Why even bother with phone upgrades anymore?

Hardware Hub Phones, Tablets, & Wearables
1

It is crazy to me how little improvement there is between phone generations these days.

I just did a feature comparison between my previous Pixel 5a and my current Pixel 7 Pro, and then I threw in a Pixel 10 Pro for good measure to see what I am missing out on, and for anything that matters it is absolutely nothing.

I don’t care about or want any AI / assistant (on or off device) or cloud features.

My phone is essentially an email/web/and 2D utility device.

The CPU of even my old Pixel 3 and maybe even older devices would probably still be fine for what I do, if it were still supported. I didn’t really even need 5G. I mean, 5G was a wimpy upgrade over LTE anyway, making little to no difference. And LTE was more than sufficient being able to mimin low level home broadband speeds in many cases (though now that they have been dismantling LTE service and replacing it with more 5G service, that has come in handy)

The GPU performance is almost completely pointless to me. I have never had a game installed on any phone of mine, and never will. Not even a basic 2D puzzle game.

Higher resolution Cameras? Who who cares. the megapixel numbers are just marketing bullshit anyway. The shitty little lenses and tiny little sensors that fit in a camera are the bottleneck here anyway. You could give them a gigapixel sensor and it wouldn’t make a difference. Nothing over 8-10 MP makes a difference anyway. My 16 year old 12MP Nikon D90 dSLR still takes better pictures than any phone on the planet.

In comparing my Pixel 7 Pro to the latest Pixel 10 Pro XL, there are only two things I can see that may have improved.

1.) The screen gets much brighter (1500 nits peak vs 3200 nits peak). I imagine this would be useful in bright direct sunlight.

2.) Battery capacity. There has been a ~4% battery capacity upgrade in going from my Pixel 7 Pro to the 10 Pro XL. (5,000mAh vs 5,200 mAh) More is better I guess, but this is marginal at best.

Heck, even if I go all the way back to my old 5a, there is barely anything worth upgrading for. I wind up coming back to the same two things. The brightness was much worse on the 5a, and the battery capacity was a bit lower at 4,750mAh, but the truth is that the old Snapdragon chip in the 5a was much more efficient, so in real world use I got MUCH Better battery life with the 5a than with any newer Google Tensor based model.

I guess there is absolutely no reason to get any newer phone. It’s completely pointless.

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2

Phones are indeed so good nowadays that the only reasons to get a new one are:

  • your phone broke
  • your phone slowed down with software updates so much that you get mad using it
  • the battery replacement is double the street value of the device and you struggle to get through the day
  • you had kids and now want a better camera built in to capture some moments to share with spouse or family

My last upgrade happened only because the screen started getting wonky, and the repair was just not worth it.

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3

Contrary to what phone makers’ marketing departments would love us to believe, smartphones are now in the more or less “boring commodity” phase of tech development, compared to the rapid advancement that has been happening prior.

So, for most people, it makes sense to just use the phone so long as the software is maintained. If the battery wears out before support runs out, try to get it replaced to extend its use, so you’re not generating e-waste unnecessarily.

That said, there are still areas of improvement that are happening, that I find interesting:

  1. Battery chemistry, e.g. for better durability. We might get solid-state batteries in the next few years, depending on how well the tech will work in practice on smaller devices…
  2. Direct satellite comms support. There’s very basic support today for ultra-low bandwidth applications like texting, but for more advanced applications, we’ll need optimized RF hardware.
  3. There has been some effort to improve repairability. The Pixel 10 has a repair score of 6/10 which is higher than previous Pixels. Recent iPhones do better, with scores of 7/10.

And I guess for some people, it’s a status symbol? To each their own…

4

Agree. My phone is from 2017 and the only reason I’d consider upgrading is because 2GB of RAM is kinda crap. But I haven’t gotten an OS update since 2019, and my phone is so niche that there aren’t any good/viable custom ROM options for it. So part of the thought is ‘upgrade just to get very little new security? why?’

If I could DIY a phone like I can DIY a PC:

  • The newest radio tech (5g, 6g, 7g, LTE, whatever) for both cell and WIFI. I keep bluetooth turned off, but I wouldn’t mind it being there as long as I can disable it.
  • 3.5mm jack
  • No front facing camera/fingerprint sensor/biometric sensors.
  • MicroSD card slot
  • GrapheneOS support (or something similar…but I don’t think there is anything similar)
  • Compass sensor
  • GPS
  • ‘decent’ CPU (I don’t know how much of my current phone’s slowness is 2GB of RAM and how much is the CPU. It takes seconds to switch from texting to signal, for example, I assume some of that is RAM)
  • Replaceable/detachable battery. Or battery switch so I can physically remove power from the device.
  • Microphone kill switch (physically disconnect microphone)
  • Camera kill switch (physically disconnect camera)

Nobody makes it, but I also think it’d be pretty dope to have a dosimeter built in. A dosimeter is like a gieger counter, except it can see Alpha/Beta radiation, and can calculate biological impact of dose, so it’s more useful for determining if you should GTFO than a Geiger would be. Main reason? It should be possible to make a single chip that can do this that is ‘good enough’ for day-to-day use. It doesn’t need the tolerances of stuff used ‘for real’, but it would be good enough to notice “hey, wait, why am I getting radiation in the middle of this random field?! I should leave”

I think there could be some cool data made available if every cell phone had one of these as standard. I know there’s a HUGE amount of radiation education that would need to happen as well, but tools tend to make people curious.

