maintain the entire system and have complete control if I really wanted to, though I find Plasma 5 (and upcoming Plasma 6) to suit my needs perfectly. And super customizable to boot, [1]no DLL patching needed .

My favorite quotable Windows "feature" moment is Windows 11 lacking these things at launch:

Taskbar snapping to left/right/top of screen

Disabling taskbar grouping

Showing taskbar labels

Moving the volume/Internet icons around separately (they are now combined into one button)

Start Menu tiles from Windows 8–10 (hey some people still like em)

Forcing the start menu to pop in the middle of the screen

No left aligned taskbar

No way to hide the news, recommendations, and other annoying elements from the Start Menu

Can't disable automatic Bing search (might have been the case during the technical preview, I don't remember)

And that's just what I remember, about one area of the UX. There is probably so much more that either didn't impact me or that I'm forgetting, in this area alone.

Want to guess how many of those issues are still problems today? Adjusting taskbar grouping landed only a month or so ago, to enterprise release channels. If that tells you anything.

And you wonder why people continue to use XP? Especially when the list of things changed/removed between XP and Vista is also quite large? Not to mention the disasterous launch of Vista in general? Or the disasterous launch of 8? And so on?

There is no denying that older Windows versions have plenty of flaws, and it sucks that Microsoft is essentially abandoning these users in the name of progress... or rather, in the name of selling more laptops and licenses to safeguard their revenue stream. In reality, just like smartphones, many users find that their old versions do exactly what they need in exactly the way that they want and the incentive to upgrade is not worth the money, hassle, technical requirements, or otherwise.

Do you remember when your favorite feature was taken from you, or when a new "feature" was shoved down your throat with no other option? I remember Windows 11 forcing hardware requirements that were a straight up lie. I remember Windows 10 forcing DWM vertical sync with no native way of disabling it other than exclusive fullscreen. I remember the removal of widgets. I remember the removal of the classic start menu. I remember the disgusting UI and UX changes that needed a whole system upgrade to make actually usable and not make my eyes bleed. I remember the introduction of IE and Edge, and how the whole system is pointed at it by default with either no option to change it or that option hidden behind 10 "ARE YOU SURE ABOUT THAT" prompts. I remember updates deleting your entire Documents directory.

Sorry if I sound upset. Because I am upset. I hate Windows so much. And I have used every version almost daily since 3.1, ending at 10. I got so tired of always having to hunt down the right third-party software just to make my OS usable to my needs because some marketing exec that did a case study on 50 users got the bright idea to move the "all programs" menu another 2 clicks away while offering no alternative for users that didn't like it.

I'm sorry, I'll stop now. Before I start thinking about Windows Server.

[1] https://github.com/riverar/uxstyle/

My phone from three and a half years ago is still good, apart from the battery. So I recently bought another one, exactly the same, new in the box. It's a third of the original price, and less than a quarter of the price of a new phone. I'm getting the battery replaced on the old phone. Mad? I don't think so. I now have two chargers, two charging cables, two sets of earphones for identical devices.

No doubt the cameras now are better than three or four years ago. But the old one is more than good enough for me.

My 7 year old Samsung J5 would be perfectly good if it still got security updates. I don't need it for computational fluid dynamics simulation.

My 7 year old iPhone 6s had a security update just this morning. Lack of LTS was why I switched from Android to iOS.

Plus, I have no love for Apple but I really, really hate Google.

You might be interested in GrapheneOS, which supports Google Pixels for many years, while also thoroughly de-Googling and securing them. I currently run the 6 Pro and find it quite nice. No real reason to upgrade to the 7, basically the same phone.

Pixel phones get at least seven years of updates too. No need to change to iOS.

There is still the problem, for me, that the OS is tied to Google. YMMV.

No. Google has made promises, but no Google phone has received an update after 7 years yet.

Vintage 2016. It does what I need it to do. Bit large, but beggars can't be choosy.

When SWMBO gets a new shiny one, I get the old one.

Do you pay for the SWMBO's new phone too?

"Bit large, but beggars can't be choosy."

Just a shame that everything newer is at least as large... there is no "small phone" market any more.

What is "small phone" for you? Pixel #a line would like a word. Unless you mean old chocobar phone size?

For me, reasonable size no bigger than 140x70

I spent some time with a nice thin, small bar phone (nokia something I can't remember) which provided a bluetooth PAN for my Nexus 7 tablet.

That gave me a week or of standby on the phone, with a decent connection for the tablet which gave me a decent screen for anything else I needed to do (which included having a BT keyboard and a USB OTG connected mouse to run games in dosbox)

I think lots of people do hand me downs, whether I-Phones or other makers.

People especially with expensive phones keep them longer (so people have to spend less money)

Mid range phones, worth naff all on resale, are retained by customers as a backup (so people have to spend less money, if their new phone breaks)

The number of one wish is for devices to last longer (so people have to spend less money)

People with less money (younger people) buy second hand (so people have to spend less money)

Customers care more about if their phone works than up to date security patches (so people have to spend less money)

Still at least we're moving beyond a two year refresh and creating a huge amount of e-waste.

I recently retired my 4 year old Galaxy S9 (which in itself was second hand) and replaced it with a new Galaxy A34 which was on a great offer in Black Friday sales.

Any difference in day to day usage is largely invisible, though I do find myself disappointed with the new camera performance. There might be some settings magic I'm missing but I'd have expected mid range to at least match premium from 5 years prior.

The battery is still good for five days standby, from up to seven days in the beginning. Still no reason to replace it.

But I only switched 'cause Satya Stupella killed Windows Phone when it just was taking off. Or, to be more precise: He decidedly let it rot. Will, maybe, resurrect the Lumia 950 XL when the first ARM64 builds of a server OS is available to the public. Windows 10 and 11 are very slow, mostly due to the defender. Which you can uninstall on a Server OS.

Will probably replace this year as the battery is not so good and there are some "new" features that I want.

Less waste of energy and raw materials, less e-waste. Sounds good to me.

I don't think I've ever used a phone for LESS than 40 months.

I've had... 5 phones over the last 24 years. That 57.6 months on average.

Have a Samsung S9+, unlocked, new in 2018. I recall being utterly disappointed with the speed as it replaced my Oneplus One which was much faster. But heyho, lived with it. Last two years some apps crawled / hung and the battery life was down so looked for a new one just before Christmas. Ended up with a Moto g54 from Argos. Does all that I need, sure it's not cutting edge, but sub £200 was considerably cheaper than the Samsung.

These days it's more about purchase price. I don't need to check my pulse, see how far I walk, how steep a slope is etc, However I do miss the built in wireless charger so ended up getting the adapter

Phones have got more expensive (per month).

My phone is perfectly fine and now paid for and now out of contract. I'm not particularly bothered about upgrading. I looked and the only one was a slightly better camera.

Matron!

An immature chuckle at that typo aside, it is good news that the churn of smartphone E-waste seems to be slowing down. My old phone was very much on its deathbed so late last year I stumped up for a second hand Fairphone 4. If half the marketing on the thing is true, it should be much better for the industry, and I can only assume it's even more green to buy it pre-used!