I can't see why you can't see the difference. I've been swapping every few years from the lowest tier phone that's recently come out and each change feels like night and day each and every time. Perhaps you should stop buying overpriced phones?
this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2023
0 points (NaN% liked)
Asklemmy
43336 readers
786 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy π
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- !lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
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 number one reason: battery life
They could make the battery last 5+ years before degradation if they made the phones a bit thicker to get the same battery life with lithium iron phosphate cells instead of lithium ion cells. They also don't turn into spicy pillows or catch fire really too if that means anything to you.
I really don't understand the obsession with having the thinnest possible phone but also selling $2,000 folding phones that are thick as hell.
Selling the thinnest phone, but ship it with a silicone case because the thin-ness makes it too fragile. And also one bit of the phone will just be thicker anyway.
It seems almost like parody. Phones are literally too thin for their own components. If anybody knows of a decent line of phones that aren't overly skinny, please let me know for when I need a new phone.
I used to get a new one every two years. Back then the changes were big enough to make it worthwhile. Nowadays there is not much to get from a new phone other than the hardware keeping up with the software and an improved camera.
I'd say, as with any device, keep it until it annoys you or doesn't get any more security updates.
My iPhone 11 from 2019 starts to feel laggy and the touch screen is not responding as well anymore. Battery health is still over 90% but due to higher energy demand of the newer OSs and apps I often still need to juice up during the day. So this year I'm finally going to get the new model but I'll keep the 11 as a webcam.
There is no point. We realised it only recently. If you remember the cell phones from the time before smartphones, there hadn't been much technological progress. My first cellphone, a Nokia, could store up to 10 short messages. It's pedecessor had the same storage capacity. Of course, there were technological milestones that have been passed, e.g. antennas which didn't protrude out of the phone, vibration motors, (in comparison to today) really shitty photo-cameras (and the buggy software that was needed to transfer the photos to the computer), etc.
The point is, that they all were capable to do the same thing: calling and texting. Looking back, there was not really a need to replace the old cellphone. Advertising made us want new shiny things.
This changed when smartphones emerged. Hardware wise, there are not many differences. Some have faster processors than others, others have better cameras. The storage capabilities are sufficient. For the normal user these specifications don't matter. All smartphones are capable of accessing the (real) internet. The main difference today is in the software (operating system). Older phones run on software that is too outdated to keep pace, and the software support is often limited, which as a result leads to possible security flaws - because the user is supposed to upgrade the hardware, not the operating system only. And that's why new phones are bought, despite the old ones would still do.
My smartphone ist running on Android 8 (Nougat). It's still working and is sufficient for my needs. But I wouldn't run my online banking with that phone. Also, it gets pretty hot and slow when navigating with Google Maps.
Conclusion: It's not the hardware specifications which lead to the replacement of smartphones. It's the more complex (security wise) software requirements certain applications (online banking apps, medical apps, e.g. insuline tracking apps, overall more sophisticated apps that runs slow on an outdated smartphone) demand today.
Google provides a stripped down base Linux kernel to hardware manufacturers. This kernel works with android and allows the manufacturer to load all the proprietary code needed to support the processor, modem, and hardware peripherals without the manufacturer merging the source code into the mainline Linux kernel. This means the community can never support the hardware in the kernel. As software changes in android, features are added, and vulnerabilities are fixed, the only party that can update the device's kernel is the manufacturer. This is a criminal scheme to exploit the end user and force them to constantly buy new hardware. Proprietary is always about theft of ownership from the end user. It is a tool for exploitation. It is not about intellectual property or business. These arguments are praying on naΓ―vetΓ©. Everything can and is reverse engineered in this hardware and software by every serious competing company. The only reason proprietary exists is criminal exploitation of the end user.
Aka planned obsolescence
There are OS updates and there are security updates. Check with your manufacturer as these periods may be quite short, and considering how tied our finances and porivate info are to our phones, it could be a huge hazard. Most android manufacturers, for example, I think offer 2 years of OS updates and 3 or 4 years of security updates. Apples does 6 and 8 - which is wild to me for all the talk of Android users about FOSS and privacy and security. Samsung does 4 and 5, which IIRC, is one of the highest in the android world.
I'm certain someone will mention GrapheneOS, so let me get ahead of that: You can completely de-google your android phone and get as many years of OS upgrades as your hardware can physically support... but is the average person really going to do that?
Apple doing software updates for such an extended period of time is wild, considering how anti-consumer they are in the first place (bad repairability, walled garden, bizarre prices).
Google does 5 years updates for the pixel phones, which is to be expected since they own android lol.
I mean...the software updates usually help people end up upgrading as new features do not work on certain models or are slower etc...
Reminds me of the occasions when iphone customers complained about their battery draining faster / their phones lagging after a software update for years, and just recently apple responded: "you can have battery or features not both lol".
Regarding features: Usually good software development makes the software more performant over time, not less. But customers are expected to react to excessive DRM measures (like denuvo) or the uprising telemetry hell (like windows 11) with buying more performant hardware. Yields the question what is a (desired) feature and what is a bug, AND what is a cash cow for companies milking their customers.
In my experience, batteries start to deteriorate after about two years or so.
Consider buying a phone which lets you change the battery considerably easy. I watch teardown videos of phones before i buy one to compare the process and the likeliness of me breaking something in the process. Of course not everyone is going to do this, but you could ask a friend to do it (i changed batteries for phones of at least 3 or 4 people by now).
I'd say that's only half the problem. While ease of disassembly is a factor I'd personally consider when buying a phone, I feel like the more difficult part is finding a good quality battery replacement. For the most popular phones (Galaxy S series, iPhones, and a few others) you can probably find a battery at a reputable site like iFixit, otherwise you're stuck with ordering something that supposedly matches the part number on Amazon or some sketchy Chinese site. Is it a new part or a refurbished OEM battery? Is it anywhere close to advertised capacity? Will it work any better than the used battery you're replacing?
My tip would be to look for replacements which are advertised to work with the specific phone model but are not necessarily original replacement parts, bc like you said they tend to be fake and of bad quality. There are a number of brands who have specialized in this market by now. There are also very few brands who sell original parts via ifixit (e.g. google for pixel phones)
Also, if you want to replace a battery stay away from samsung. They glue the batteries in so tight that you have to use alcohol to loosen up the adhesive.
Also also, if you want to replace anything, stay away from apple. They have a history of bricking devices software side if they detect third party parts.
I mean, most of the population isn't buying a new phone every year, it's just that there are enough people using phones in general that at any given time there are people buying new models. It's the same reason why there are people buying cars every year.
I personally use my phones for about 3 years. Sometimes up to 4, but usually year 3-4 is when the battery degradation gets so horribly bad and performance stutters so much that I figure if I'm going to do a full reset and buy a new battery and all that, I might as well get a new phone.
See thats where im with OP.
Lots of people do switch every 1-2 years.
And swapping a battery costs idk 40β¬ and an afternoon, full reset costs nothing and takes 20 minutes. Why would i generate that much trash and spend a thousand bucks on the latest shit thats 99% the same instead?
There's an actual reason for me, which is still not good enough of a reason for me to actually buy a new phone even if the old one is still working. Emulation! My Snapdragon 888 is good enough for 3DS, PS3 and Wii and all this stuff, but it can't keep up with the current develpments in Switch emulation. That's why I'm already looking forward to my next phone (as soon as my current one doesn't work anymore)