I’m sure there are a few features I’m not thinking of, but I really need a very basic phone. As long as the CPU has enough grunt to run FUTO keyboard speech-to-text in reasonable time I’d be happy.

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5

I only upgraded my phone this year because my banking app dropped support for the version of android the s9 supported.

6

You need firmware and security upgrades, especially if you intend to install banking apps on it.

Otherwise if you don’t see or feel need, it is more than ok to stay with the same model.

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I recently upgraded from pixel 4a to a pixel 10 Pro and sure the phone feels a little nicer to use, maybe a fraction faster. But the only reason I did it was because the 4a had a broken screen. If the manufacturer would continue with security updates to the device I could probably use a phone for a decade easy.

8

Jumping on the bandwagon here saying the same, only reason I am looking at replacing my phone this sales season is the battery is starting to die too easily, and at 6 years old it is out of support.

9

The only reason to change and “upgrade” my phone is when my old phone dies.
That’s it.
I don’t care about AI, I don’t care about the 73 gigapixel camera, all i want is an audio jack and as good as possible battery life.
That’s it.

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10

The brightness really is great in sunlight. Every time I pull my phone out when outside I can see it like I was looking at the phone in my living room.

Battery capacity hasnt changed much until this past year, but only in Chinese phones really who are doing all the main innovations. They are pushing towards 8000mah now with advanced battery formulas. But even without size changes, the phone SoCs are getting more powerful, which means they can do the same work in less time, or more efficient at doing the work that they have done. So battery life has improved even on phones with similar battery capacity.

Personally, I see the only real reasons to upgrade would be one of four things: 1) When you are forced to for security reasons, where apps stop working for you. From banking apps, to McDonalds (why?? lol) to vehicle remote starts apps. 2) Because you are bored and want something new. 3) The phone breaks (could just be bad health battery as considered broken). 4) You actually want some new feature like a foldable display, read display for better selfie capability, some of the AI tools, or just faster transfer speeds and general performance.

Come on now, got to think bigger! If we are dreamshopping a phone then no microSD slot, lets upgrade it to an m.2 2242 slot we can put a real SSD into. Modern SoCs have pcie connectivity so why not use it. :grin: Some companies have shown we can already do hotswap, slotted in nvme drives so we could easily do a small version on a portable device.

I was really mad when the audio jack first went away. But it forced bluetooth to advance finally and we are at the point where bluetooth sound quality is better than the majority of phones analog audio out jacks ever were. This was because phones didnt have the power or size for good electronics for something like an audio output so the quality was pretty sub par. Whereas now we have 32-bit 96khz lossless audio over bluetooth and your listening device can be as good or bad as you want to pay for.

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11

I miss the headphone jack, but am actually impressed with Bluetooth.

My first Bluetooth headset bugged me with the battery duration, and the fksrt earbuds, were not independent.

Now, each earbud lasts hours and hours, and the charging holder, also has a battery, so I don’t have to charge more than like, once or twice a week.

I only use them with the phone, so can charge both at the same time,

And, so far, have not lost any buds yet.

I do a manual job, and the headphone wire used to get caught on the load I was moving.
Not so much with earbuds

They are also light too, and simply hold in without needing to loop over an ear and around the shoulders or anything.

Apples greedy moneygrab, has actually improved my life.
Not enoufht to use apple phones of course.

Apart from that, I have a draw full of perfectly unbroken, working phones with no more updates which is a waste, and needless.
I would like to pay like, $60/year for continued support, and let the phone company take a cut

But, the makers fling out the disposable handsets like they are premium coffee… To be consumed and discarded…

12

I understand the spirit, but for me personally:

  1. SSDs get hot. Really hot.
  2. I don’t know that I need that level of storage performance. Maybe I do, maybe the slowness I see is the nand built into my current phone, a microsd card can do at least 60MB/s, so I just don’t see how GB/s is needed. Not in my use cases. I mean, I’d be happy for it to exist. I just can’t imagine needing it.
  3. I need capacity more than speed on my phone. So a microSD card is better in terms of storage per cubic inch.
13

I was rocking a 3a forever, but due to my carrier punishing me (limited data to 3mbps) for daring to run a 4g phone when they want me on 5g, I gave in and went to LinageOS’s website to see what options they supported & saw they had the Pixel Fold. I thought that would be cool tech to checkout, and it was. The idea is really cool to me, anytime I have a moment I can unfold it and read some manga or watch some anime, not to mention you can’t open FB messages on the mobile site, but with this unfolded it no sweat running the desktop site.
The 120hz screen is super nice, not to mention how snappy it is in general.

