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I used to work for a mobile phone wholesaler that also owned a phone repair business and they noticed this trend as far back as 2013. The age of phones coming i

I used to work for a mobile phone wholesaler that also owned a phone repair business and they noticed this trend as far back as 2013. The age of phones coming in for repair was rising year on year. They were coming under pressure from manufacturers and retailers to disincentivise customers from repairing older phones. One manufacturer even threatened to stop paying for in-warranty repairs if the company offered an out-of-warranty repair service. The problem is that smartphones are way too expensive. Back in the old days of dumb phones a top end SIM free phone would cost no more than €400. Most people would opt for a cheaper model that allowed for a 12 months subsidy with the phone being free and monthly fees being fairly low by todays standards. In the UK it was common to find deals where you got a cheap phone for free, plus a game console or TV on a 12 month contract. Now it has flipped. Top end phones are now nudging €1000, this means higher monthly fees plus 24-36 month contracts. That's a hell of a commitment, especially considering smart phones aren't as durable as dumb phones were. Of course people are repairing phones when they cost that much. Plus, there is less of a feature incentive to upgrade. All I use my phone for is web browsing, email, social stuff and photo/video - it's three years old and does all that with no lag. New models don't offer me enough of an incentive to upgrade. If manufacturers want people to upgrade more often they need to work on curbing the price of top end models. The more expensive they are, the longer people are going to want them to last. Also, a bit more innovation would be nice - must every smartphone follow the exact same black rectangle design template?

