I’d like replaceable batteries to come back.
Every single phone upgrade since 2012 was because the battery would get so bad, it lasts less than an hour.
And before someone goes, “Ah try ifixit”, the cost of the replacement parts was as much or more than just getting another used phone from like swappa. I’ve done the financial math countless times.
I miss buying batteries for like $20 and watching the phone become new again.
Just buy batteries from aliexpress, ebay…
My Fairphone does, and I have already purchased a batter for 35 euros, which I keep in my drawer. The phone is now just over 3 years old, probably in a year or so I will replace it. I am aiming for at least 6-7 years lifespan.
That’s why I’m eyeing to get a Fairphone as soon as my current phone breaks
So say we all.
Been waiting to use that ;-)
Why I don’t watch YouTube videos -
It’s 8 minutes long and contains less than a minute’s worth of information, and is a complete waste of time
We’ll get an AI to caption and then summarise the transcript of the video that’s 8 mins long because the user (understandably) wanted to monetize the video.
I wonder if this was Google’s plan all along …
An AI that can turn YouTube videos into written articles? Take My Money! I have been wanting this for a long time, I far far prefer stuff in writing to videos, I dont take information from audio/video anything like as well
I totally agree with you, I’d much rather read some bullet points then sit through a video.
I think YouTube automatically generates transcripts already, and GPT can summarise text easily.
It seems like each new version of Android locks down the file system in some new way that breaks a core part of something I do, so I actively don’t want to upgrade.
I can’t root my phone because I need my banking apps readily avaliable right now.
I’m still bitter about USB mass storage being removed for only MTP. MTP sucks, any time I use it for more than a few small files it always ends up dying partway through.
Yea, don’t waste time with MTP. It’s a hack to enable some access. It’s always been unstable.
Use some kind of network sync tool instead. Syncthing, Resilio Sync, Foldersync, etc.
Using the cable it could be much faster though. If it worked, that is.
Most entry level and midrange phones are still USB 2.0, even if they use USB-C physical port. USB 2.0 is 480 Mbit/s max, even old Wi-Fi 5 allows 1 Gbit/s speeds or even more. At this point the limit will be the writing speed of eMMC/SD card so even USB 3.0 becomes superfluous. After setting up my NAS, Jellyfin, Navidrome, Syncthing and Tailscale I haven’t ever connected my phone to a PC for file transfer—photos get synced automatically, music/videos get streamed and if I need to move files manually I can just do it from/to the SMB share over the network.
even old Wi-Fi 5 allows 1 Gbit/s speeds or even more
Well, probably. I don’t have experience in that. Probably though it requires you to be in the room where the router is, or paper thick walls.
As my phone’s MTP miserably fails for files from almost 4 GB and upwards, when I do heavy copying I just connect the SD card to my PC with a USB adapter and do it that way.
Wholly agreed, I even do more than the 3,2,1 backup because of it to a family member’s routers which have SMB mounts and a Rasp pi down there with Tailscale on it. So helpful too having my Tailnet down there because it means I can remotely help them out without them even knowing.
Also, the above “must be via cable fanatics” should go and Praise DuARTe for not even using
adb push/pull?
That’s why I stick with Android 12, all my banking apps work just fine with magisk’s DenyList. Heard that’s getting tricky on 13 or 14.
And I absolutely need root to add system-wide adblocking and security features like Ice Box and Storage Isolation.
I must be very lucky, but I have never been annoyed at something that Google does since 2020 (the year I got an Android phone and started to root).
Hail, AdAway and Swift Backup already improve my Android experience completely.
This is why I’ve ended up keeping my Pixel 4 on Android 10. I’ve made backups and flashed the latest versions, only to come back because every time they’ve broken something I need the phone to do.
It makes me glad that this is a secondary phone because I can happily keep it on this ancient version of Android and not give a shit about the security.
Yo, write better titles. I thought this was a video about how they didn’t want to upgrade to Android 15 or something. But it’s not. It’s just about not buying a new phone every two years 😆 In my opinion buying a new replacement isn’t ‘upgrading’.
