Stagnation in development, wages, >$1000 flagship pricetags.

Rise in inflation, cost of living.

Weird!

Perhaps at that point the consumer will opt for the repairable options.

Happened to desktop PC's a couple decades back. Once there's no reason to buy a new PC or phone, you stop buying a new PC or phone. Before that buying a new PC every few years meant less lag and needed ram/hard drive space.

Time to start development on rectal computers.

You mean removing a headphone jack, SD storage options, and removable batteries aren't added value? I know they claim it makes your phone more waterproof, but I don't wanna use my phone in the pool, I just wanna listen to some headphones without charging them.

And coming out with a new one every year despite it being the same as last year's

Or, maybe, people realized that there is no reason to get a new phone every year.

poor people are poor as shit

rich people who are richer off the backs of poor people are not poor as shit

I have plenty of disposable income. But why would I spend hundreds and hundreds on a new phone when I just got a Pixel 5 off eBay for $100?

Non essential spending is still through the roof. People are buying all the extra shit still.

"The average sell price is up from $663 to $738 year over year, indicating it's the premium phones that are selling, and all the cheap vendors are getting shut out."

Totally disagree with the article's assumption, I'd say you are more correct. No one wants to or has that much money to pay for ridiculous prices, so sales are tanking. The few who can, or must buy a new phone certainly aren't going to buy something with no staying power when hundreds of phone makers have coke and gone in the last decade.

I told everyone that once contracts for cell phones were replaced with payment plans, companies would start gouging their customers with higher phone prices because the customers could now "afford" it.

Greedy ain't the right word imo.

Exactly what I was coming to write. Who could have thought that rising notably the prices would have led to less sales?

You can still buy a Moto G for like $200 that is better than an old high-end phone in every way and runs Android like a champ. Only flaw is short support lifespan.

Phones is basically cheaper now. Features that only found on high end now on low end. SD 4 is insanely good (4g2 is an underclock 730). Very few reason to shell out 1000$+ for phones now

They could try innovating, I couldn't give a shite about the cameras really. If I want to take proper photos I'll get a DSLR. I'll never want their smart processing of pics either.

Give me cool features again.

But infinite growth!

Pixel 6, look at Mr. Monopoly over here. I just got a 5 off eBay for $100. In fact, my last 6 or 7 phones came from eBay. Can't imagine why I would pay for the latest and greatest.

You need at least 2 pixel 6's to run a lemmy... sorry 😞

Pixel 6 has 1080p90 OLED but ok

Phones also aren't special anymore. Like the days where phones were flashy and people needed the best/newest phones are gone. Everyone knows everyone has a phone, nobody cares what phone it is. It reminds me of like 2004-2008 when laptops were a big deal and then everyone had one and it became a tool and people stopped caring what you had.

To be fair the vast majority of people don't do that and just buy a new phone after a few years when theirs is becoming too old, has issues or lacks useful features

In fact I think smart phones peaked 3 or 4 years ago and we're going downhill now. The manufacturers remove features that people like in favor of objectively worse ones (lots of people loved having the fingerprint reader on the back, now it's either gone entirely or under the screen for some stupid reason?, then of course headphone jacks are going extinct).

When is the last time a smart phone had a major improvement over it's predecessor? And I mean like, "This one didn't have a camera, this one does." Especially since they're converging on the same 5.7" black rectangle.

It drives me insane how many people turn a blind eye to the funny numbers needing to always go up. Every "investor" will tell me how the market has never not recovered; how I'm the fool and surely not them for trusting in the system.

I hate that my retirement depends on a 401k, or money that constantly depreciates.

Constant growth at all costs. In the short term at least. Whether that works out in the long run or not...

When the whole western society has been force fed that "we must consume else our economy will collapse", not continously outselling (and throwing away barely year old work) is bad, this is the result.

Worst performance of trying to get your money.

I haven't felt the headphone jack removal as much as I thought I would, though I've had a few sets of Bluetooth headphones for traveling since about 2014 or so

Well there are foldables, which are growing as category, but I don't know if it makes a net difference and anyway they're too small to make a difference currently.

I upgraded from a 7 to a 14 pro and while it doesn't hang up on the newer OS as much (a problem the 7 developed over its lifetime), it's not really an appreciably better experience overall. The camera is nicer.

On the 7 Pro, stuck on the oneplus navigation gestures, pop up front facing cam. Fully working phone, still no other phone to replace it when it comes to having a screen without a bump. And I can get a free phone through work, but there isn't one I want yet...

Plus you can probably run stock Android on the op6 if you wanted to run Android 13

Unihertz being the only one even trying..

Asus Zenfones are (relatively) small phones and they're pretty decent.

Would that really help? I remember that each brand had their own custom battery sizes, and it would only sell the remaining stock once the phone was no longer on the store shelf. I only know Nokia had some standard form factor for batteries.

You might like the XCover series then, they still got those

I just changed a 4yo phone that was getting extremely slow and laggy. I went for a mid level phone. From this very year. It has the same QoL and features of an iPhone14 if not its performance. It should last at least 5 years and costs ~$300.