franciscop 8y ago
Exactly. I made a very good decision this time around; I wanted the cheapest phone that was fingerprint-protected and had USB Type-C, since I wanted it to last me several years and pin codes are painful. I got my current phone for 160€ (if I'm not mistaken) 1.5 years ago and I couldn't be happier. Browses the web perfectly and runs my few apps great, I'll keep it until it breaks. I'm so happy that I'm even considering buying an extra screen to have reparaibility in the future in case they are hard to find then! It's funny that many of my non-tech friends who spent half a month salary on an iPhone (Spain) are quite confused about me using a cheap android. Edit: also note that my 160€ phone now is way better than those 400€ phones 6-8 years ago. And there's not even that much difference with a current 800-1000€ phone.
- hyperbovine 8y ago
  Or just lag the smartphone cycle. I upgraded from 5C to a 6S a couple months back by snagging my friend’s used phone. It’s amazing in every way. Could not be happier. I can’t wait to see what the iPhone X has in store in 2022 or so :-)
  - christophilus 8y ago
    This is a good strategy for most consumers. I paid $150 for my iPhone 6 on swappa, and couldn’t be happier. Still going strong.
  - ChrisSD 8y ago
    This is less possible on the Android side of things. The standard now is three years of security updates from the time of first release. And this often doesn't include device driver and some middleware updates. Obviously people do hold on to phones for longer than the support term but that's far from ideal.
    - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
      Is that in USA? I had to bypass my UK provider to install any updates. I imagine software updates limit hardware updates considerably.
  - mch82 8y ago
    If I could buy a new 128GB SE, I’d do it. I waited too long and now they’re only available used or in the 32GB size. I’d still be using my 5S (it still has the latest OS and works well), but I wanted to try the Apple Watch and it required an upgrade.
    - asdff 8y ago
      Why not just go used? I got mine on eBay for under $240 shipped. It was 'B' grade according to the seller, which from what I could determine meant it had literally two scratches on it instead of zero, otherwise the device was flawless. Battery health was 98%.
noir_lord 8y ago
Everything you said and you can get an excellent phone for 200 quid without a contract in the UK (Nokia 6.1 with AndroidOne) that does anything most people would reasonably want. I have one and it is excellent.
FakeComments 8y ago
I’ve just never understood the value proposition of how I’m better with a $1000 phone than a $100 phone, $500 cellular iPad, and $400 in cash left over. I buy a $50-100 phone every 12 months though! (At the low end, specs are still rising quickly.)
- Dylan16807 8y ago
  The iPad doesn't fit in your pocket.
  - manicdee 8y ago
    Neither does the X or any of the “plus” model face slabs.
    - photojosh 8y ago
      Now I'm confused as to how I carried around my 6 Plus all that time and now the X... (and I'm not a big guy, small pants size).
      - Wowfunhappy 8y ago
        ...I'm legitimately not sure how you comfortably fit that thing in your pockets. I can make it go in, but it's not comfortable; I can't imagine walking around with it all day. You're somehow either wearing very pants from me, or you have a very different comfort tolerance. (This is very reminiscent of the discussion I have with people who tell me they can fit a Nintendo Switch in their pockets...)
        flyingpenguin 8y ago
        While I agree almost all phones are to large, I don't know they are that bad. I recently overheard a conversation where someone was amazed by a colleagues small phone and wanted to know what it was. "Wow, what is that phone its so small!" "uhh, it's just a pixel." "Aren't pixel's huge?" "Those are pixel XL, this is a normal pixel..." The pixel 3 is 37% larger in volume than the iphone 5. It is only 15% larger than the iphone 7... gosh but I wish phones release normal+ xl + compact.
ascar 8y ago
Slightly tangential: I use my phone for the exact same things as you and I usually upgrade every 2-3 years to a high end model for a top camera. Me and my girlfriend both own the Sony Xperia Z3, which had a cutting edge camera when it was new. I upgraded to the Galaxy S9 a few months ago, she still has her Z3. The advancement in photos is striking. It's incredibly noticeable, especially the reaction time after pressing the button and the low light performance. To a point we explicitly use my phone to reshoot images we already did on the old phone, if we like the motive. I upgraded mostly because 16GB internal space wasn't enough for me anymore and Android keeps bloating. But if I had experienced the camera difference before, it would have been enough to make me upgrade. From my non-professional perspective the only thing lacking to a real camera is optical zoom. Otherwise I'm positive many shots of the S9 turn out on par or even better than mid-level Canon/Nikon reflex camera shots, if taken at the right distance. The camera market is getting more and more redudant for non-professional use cases.
- frostburg 8y ago
  You're wrong. The s9 photos can be passable in optimal light on a screen, but they're a mushy mess even at base iso (which is under 50). You can't make a big print, while you surely can with a midrange dslr.
  - ascar 8y ago
    I'm not a professional and not even an enthusiast, so my subjective impression might contradict objective measures. But who is actually making big prints? I've never done a singe one and likely won't do anything bigger than a photobook page. That's exactly my point about dslr's becoming redundant for more and more users. I own a 500€ low end dslr and it feels worse than my 500€ phone that I carry with me anyway.
    - frostburg 8y ago
      This is somewhat strange. I mean, low end dslrs generally have good image quality (the d3xxx series from Nikon is excellent technically) but bad haptics (the controls are too modal, terrible menu systems, etc.) - I still think that they feel nicer than grasping a phone to take pictures, but it's debatable. The auto modes on the phone are better but they have a lot less to work with. I used the example of big prints (big here means bigger than A4) because it's the most immediate demanding application that I could mention. With a phone you also don't have the resolution to spare to apply perspective correction to photos of buildings, dynamic range to deal with less than gentle, bright scenes, etc.
bunderbunder 8y ago
> The problem is that smartphones are way too expensive. No. People keeping their phones longer is not a problem. People creating less trash is not a problem. People choosing to hold on to their money rather than pumping it into tech companies at a furious rate is not a problem.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 8y ago
  Something can be a problem from one person's perspective and not a problem from another person's perspective and/or globally. :) (Full disclosure: I upvoted you, because from a global perspective I agree that it is not a problem.)
  - bunderbunder 8y ago
    I'm going to go ahead and say that, if you have a perspective where it's that important for you to be figuring out ways to compel people to send you 1/10 of the average person's discretionary income every 1-2 years, then it's that perspective that's the problem.
    - asdfasgasdgasdg 8y ago
      Sure, but if your perspective is that you want to design something compel-ling enough that people would send you that money, then maybe it's not so bad.
    - CydeWeys 8y ago
      There's nothing inherently wrong with that perspective though, as the benefits can easily be worth it to the individual. Consider that in many places smartphones are the only gateway to the Internet, and that having access to the Internet (and all the productivity that entails) can easily be worth more than 10% of discretionary income. As one example: https://foodtank.com/news/2015/01/five-ways-cell-phones-are-changing-agriculture-in-africa/ https://foodtank.com/news/2015/01/five-ways-cell-phones-are-...
      - 8y ago
nabla9 8y ago
There is also rapidly declining value from smartphone as a status symbol and part of identity. People are willing to pay extra for real or imagined increase of status. It has been few years since someone asked what phone I have. Sometimes someone asks "Apple or Android?" for practical reasons. People check out new smarphones when they are considering buying a new one. They (mostly men) are not so interested checking out new phones all the time as they used to be. Only thing can think of that could change the trend is AR/VR (Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality) really starting to deliver.