Personally, although the terms have become increasingly blurred over the years, I refer to changing to a new version of software (including an OS, and both ideally with some improvements) as updating it rather than upgrading.
I reserve upgrade more for changes of hardware with some form of improvement over its predecessor. I’d suspect I may not be alone in this, but I dunno how common it may be. When switching to a mix of both, I simply say I’m getting a new [insert specific device depending on which].
Although I’d hesitate to call many new phones an all-around upgrade when they’re either removing features (headphone jack/expandable storage) or getting more cumbersome to hold (can you even call some modern phones a handset anymore?).
Difference between updating and upgrading
Why I refuse to upgrade to a new phone - 8 minutes video explaining why it’s not that interesting to
upgradebuy new phones nowadaysI think that’d fit better.
But you all made me look it up on Wikipedia: “Upgrading is the process of replacing a product with a newer version of the same product. In computing and consumer electronics an upgrade is generally a replacement of hardware, software or firmware with a newer or better version, in order to bring the system up to date or to improve its characteristics.”
I’m confused. Maybe because so many people use those terms wrongly. And I suspected them doing that. But I think I’d still like to refuse using the same term for describing upgrading a computer with an additional $35 RAM stick and buying a new $2.500 gaming rig.
You upgrade your phone when you can no longer use the previous one. What other reason would there be? They’re all the same anyway.
10+ years ago, it was very common to get an upgrade to your phone ever two years (or less). And at the time, there was a lot more variability in phones. And I mean in more than just battery life, storage capacity, camera quality, processor, etc. There used to be a variety of form factors to consider, sizes, genuinely different features and functionalities. The iPhone came about in 2009, and other smart phones soon followed, but even then there were still phones with physical keyboards, digital keyboards with stylus typing, flip phones, etc. Once smart phones completely dominated the market and all the manufacturers started just copying each other’s features and designs, eventually we got to the status quo of today where they’re all essentially the same. The only major difference now is the OS, and that’s largely just down to iOS vs Android.
That’s kind of the point. There was a time in the 2010s when each new device could do something that they couldn’t previously do. But it seems like the market has figured out what people want from their phones and that’s what they are getting now.
I’m still on 13 just because I didn’t see any point to upgrade.
I finally upgraded my phone after 7 years. I had trouble picking out a phone that didn’t remove everything… no headphone jack, no sd card slot and we’re supposed to call that an upgrade? (What I got still has those thankfully)
Same feeling. They are expensive and miss stuff I currently have or they are too big
Yeah. I paid about 650USD (900CAD) knowing I’d keep this for a few years. I’m still not going to put it on financing.
All new phones are too fucking big.
Counterpoint: my eyes are not what they used to be 20 years ago and 6,5…7" screens hit the sweet spot for useability. Especially since bezels are super thin these days so a 6,7" phone today is barely larger in total dimensions than a 5,5" phone 6 or 7 years ago.
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Pixel 4a checking in. 🙂
My current phone, actually. I’ve been looking for newer at the same size or less, and it’s pissing me off.
Sadly there are no options. I don’t really need a new phone, the hardware is still fine for me but not getting any updates sucks. At some point I might have to bite the bullet and get the 8a or something.
I run GrapheneOS.
I told myself that my Pixel 8 pro will be enough for a bunch of years. That is, until I went on a trip with it. Now I feel like my Pixel 7 was better than the P8P is, with just as good of a camera with better battery life.
I’m glad I kept the p7 as a burner, because I may just make it my prime phone. I only upgraded on the prospect of a long lasting phone and received the p7 for free…
I went from an OPPO find 5, to oneplus 1, then OnePlus 5, and now pixel7a. The OnePlus 1 was probably the only one I was impressed by and the others were just replacements. I don’t plan on changing until Linux phones are less of a pain in the anoos or if the 7a gets totalled. I’m the family tech guy for a lot of people that always upgrade to the latest phone and nothing worthwhile ever happens in a decade of phones any more. If anything they get worse with more planned obsolescence and proprietary bullshit.
