I'm curious, there are people here who spend $2k every year on the latest phone.
Why?
Why Do You Buy a New Phone Every Year?
deme on 26/09/2023 - 15:55
Comments
@ssfps: Most people don't seem interested in the details.
500 million in China still live as peasants 'in the mountains'. The government has a social obligation to lift them 'out of poverty', into soul crushing factory jobs and living in dog box apartments. A small percentage will end up wealthy but there is no way their environmental impact per person won't mirror out own
The single raindrop never feels responsible for the flood.
Environmental impact
If anyone here cared about that, they wouldn't buy a damn thing.
because its apple
Tax write off
Lifespan of a mobile phone for tax is 3 years though…
I have 3 phones for work shrug
Uber?
@Jimothy Wongingtons: one for the plug and one for the load
and obviously one more for the dough in ur case
There's also salary sacrifice
You’re doing it wrong if you think that is an issue.
There are some people that spend 2k+ on pokies/darts/dare iced coffees/bad multibets/ lotto, suspicious hair loss pills/ piss etc - I suppose you should investigate this too?
Overheard someone buying a packet of 20 smokes from the petrol station, and they said it was $51!!
Here’s a tip: Chuck on a high vis vest and a $10 hard hat from Bunnings and you can bum singles for free from your local hutchies or similar work site.
Also gotta laugh, 20 darts jeez I call that a Monday.
Using "their spending money on those things" is just an excuse, but again, no one should judge you. If you buy it, just buy it, don't find so many excuses for yourself, otherwise, you'll just have this guilt in your subconsciousness.
I get a ridiculous phone allowance through work that lets me.
but just cause you can doesnt mean you should.
Case in point if woolies manager can get all the iphone 15 plus max pro extreme at $3000 a pop who do you think is really paying for it? the customer
same with coles, telstra, Energy Australia, etc. etc…..I guess at least the phone is useful for at least a year minimum- as opposed to a random all expense paid dinner or business trip etc
I don’t work at any of those.
but just cause you can doesnt mean you should.
Eh, if it's anything like my work then if we don't spend the money this fiscal year then they don't budget it for us for next year. Cynically, just because you can often means you absolutely should.
"Oh, you didn't spend $20k upgrading everyone's phones this quarter? Guess you lot never need new phones ever again, huh?"
Council/hospital mentality is wild
but just cause you can doesnt mean you should.
But why would you care?
lucky you , how much do you get? Mines $1200 pa
A better question is why phone call quality hasn't improved in ever?… And why $2000 phones are all using the same awful Bluetooth standards that sound like dog vomit when you're making phone calls.
Phone call quality has improved over voice LTE.
Could have fooled me
Perhaps your hearing has been getting worse?
Except it has, over a decade ago.
https://www.zdnet.com/home-and-office/networking/selected-te…The difference in quality was very noticeable when you called someone on a different carrier (before all carriers supported it) or even someone on the same carrier when they had a phone that didn't support it.
Ooh wow, 12.2 kb/s!! oooh!! the fidelity is making my ears quiver in delight!!
It's effectively double what it used to be (back in 2011, I don't know if the codec has changed since)
It's also voice, not music
I'm churning every 2 years, why? because i can, oh and 15% gift cards.
if you broke then just say that
i used to when i was younger and had no responsibility eg mortgage. now its every 3-5years
Why Do You Buy a New Phone Every Year?
I don't
Why don't you?
Because my current phone still works.
But a new one would work better
rare jv W
Because Tim is my friend…
Tim Apple or Tim the Toolman? They’re both filthy rich I expect.
Tim The Chef
Personally my phone owner ship in recent memory (post Nokia) goes like this:
Iphone 3, Iphone 4s, Samsung S3, HTC One, Note 3, Samsung S6 Edge, Samsung S7, Samsung S9 Note, Samsung S105G, Samsung S20 Ultra, Samsung S21 Ultra, Samsung Fold3, Samsung S23 Ultra.Why do I feel the need to constantly waste money on a new phone? I dunno.. It's like an itch that I have to scratch. Some obsession with having the best tech or something.