But, where’s my Micro SD slot & 3.5mm jack???

Now, a 3a to Pixel Fold is a massive upgrade, if I had a slightly newer phone my opinions would probably be different.

BTW LinageOS works great on this! I was really worried about that. Lol

14

For me it’s camera and Wi-Fi. And I didn’t realize how much I needed both until the pixel just died. The temporary Samsung I’m using is the cheaper phone and for 99% of people would actually be fine. But I do some of my b-roll and dark shots on my cell phone. when I’m shooting on site, (I produce content for a dispensary not just my YT channel) the GoPros will sync to my cell phone and when get home I dump it to my Nas over Wi-Fi. My pixel was speed test in my bedroom far from the AP at 600 megabit sequential, and damn near hit a gigabit sequential right next to the access point. This cheap phone is speed testing and the bedroom at 60 down and 10 up, much slower and far from sequential, in the same room as the access point, I get 200 down 100 up, which is going to make a massive difference when dumping my GoPro footage to the NAS, so until I get a new phone I’m going to have to go back to pulling the SD cards out of all the cameras instead of just auto syncing to my phone. Which means buying more SD cards sense I can’t just dump the footage to my phone and keep going.

So I need a good camera with my phone and I need the fastest Wi-Fi.

15

For me comes down to upgrade by replacement, mostly due to batteries going bad or performance being demolished by software updates.

Updating for better performances can make sense only if there are big jumps. There was also a time in which smartphones of lower tiers were significantly inferior to the top of the line ones. Now even a cheaper phone will handle all the daily activities without issues.

Oppo just released a phone in collab with Hasselblad that can be equipped with a tailor made telephoto lens (in front of all the other glass the phone already uses) and it costs 500$. On top of a 1200$ smartphone, obviously…

In the smartphone world, yes. I guess you’re commenting on that.

This happens because if the smartphone you get is not quipped with a top of the line super bright OLED display is going to be a miserable experience under direct sunlight. IPS displays had none of these issues because they’re bakclit.

16

I would instantly upgrade my phone if the manufactures would just offer a higher resolution LWIR sensor in the camera, I’m sick of being stuck on 0.05MP potato quality.

Where’re at the point now where manufactures like AGM straight up lie to us about their camera resolutions by advertising “super resolution” resolutions instead.

17

+1. One of the reasons I resist upgrading anything, at this point, is the invasive AI Kudzu garbage that’s proliferating into every piece of tech on the market. I don’t need my refrigerator to offer helpful suggestions, nor do I care to share with Amazon/Google/whomever my most personal information. One surefire way to make sure I don’t buy your product is to put “AI” into the product name or anywhere in it’s feature description. Consumer AI is nothing but a con job to collect ever-more data that can be commoditized… if my personal data is worth $, I should be getting paid for it.

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18

I question this.

Bluetooth is still compressed. Let me know when bluetooth offers uncompressed two channel PCM.

That said, the biggest problem with bluetooth to me is the reliability.

Sometimes - for seemingly no reason - it just doesn’t want to connect, and nothing can convince it otherwise.

That, and it is a pain in the ass to manage switching between multiple output devices, even if you know what you are doing.

And oh boy, if you have an elderly person in the household (like my 83 year old mother-in-law) get ready to constantly hear her notifications and other audio from the bluetooth speaker because she connected to it when she was in the kitchen cooking.

I have tried to teach her a million times, and it just doesn’t work. A wire that plugs in, and pulls out would have been so much more effective. I have a pile of amps and speakers I could set up, and it would have been dead simple with a 3.5mm audio jack.

I know they sell those USB-C audio output adapters, but I have yet to find one that both works with all/nearly all phones, and can charge and output audio at the same time.

That, and why on earth would anyone ever want wireless earbuds? They make no sense. They are on your body, within easy wire range, why bother making them wireless? It just overly complicates things by adding yet another device you have to worry about charging and potentially losing. I will never own a set of wireless earbuds. The very concept is mindbogglingly stupid.

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19

Same.

I used to always just not buy any device that connects to wifi or requires an app, or has any claims at all about “AI”, but now it has gotten to the point where many products simply do not come in a version without this garbage anymore.

You have to go on eBay and buy used or “vintage” stuff now for many items.

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20

And that is why i love the audio jack.
Also all my headphones, all 2 of them, use audio jack.
Being forced to buy new stuff to solve a problem, that yesterday was not a problem is disgusting to me…

Jack, please…