- lawnchair_larry 8y ago
  What makes you think people buy phones as a status symbol? I usually hear this from people who don’t buy Apple products misunderstanding the motivation of those who do.
  - danmaz74 8y ago
    It used to be a real thing until a few years ago. Now, it's debatable.
  - nabla9 8y ago
    Decades of research for marketing, branding and consumer behaviour seems to indicate that signaling to others is large motivation in buying decisions. Links between status signaling behavior based on expertise, need for status, and brand prominence seem to be significant. People are not always consciously aware of their motivations. Something just makes them feel right and they rationalize other reasons to justify it for themselves. Interesting recent research: Coming apart? Cultural distances in the United States over time https://www.nber.org/papers/w24771 https://www.nber.org/papers/w24771 >The brand most predictive of top income in 1992 is Grey Poupon Dijon mustard. 42 By 2004, the brand most indicative of the rich is Land O’Lakes butter, followed by Kikkoman soy sauce. By the end of the sample, ownership of Apple products (iPhone and iPad) tops the list. Knowing whether someone owns an iPad in 2016 allows us to guess correctly whether the person is in the top or bottom income quartile 69 percent of the time. Across all years in our data, no individual brand is as predictive of being high-income as owning an Apple iPhone in 2016.
gambiting 8y ago
>>One manufacturer even threatened to stop paying for in-warranty repairs if the company offered an out-of-warranty repair service. That is...100% illegal. Especially if we are talking about EU.
- nty 8y ago
  Why would that be illegal?
  - kyriakos 8y ago
    Cause 2 years warranty is required by EU law
    - gambiting 8y ago
      That's not really true and is one of those myths that are repeated all the time. The EU customer law says that any defect present at the time of purchase has to be repaired by the seller if found within the 2 years of purchase(it's actually 6 years for most products). The problem is only faults found in the first 6 months are presumed to have been present at the time of purchase by default - any fault found later has to be proven to have been present at purchase by the customer(and predictably, that can be very difficult). So no, if your iPhone breaks after 18 months in EU, Apple doesn't have to fix it unless you can demonstrate that the fault existed on the day you bought the device(that it's a manufacturing defect essentially). And even then, it's not on the manufacturer - the law binds the seller, not the manufacturer of the devices(however, obviously whoever sold you the device can use the same law against whoever sold it to them in the first place)
      - kyriakos 8y ago
        https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/guarantees-returns/index_en.htm https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/gua... Read the first sample story, exactly the opposite of what you described. I agree with your second point even though in the case the store it received the product from a European distributor then the store has a 2 year guarantee from the distributor.
collyw 8y ago
I bought a Motorola last year for €160, which isn't a great deal. It works perfectly well. It isn't slow. (Admittedly I am not glued to my phone 24-7 like some people). I have no idea why people feel the need to spend 6 or 7 times more for the latest iPhone. What do you get for the extra money that is actually useful? I know it has a "better" screen but I never had a problem reading on the phone I have. Faster processor? Are people performing heavy computing on their phones, or just sending some whatsapp messages ans surfing the web?
- mattmanser 8y ago
  Generally it's the camera which incentives my friends with better phones, more expensive phone = much better camera. Apart from that, it's also the same argument about why would anyone buy an expensive watch or a branded handbag or expensive clothes? It's to show off.
- pcr0 8y ago
  I've purchased flagship Android phones from Samsung/Google for a while. The biggest differentiator for me is the quality of the camera. I've owned budget phones before, and even though I'm not much of a photographer, I find the (relatively) poorer photo quality a big turn-away. Other smaller reasons include convenience features like wireless charging, a fingerprint reader, water resistance, a nicer screen, and faster Android updates that are available for longer.
  - dddddaviddddd 8y ago
    Water resistance is easily prioritized if the previous device failed due to water damage -- this was a big factor in my last purchase
- wepple 8y ago
  Security. My phone is the root of trust for my life. It has my password manager (I never use a PM on a full computer) and is my only truly trusted device. I wouldn’t trust your Motorola’s timely security updates or hardware trustzone implememtation.
golergka 8y ago
I baught Xaomi Redmi 5 for $150 a year ago. I could've easily bought the latest iPhone, but when I compared them, I saw zero difference except for the camera. This phone was pretty much ideal for me for the last year, until it broke down (turns out browsing Twitter while lying in a bathtub with slippy hands isnt the best idea). And because of how cheap it is, and the fact that pretty much everything important is synced in the cloud anyway, I'm about to go and buy a new one without stressing over it at all. Out of curiosity, I compared the latest Redmi with the latest iPhone and Samsung Galaxy, and I again don't see a single reason to buy the flagship phones, even though I'm exactly their target audience in term of income. The problem with smartphones is that they've solved all their problems and the cheap devices are just too good.
rjf72 8y ago
I think it's your latter point that's the key issue. This is something that has been able to be predicted from years ago. Most people do not use phones for many hugely intensive tasks: email, messaging, audio/visual (music, photos, videos), and a handful of generally low resource cost apps. Like you mention it's exactly what happened to PC. Phones that are now years old can perform these tasks practically just as well as new phones and will be able to do so for the foreseeable future, so why would you buy the new phone? The fact that new phones have become much more expensive is just going to accelerate a process that was already happening, rather than being a cause of that process in and of themselves. And really this process has repeated in countless consumer hardware products besides PCs. Televisions were another example. The change from CRT to flat screen was a pretty big change. And the TV's kept getting bigger, flatter, and with better image quality. But eventually people decided that their TVs were big enough, flag enough, and looked good enough. And so TV sales have begun their extremely predictable plummet.
- nanoseltzer 8y ago
  These are all welcome trends by a societal point of view. Living standards are increasing. Even low income have access to decent electronics such as iPhones and nicer TVs.
thaumasiotes 8y ago
> If manufacturers want people to upgrade more often they need to work on curbing the price of top end models. The more expensive they are, the longer people are going to want them to last. While I agree that lowering the price of a phone will increase the rate of upgrades, I don't think increasing the rate of upgrades is an end in itself for anyone including the manufacturers. If I can sell you one phone for $1000, that's almost certainly going to be better than selling you two phones for $500 each. It front-loads my revenue and most likely costs me less. For the two phones to be better for the manufacturer, they'd need to be taking the lowest margins on their highest-end phones, which is weird. Selling you a phone every several years means less upgrading compared to selling you one every year, but it also means a lot less work for me. I feel like the actual equilibrium is "manufacture fewer phones". > Also, a bit more innovation would be nice - must every smartphone follow the exact same black rectangle design template? I'd settle for the rectangle being available in the same form factors people used to sell. We didn't just converge on "rectangle", we converged on "rectangle so oversized it only makes sense as a laptop substitute".
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

