Not surprising. I used to update every 2 years but my last couple have had a 3 or 4 year gap.
As it should be really. These can be very expensive devices that only make sense if you get a decent life out of them.
I just don’t see the point of upgrading every two years, and even if I did I’m buying used at this point.
I’m on iPhone and despite all the fanatics creaming their pants over each release, very little actually seems to change.
I know a guy with a 6 year old phone, and when he listed off the features it made me realise how little things have actually changed since it was released.
Similar with android. I had a pixel 5 and loved it, the pixel 6 pro came out and I was dragged in (higher res screen, 120hz etc etc). Then the pixel 7 pro came out and I bought that too (mainly for signal improvements).
Looking back, my pixel 5 did/does everything these do. I've decided my next upgrades will be whenever the below happens:
Phone broken
No more updates
Feature I need, and I mean need (it would be hard for a phone to come out to do this)
I don't need some random AI features/camera improvments. 99% of my phone use is podcasts, browsing the internet and any phone from the last 5 years will do that nicely still.
They need to give us back the headphone jack, that's a feature worth getting a new phone for, but then again we can just use an old phone instead.
Again I was sucked in here... I bought WF1000XM3, then XM4. Since having a kid, we've had to watch spending a bit more and i've really started to embrace repairability and longevity. Recently picked up a Framework laptop that I plan on keeping for a long time.
Have a framework, probably the 1st gen.
It had a big bug where it would go to sleep and never wake up, but I finally found a firmware upgrade and it's been perfect since, maybe a bit on the power hungry side while asleep.
You might want to consider a used thinkpad, they last literally forever and you can get a decent one for $500 or so.
Just my thought, the fw is great, tempted to upgrade the mobo at some point, or get the 16, but it's not cheap, it's more about being able to upgrade and the flexible i/o, which is actually cool.
Or you could put a usbc dongle on all of your headphone cables for $1 each and finally move out of the 80s tech bubble.
Not sure they're $1 each if you need a dac.
You say it's from the 80s like it... matters at all whatsoever. It works, and it works well. It doesn't stop me from adding an extra useless bit of cable on the end of them either, if that's what i really wanted to do.
I have an iPhone 8 and see no reason to update in the near future.
When smartphones first took off, each new one was a large upgrade. But each passing year sees new phones being more and more iterative. There's hardly any difference at all anymore between individual years.
I'm at the point now where I keep my phones until they break or stop getting security updates.
When smartphones first took off, each new one was a large upgrade
And they were subsidized by the cell phone company, so they only cost $200 (In many places in the US, at least).
Yeah definitely this is a big factor.
I have a small pot I save into for my phone upgrade each month. Waiting longer means I get a shiner new phone when I do finally decide to upgrade.
And once I have it I want it to last as long as possible!
There wasn't even a maximum on the contract. When I got my first two phones, I agreed to a 2-year cellular contract. If I closed my account or moved providers before that, I had to pay AT&T some amount of money to kill the contract. After those two years were up, I could do whatever I wanted. I was then on a month-to-month payment, like standard cell plans today. They just wanted to make sure to recoup their money over 2 years for subsidizing my cheaper phone upfront.
Now, the subsidization is more like a subscription fee, where there are additional fees on the bill each month toward the phone and the cell phone company encourages you to get a new one once it's paid off. You're still paying full price for a phone. Possibly forever.
Not surprising. I used to update every 2 years but my last couple have had a 3 or 4 year gap.
As it should be really. These can be very expensive devices that only make sense if you get a decent life out of them.
I just don’t see the point of upgrading every two years, and even if I did I’m buying used at this point.
I’m on iPhone and despite all the fanatics creaming their pants over each release, very little actually seems to change.
I know a guy with a 6 year old phone, and when he listed off the features it made me realise how little things have actually changed since it was released.
Similar with android. I had a pixel 5 and loved it, the pixel 6 pro came out and I was dragged in (higher res screen, 120hz etc etc). Then the pixel 7 pro came out and I bought that too (mainly for signal improvements).
Looking back, my pixel 5 did/does everything these do. I've decided my next upgrades will be whenever the below happens:
I don't need some random AI features/camera improvments. 99% of my phone use is podcasts, browsing the internet and any phone from the last 5 years will do that nicely still.
They need to give us back the headphone jack, that's a feature worth getting a new phone for, but then again we can just use an old phone instead.
Again I was sucked in here... I bought WF1000XM3, then XM4. Since having a kid, we've had to watch spending a bit more and i've really started to embrace repairability and longevity. Recently picked up a Framework laptop that I plan on keeping for a long time.
Have a framework, probably the 1st gen.
It had a big bug where it would go to sleep and never wake up, but I finally found a firmware upgrade and it's been perfect since, maybe a bit on the power hungry side while asleep.
You might want to consider a used thinkpad, they last literally forever and you can get a decent one for $500 or so.
Just my thought, the fw is great, tempted to upgrade the mobo at some point, or get the 16, but it's not cheap, it's more about being able to upgrade and the flexible i/o, which is actually cool.
Or you could put a usbc dongle on all of your headphone cables for $1 each and finally move out of the 80s tech bubble.
Not sure they're $1 each if you need a dac.
You say it's from the 80s like it... matters at all whatsoever. It works, and it works well. It doesn't stop me from adding an extra useless bit of cable on the end of them either, if that's what i really wanted to do.
I have an iPhone 8 and see no reason to update in the near future.
Reading this on iPhone X
When smartphones first took off, each new one was a large upgrade. But each passing year sees new phones being more and more iterative. There's hardly any difference at all anymore between individual years.
I'm at the point now where I keep my phones until they break or stop getting security updates.
And they were subsidized by the cell phone company, so they only cost $200 (In many places in the US, at least).
Yeah definitely this is a big factor.
I have a small pot I save into for my phone upgrade each month. Waiting longer means I get a shiner new phone when I do finally decide to upgrade.
And once I have it I want it to last as long as possible!
There wasn't even a maximum on the contract. When I got my first two phones, I agreed to a 2-year cellular contract. If I closed my account or moved providers before that, I had to pay AT&T some amount of money to kill the contract. After those two years were up, I could do whatever I wanted. I was then on a month-to-month payment, like standard cell plans today. They just wanted to make sure to recoup their money over 2 years for subsidizing my cheaper phone upfront.
Now, the subsidization is more like a subscription fee, where there are additional fees on the bill each month toward the phone and the cell phone company encourages you to get a new one once it's paid off. You're still paying full price for a phone. Possibly forever.