Imagine if you could easily swap a new battery in. Heaven.

Goodness the S9. If I could turn back time and keep that phone. I ended up "upgrading" to an S20 or 21 and hated every second of my interaction with that phone. I ended up "upgrading" again to the fold just so I could have a physical fingerprint sensor instead of the garbage screen one but now have to deal with bad apps and wonky battery life and no cases.

I really think Samsung peaked at the S7 or S9 both were fantastic phones.

Bad, non-consumer centric marketing forces poor changes. We could invest in all day battery life, or we could make the frame out of titanium. Titanium is easier, so boom, done! Do you want a headphone jack, or do you want a slide in the presentation that says the phone is 0.2mm thinner and 5g lighter? Done! Sleek, elegant, thin, sexy, but no headphone jack.

Nobody makes a phone with the consumer's convenience and experience in mind anymore. They make things without microSD card slots to drive subscriptions to their cloud platform. Instead of selling me a $60 battery I can change myself, they parts lock all pieces of the phone. It's totally anti-consumer, and I don't understand why. If someone released a stylish flagship phone right now with headphones, microSD, good battery life, and snappy performance, they'd trade wireless earbud and cloud platform sales for straight market share. How is that not worth it?

Exactly.. I updated after 4 years of using OP7T to S23 only cause the updates ended (and were fcked up), battery (I swapped my for new one but still 5h sot vs 8h sot was really tempting), storage and cause I wanted smaller device.

Otherwise I could use OP7T for another 4 years.. Ok realisticly for 2 at least (cause I'd wanted new device..), but still the performance update is not that much mind blowing..

120hz vs 90hz I can feel, but not groundbreaking, responsivity is a bit faster (0.5 vs 0.3 second is not that groundbreaking either) and camera is the biggest update for me but also nothing revolutionary, definitely evolutionary, but not revolutionary.

The best new thing for me is better customizability of Samsung, which is funny cause that's why I bought OP7T 4 years ago, but Oneplus heavily fcked up.

Since the Pixel 1 I've been buying a new phone every four years. Honestly I prefer it that way. Saves money and the upgrades feel more meaningful. As long as the battery is good, you still get security updates, and the hardware is intact, what is the reason to upgrade beyond being told to consume?

Looking forward to the Pixel 8 next month, since my 4 is actually starting to show it's age.

I'm just glad pixels have finally been coming around on more updates. I was forced to replace my Pixel 3 if I wanted to use it with the BYOD program at work because it had reached the end of the update cycle, even though it was in fine condition and still met my needs. Now I'm on a Pixel 7, and hopefully I can get the full five years of use from it.

The fact that you think it's normal to change fridges regularly astonishes me

Are these shocked cell phone companies in the room with us? iPhone sale peaked like three years, Samsung probably close to then as well.

The idea with the jack is convenience tho. Including the jack won't take much space and it's just convenient. You wanna take a quick phone call while doing stuff around the house, plug the headphones in and good to go, no worries about battery or connection loss. You still have the type C for the digital audio. A hybrid analog/SPDIF would be even cooler, some laptops and sound cards do it

If it had 2 type c ports on the top and bottom I wouldn't mind this. 1 port with a splitter is a nonstarter for me for basic audio and charging

what dongles do yoy reocmmned and why, link them here

I used to be excited to upgrade my phone every year because it was during a period of innovation. Now I just have a pay as you go SIM and whenever needed buy a midrange phone outright and use it until it dies.

I recommend the Fairphone 5. 5 year warranty, 10 year software support, and user replaceable parts like the battery.

Just realize that iOS is NOT like Android at all. Some people can’t make the switch. Also, the cut out is not noticeable in daily use. The app I’m using right now isn’t showing it. It’s a non-issue in reality.

To be fair, there were improvements that legit made the experience much better. Going with your TV example, changes between CRT and LCD is huge.

Nevertheless, there's no reason to but a new one very year.

I had one of those. Failed in the weirdest way: sound stopped working, even through Bluetooth. From googling, it sound like the bends the phone gets when sitting on it can damage the main board and the connection to the sound chip fails. Was shocked the phone could have a hardware failure of that type. I have learned zero lessons and still keep my phone in my back pocket.

Anyhow, it was a great phone but just a bit too narrow. The keyboard was uncomfortable. I don't need these stupid supertall 20:9 stretched screens, but I need enough width to type. I miss 16:9 phones, my old Moto Z was the comfiest-typing phone screen ever.

That phone is a great size.

My pixel 4a is still fine. I'll want 5G at some point but the coverage isn't there for me to worry about it yet. I don't think there's anything else in the pipeline that I'll care about.

I've found I can just wait a couple years and buy them used at a serious discount.

Way better than buying a brand new midrange

I'm what my friends can a tech enthusiast. The last 3 phones I have had have been sub AU$400 phones and I have been super impressed by them... a little concerned with the privacy and security of OnePlus, realme and now Oppo. But they are fantastic devices. Much better than the HTC and Samsung galaxy I had previously. I also have access to my wife's premium galaxy s20 plus and see zero reason to upgrade.