The smartphone market has matured, so there is less of a difference between each generation. Earlier on there was a massive difference in performance:
The OG Galaxy S had 512MB of RAM, 8GB storage, and a single Arm A8 core at 1GHz, and the SII had 1GB of RAM, 16GB/32GB storage, and a dual core A9 at 1.2GHz. This is a single generation with double the RAM and more than double CPU power, and nearly 6x the GPU power (theoretically), and 2-4 times the storage.
Then the SIII came out with a quad core SoC 1.4GHz, a much larger screen with higher resolution (jumping from 480p to 720p), significantly bigger battery, and up to 64GB of storage.
The S4 doubled the RAM to 2GB, faster storage, significantly faster and more efficient SoC, a larger, 1080p display paired with a much more powerful GPU, and a significantly larger battery as well.
Back then, if you had the money, there was a considerable difference between each generation and there was a reason to upgrade, many not every year, but if you could afford it, upgrading every other year made sense.
After that, changes were much more calm. Sure, some phone makers made exciting and innovative stuff, but the hardware didn’t have a massive difference from one generation to another, and also prices were rising.
Nowadays, phones are far less exciting, but flagship phones are ludicrously expensive, and yet they sell incredibly well. While phones are being improved from one generation to the next, they feel like small steps rather than a giant leap. Our demand for power hasn’t gone up quite as fast as our phones themselves. People will keep buying phones less frequently, just like we do for laptops.
For me, it’s just the fact that phones… are phones. They all look the same, function the same, there’s just nothing new happening with them.
Sure, chips get better and faster, they’ll add another camera to it and fiddle with the dimensions a bit, but that’s not innovation. All phones look like boring rectangular slabs.
Back in the late 90’s, phones had way more variety and personality. Candybar, flip, even the sidetalkin’ taco that was the Nokia N-Gage. A Motorola Razr looked nothing like say, a Nokia or Sony Ericsson. And those were distinctly different from your Samsung or Mitsubishi phones (Yes, Mitsubishi made phones!).
I’d love it if we went back to more phone variety, but I fear the smartphone has effectively killed every other style. Most people wouldn’t ditch their big screen smartphone to go back to a small flip phone.
I can’t believe this page still exists
Jesus, that’s a blast from the past for sure!
It really was the thing everyone latched on to with the N-Gage. I actually still own a first gen model that I bought on release. It was actually pretty decent, both as a phone and the games it played. Of course, it never really took off, but I enjoyed using it.
As for the sidetalking… I bought a headset for it to avoid that :D
Do you really need a YouTube video for that?
I upgrade when I kill my phone. There’s just no other reason to do it otherwise
Same. However I do work manual labor, so nothing too fancy lasts long.
I’m using an almost four year old iPhone 12 mini, with absolutely no desire to upgrade. I plan to use this phone until it’s a brick.
I have pixel 3…works just fine. Except there are no more updates past Android 12 for this phone.
Apps that I need, like okta verify now require Android 14. So I’m forced to upgrade.
Just like others who had older iPads, then they call me asking why Chase app doesn’t work and says they need an upgrade…but old iPads won’t upgrade to the version needed.
Planned obsolescence… I hate tech nowadays. I want 90s back with dial up Internet and home built beige boxes
I’ve been using a 12 Pro and if it wasn’t for the version number in the name I wouldn’t even be aware of its age. They are all so fast these days the battery dies long before it becomes too slow to use. If it wasn’t for CarPlay and iMessage I’d absolutely use a flip phone with Android Go or something.
Upgrade when you feel it’s time to upgrade, not because the latest and greatest just released again.
I feel it’s time to upgrade when the latest and greatest just released again.
/s
I only upgraded for the nicer camera. I have so many pictures that are blurry that I think springing for a little nicer camera is worth it. But yeah, the tech is pretty stagnant.