I was just at JB watching my friend use her 15% off gift cards to buy the new Iphone 15 Max Pro and I was tempted to join in too (and I'm not even an Apple user).
I was just at JB watching my friend use her 15% off gift cards to buy the new Iphone 15 Max Pro and I was tempted to join in too (and I'm not even an Apple user)
Late stage
Motorola brick, Motorola flare, nokia 3210, Motorola razor v3, iPhone3GS, HTC 8X, Xaomi Mi A2
1993, 1996, 1999, 2004, 2009, 2012, 2018
I was curious how long between replacing my phones. I bought the first one second hand. the last two outright and the ones in the middle on contract iirc.
iPhone I used as a phone and iPod basically. Prior to that phones weren't supposed to be smart anyhow.
I didn't mind the Windows phone, it worked fine as a phone, but needed an actual smartphone to use Messenger for a new job.
i liked the idea of Android One. disappointed Google killed it. but their plan worked on me. Ill likely get a Pixel next.the only issue I have with the Xaomi is the USB-C charging port is starting to not correctly charge.
Why do I feel the need to constantly waste money on a new phone?
So that you can post like this on ozbargain of course:
Iphone 3, Iphone 4s, Samsung S3, HTC One, Note 3, Samsung S6 Edge, Samsung S7, Samsung S9 Note, Samsung S105G, Samsung S20 Ultra, Samsung S21 Ultra, Samsung Fold3, Samsung S23 Ultra
truth
I suppose the cost of therapy is not much less than the phones.
It's people who upgrade phones every year usually have some crappy 55" Soniq as their main tv
And people who don't?
Kogan 32"?
I do have a 48"….
LG C3 as my computer monitor.
I live in a $3m home and don't own a TV.
S21 and iPhone 13 still fine.Yeah, well my dicks bigger.
Check mate.
Check, mate.
I'm interested to see it.
yea but i use my phone 5-6 hrs a day
tv maybe that per weekYou almost use your phone as much as I work each day lol
65A95K
That's a Sony, btw.
That an OLED for ants..
Quality over quantity.
I just replaced my 3 year old Samsung with a new Pixel. Can barely tell the difference. I'm not a gamer so apart from the camera being a bit better I can't really see that much difference between the usability of my Samsung S7 in 2016 vs now. For me the battery degradation is the key determinant for upgrade cycle now.
Imagine if you could just replace the battery
LG G3, G4 & G5 enter the chat
Those phones had their own issues though.
Samsung xCover 6 Pro…. just do it!!
There is some rational towards upgrading. They only put updates out for a couple of years, so if you're not using an up to date phone you can have security holes. If you're using the phone for banking, then $$ every so often can be looked at as insurance.
But every year? And $2k? (I remember when $500 was a crazy amount to spend on a phone)
No, I don't think there's a legitimate reason. Most of the time I think you'll find it's people searching for a feeling of being a person of value, trying to fill a void with plastic junk because there's no other path forward that's as brightly lit.Perhaps I am too naive, but do updates really matter if I'm not using public wifi? I don't even bother updating my Android phones anymore because I'm sick of all the optimisations being lost in between OS versions and the inevitable slowdown and increased battery use that comes after. My phone runs much better when I stick with the Android version it shipped with.
Hard to say. For the average person it's probably more of a possibility than a genuine fear, but once you start looking into it there seems to be many ways into a device if someone was motivated enough. Staying up to date means they can't use the well documented methods already patched, which moves you to the 'harder to hack' part of the spectrum.
My main suspicion is not public wifi but free apps. You never really know whats going on with them. Even apps that start out legitimately, can then be sold or hijacked to bad actors. Google will remove the app in time, but that won't protect you immediately.