Uhh no. Now they will very specifically become fashion statements and the constant new iPhone is how the rich and those that care deeply and want to pretend to be rich will show off. That's why they make people care if the chat bubble is the right color or not.

If you break your new phone, you can't fall back to your old one and you will have to pay over MSRP for a replacement if you buy it from your carrier. That's the real reason they want you to trade the old phone. That and to kill the resale market.

Also I would add inflation went up, prices jumped. Meaning not so much free spending cash any more. People might have previously had the cash to update phone, just for sake of update even without it being necessary. Now days? People have way more important things they have to spend more money on.

Agreed

This market stagnation was what got me to buy a Fold. Every 3-5 years of the same size slabs, just imperceptibly "faster". Then came something new finally. Same as my pixel 2xl, I'll have this till the battery or screen starts to go.

It seemed the last incentive they were trying to get people to upgrade was throwing as many cameras as possible on the back. Companies need to try and innovate again and the folding screens is at least one way of them trying something new. Prices have also climbed dramatically so I'm not surprised people are bothering to upgrade.

Which phone did you upgrade to? I also have the 7T and quite happy with it except for brightness outdoors

It's more tied to the change of the business model.

Phones used to be subsided by the plan and the 2 year contract lock in, so if you didn't upgrade every cycle you were effectively leaving money on the table.

This is why the market accelerated so quickly compared to any other class of hardware.

As the 2 year contract fell out of favor (thanks largely to T-Mobile), you had 2 year heavily discounted payment plans tied to device trade in that took their place, but these were opt-in as opposed to the previous model which was built in to every contract.

While the economy was strong, the depreciation on your current device and effectively FOMO on maximizing its trade in value kept the system driven at similar numbers.

But as purses have tightened, suddenly the outlay on increasingly expensive devices with lower trade in values for past devices is a racket people are opting out of.

It was never really about features as opposed to status and reup indicators. Most of the rest of the world has more like 3 year phone replacement cycles for the past decade, and have been fine with the same feature parity per model year as US phones.

I'm honestly surprised the 2 year thing kept going as long as it did.

I picked up a Pixel 6 for about three hundred. The last phone I had was a Moto One Action. I prefer the Moto for a lot of things but the irony is the final reason I had to get rid of it is the USB-C charging port was fucked. Of course the battery was very crap by then and the screen was cracked to hell too.

I really like that phone though. Lots of functions just by shaking it, like the flashlight came on when I tomahawk chopped it twice. Super handy. If I could have fixed it for a reasonable price I would have.

That USB-C thing made me laugh though. I've had to use iPhones for work a lot, and the one thing I really like was clicking in the lighting port to charge it. Never failed. On more than one android the USB-C gets wonky, where you have to tilt the cable to get the connectors to touch and stuff. Not bad, but not even as good as the old USB mini chargers.

My foldable has been much more robust and drop-resistant than a candy bar ever was.

my samsung has dex mode so I just plug that in to my monitor at work and use it to log in to my VM or just as is if its something that the mobile firefox browser can do. I even got a 70 dollar portable monitor that works great with it for camping trips or something

netbooks

I use an 11 Macbook air as my casual device and I love it. It's also pre-glass screens so I've dropped it a few times (from a 1-2') and it hasn't shattered. It's using this device which has had me rethink my computer situation.

Chromebooks are decent depending on your needs.

They're just called tablets now. My Tab S8 w/ keyboard has pretty much replaced any use I needed for my personal laptop at home

Netbooks were replaced by ultrabooks. Install Linux on one if you want.

Oh I have a foldable. Also the software sucks and they can't find reasons for the folding at all. Maybe the flip will have a better market but it messes with battery life, antenna signal and more for a product that yells that an app is incompatible or doesn't fit the screen right.

I know I'm in the early adopter tax but I could have actually done without this one as a techie

Foldable are not fragile in my experience. I've had my Fold for over a year now and I've dropped it many times without issue.

Fairphone 5, just the basic Gapps (all deactivated), no other bloat.

Did you get your phone from your carrier? In addition, some brands do that with cheaper phones. Can buy unlocked phones.

Maybe try Google Pixel or iPhones that have terms against pre-installing shit.

I mean, you could have just paid the $90 to have the battery replaced by Apple with an OEM battery and kept it for another 5 years…

Batteries are consumable items. They go bad. 5 years for a lithium battery that you cycle through at least once a day is good. That’s 1825 charge cycles.

That's not planned obsolescence. Making lithium batteries that survive thousands of charges is just really, really hard. Physics only allows them to last so long. Five years is pretty good for a phone. Frankly, I think making a rechargeable battery that lasts all day and lasts 10 years in a passively-cooled phone is just impossible with our current technology.

Huh?

It's more so the state of the world. Everything is unbelievably expensive. I'd rather pay my grocery bill and rent than get a new phone.