franciscop 8y ago

Exactly. I made a very good decision this time around; I wanted the cheapest phone that was fingerprint-protected and had USB Type-C, since I wanted it to last me several years and pin codes are painful. I got my current phone for 160€ (if I'm not mistaken) 1.5 years ago and I couldn't be happier. Browses the web perfectly and runs my few apps great, I'll keep it until it breaks. I'm so happy that I'm even considering buying an extra screen to have reparaibility in the future in case they are hard to find then! It's funny that many of my non-tech friends who spent half a month salary on an iPhone (Spain) are quite confused about me using a cheap android. Edit: also note that my 160€ phone now is way better than those 400€ phones 6-8 years ago. And there's not even that much difference with a current 800-1000€ phone.

hyperbovine 8y ago
Or just lag the smartphone cycle. I upgraded from 5C to a 6S a couple months back by snagging my friend’s used phone. It’s amazing in every way. Could not be happier. I can’t wait to see what the iPhone X has in store in 2022 or so :-)
- christophilus 8y ago
  This is a good strategy for most consumers. I paid $150 for my iPhone 6 on swappa, and couldn’t be happier. Still going strong.
- ChrisSD 8y ago
  This is less possible on the Android side of things. The standard now is three years of security updates from the time of first release. And this often doesn't include device driver and some middleware updates. Obviously people do hold on to phones for longer than the support term but that's far from ideal.
  - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
    Is that in USA? I had to bypass my UK provider to install any updates. I imagine software updates limit hardware updates considerably.
- mch82 8y ago
  If I could buy a new 128GB SE, I’d do it. I waited too long and now they’re only available used or in the 32GB size. I’d still be using my 5S (it still has the latest OS and works well), but I wanted to try the Apple Watch and it required an upgrade.
  - asdff 8y ago
    Why not just go used? I got mine on eBay for under $240 shipped. It was 'B' grade according to the seller, which from what I could determine meant it had literally two scratches on it instead of zero, otherwise the device was flawless. Battery health was 98%.

