Why I refuse to upgrade - 8 minutes video explaining why it's not that interesting to upgrade phones nowadays

Okay but I'd rather hear this from someone who is actually using a 5+ year old phone, not a guy who has a 1 year old work phone that he "plans" to keep for an undefined amount of time. Everyone says this and then they break it and decide the cost of a repair isn't worth it, or just cave to the first trade in deal they receive in their inbox. There is a lot of virtue signalling about e-waste and the environment from these tech reviewers and influencers on YouTube but very few of them actually follow their own guidelines.

I'd like replaceable batteries to come back.

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.

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'.

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

I upgrade less than I used to, and I only do mid-range devices now, like the Pixel A series or Motorola G series. That kind of bracket. I'm just going to install Lineage OS on it anyway and it works fine so why pay more when I don't need that.

All new phones are too fucking big.

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)

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.

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.

I upgrade when I kill my phone. There's just no other reason to do it otherwise

Just wait till you break it to buy a new one, if you're lucky you'll be able to hold on to your phone long enough that it will feel like an actual upgrade instead just being new.

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.

Do you really need a YouTube video for that?

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.

iPhone XS Max, 2018. The only reason I might update is for the better camera. But this is marginal. I tend to buy one of the top line iPhone once in about 5 years, with enough memory. And they last long time. I might consider changing battery instead and get another 2 years… Apple is also super good with software updates on old hardware.

Upgrade when you feel it's time to upgrade, not because the latest and greatest just released again.

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.

Since 2010, I've only gone through 4 phones. New phones seem to focus on better cameras which I don't use much.

@Blaze I kept my last phone for about 5 years, and it was still quite usable when I left it. But I just lacked space, and I had to be picky even about the apps I needed. Now I plan on keeping the one I have until I no longer receive updates.

Let me give you a simpler answer than watching an 8 minute video - Money

AP telling me things are not interesting smells like clickbait.

Why the hell did that happen?

It doesn't even have to be interesting. It's enough if it's not disgusting

I'm still using an iPhone 7. I might get an upgrade at some point because multiple things are broken and I don't really have space on the storage anymore, but I totally agree that you can live many years with the same phone without any problems.

I try to tell people to "upgrade in place" and save money, unless they WANT to try new things on their phones. If you WANT to try playing more graphics intense games or edit video/podcasts from a phone (and you werent don't that already on your current phone) it makes sense to shop a more powerful replacement. Otherwise, let's say you have a three to four years old premium phone, and you want to keep doing the same things with it, then replacing it with a mid-ranger should still be a slight performance upgrade, move you down a price tier.

Last couple upgrades was iPhone 7 -> 11 Pro -> 15 Pro. Each brought me something significant (FaceID, 120hz screen, magsafe, wireless charging, etc) along with a nice speed boost. I feel like the sweet spot for upgrading is 3-4 generations.

My last phone upgrade was about four years ago (Nokia 6 to Samsung A31) and that was only to try and get YouTube Music's shitty app to work properly (spoiler : it didnt). Broke the screen on it dropping it while trying to put a mask on, got that fixed (that was over two years ago). Its still going, and will keep it until it dies

I dont upgrade my phone because I'm interested in upgrading, I upgrade when I have to