I update, but its mainly for camera improvements, I couldn’t give a toss about status, i personally dont give a flying f what anyone thinks of me… as someone else pointed out , once you sell your old phone on eBay,the gap isnt that great
Best reasonable answer I've read. Good photos are priceless and are forever. From perspective of viewing other people's photos? Practically does not matter at all. I appreciate photos taken from almost any other phone quarter of the price. Realistically, even with my new phone, my photos are still potato anyway… crystal clear potato.
Same here. Because I'm using my own money, what is the best value <$800 Android camera phone out there that isn't a S23 Ultra or Pixel 7 Pro? Was considering the Chinese Xiaomis/Oppos but looks like they gone up in prices.
I used to upgrade every two years, because by then my Samsung would be slow and laggy despite regular cleans, and then the battery would be dying… finally bought an iphone 11 in December 2019 and it's still fine, still fast, with regular security updates and no noticeable battery degradation. I'll hang onto it as long as I can.
TLDR: used to upgrade every two years because I had to. Now I don't.I jumped ship to iPhone13 for same reason was only getting 2 yrs out of Samsung and wanted longer
Samsung provides support for 4 android versions now (4 years) and 5 years of annual security updates, that then goes to quarterly for another year, and then biannual. So youre getting 7 years of updates. This isnt just their flagship line either.
Youll also get continuous updates through the playstore for several more years, so things like the browser etc, dont need system updates unlike Apple.
Yeah I can understand that but for me it wasn’t updated that killed phones. I’m still waiting to see if iPhone is better it’s only 2 yr old
@Red01: My bad, I replied to the wrong comment.
In my experience, iPhones and select comparably priced android phones can last about the same.
Premium Samsung phones with the snapdragon processors will last just as long. My S10 plus from 2019 still works just as fast as when it was purchased. My iPhone 12 is starting to slow down a bit. This year was particularly good year to get an android phone as the snapdragon 8 Gen 2 was amazing for performance, battery, and thermal management.
OP was complaining about Samsung battery degradations not updates. Apple was previously sued for purposely degrading its phone batteries via iOS updates to get Apple fanboys to buy newer iPhones and stopped doing it, but Samsung hasn't.
After buying and selling many phone's over the decades I've worked out that it's actually more profitable buy a new phone and sell it a month or two before the next gen is announced, us a backup phone for a while and then buy the next new phone.
Rather than using a phone for 3-4 years until it gets so old and unusable that it becomes almost worthless to anyone and then you forking out a brand new phone at full cost out of pocket with little to no money from the previous phone.
From selling phones for my family and friends I've also found that "iPhones hold their value" is not that true. They are expensive to buy up front and the resale value seems higher compared to android phones but when you factor in the initial price, there's only a 10-15% difference in resale value when compared to androids.
Thats what I do and agree it is profitable to sell it before the new phone is released (iPhone in my case). Recently upgraded from iPhone 14 PM to 15PM with $250 out of pocket cost :)
- if you get a 15% off discount you're even further ahead (even better if you can somehow claim TRS)
In regard to iPhones it’s actually less than half that amount to upgrade if you trade in your old device, fyi. I only upgrade when it’s a tempting upgrade but it could be a year. Not this time.
I get sick of the colour every few months or so, and that’s my signal to get a new iPhone. Plenty to take my hand-me-downs, anyway
Yeah, OP forgets that in some households there is a pecking order for phones. The value isn't lost if you give the old one to your wife, who gives her old one to your eldest son, who gives his old one to your middle age daughter, and finally the oldest phone goes to the person least valued in the household. And whatever phone that person used has very little value left, between being eight years old and cracked screen.
I believe in fondling my iPhone as nature intended
I have had 8 mobiles since the first one I got 25 years ago. I don't see myself changing phones unless there is something wrong with it like battery not holding charge, charging port not working etc.
I upgrade my iPhone every 2 years, work pays for almost half which is almost about $800. Upgraded from the 13 pro max to the 15 pro max, worth it IMO.
@zoombie:
Only because a large % are still agrarian or untouchable. Their "middle class" consume the same as another other "middle class".