noir_lord 8y ago

Everything you said and you can get an excellent phone for 200 quid without a contract in the UK (Nokia 6.1 with AndroidOne) that does anything most people would reasonably want. I have one and it is excellent.

FakeComments 8y ago

I’ve just never understood the value proposition of how I’m better with a $1000 phone than a $100 phone, $500 cellular iPad, and $400 in cash left over. I buy a $50-100 phone every 12 months though! (At the low end, specs are still rising quickly.)

Dylan16807 8y ago
The iPad doesn't fit in your pocket.
- manicdee 8y ago
  Neither does the X or any of the “plus” model face slabs.
  - photojosh 8y ago
    Now I'm confused as to how I carried around my 6 Plus all that time and now the X... (and I'm not a big guy, small pants size).
    - Wowfunhappy 8y ago
      ...I'm legitimately not sure how you comfortably fit that thing in your pockets. I can make it go in, but it's not comfortable; I can't imagine walking around with it all day. You're somehow either wearing very pants from me, or you have a very different comfort tolerance. (This is very reminiscent of the discussion I have with people who tell me they can fit a Nintendo Switch in their pockets...)
      - flyingpenguin 8y ago
        While I agree almost all phones are to large, I don't know they are that bad. I recently overheard a conversation where someone was amazed by a colleagues small phone and wanted to know what it was. "Wow, what is that phone its so small!" "uhh, it's just a pixel." "Aren't pixel's huge?" "Those are pixel XL, this is a normal pixel..." The pixel 3 is 37% larger in volume than the iphone 5. It is only 15% larger than the iphone 7... gosh but I wish phones release normal+ xl + compact.

ascar 8y ago

Slightly tangential: I use my phone for the exact same things as you and I usually upgrade every 2-3 years to a high end model for a top camera. Me and my girlfriend both own the Sony Xperia Z3, which had a cutting edge camera when it was new. I upgraded to the Galaxy S9 a few months ago, she still has her Z3. The advancement in photos is striking. It's incredibly noticeable, especially the reaction time after pressing the button and the low light performance. To a point we explicitly use my phone to reshoot images we already did on the old phone, if we like the motive. I upgraded mostly because 16GB internal space wasn't enough for me anymore and Android keeps bloating. But if I had experienced the camera difference before, it would have been enough to make me upgrade. From my non-professional perspective the only thing lacking to a real camera is optical zoom. Otherwise I'm positive many shots of the S9 turn out on par or even better than mid-level Canon/Nikon reflex camera shots, if taken at the right distance. The camera market is getting more and more redudant for non-professional use cases.

frostburg 8y ago
You're wrong. The s9 photos can be passable in optimal light on a screen, but they're a mushy mess even at base iso (which is under 50). You can't make a big print, while you surely can with a midrange dslr.
- ascar 8y ago
  I'm not a professional and not even an enthusiast, so my subjective impression might contradict objective measures. But who is actually making big prints? I've never done a singe one and likely won't do anything bigger than a photobook page. That's exactly my point about dslr's becoming redundant for more and more users. I own a 500€ low end dslr and it feels worse than my 500€ phone that I carry with me anyway.
  - frostburg 8y ago
    This is somewhat strange. I mean, low end dslrs generally have good image quality (the d3xxx series from Nikon is excellent technically) but bad haptics (the controls are too modal, terrible menu systems, etc.) - I still think that they feel nicer than grasping a phone to take pictures, but it's debatable. The auto modes on the phone are better but they have a lot less to work with. I used the example of big prints (big here means bigger than A4) because it's the most immediate demanding application that I could mention. With a phone you also don't have the resolution to spare to apply perspective correction to photos of buildings, dynamic range to deal with less than gentle, bright scenes, etc.

bunderbunder 8y ago

> The problem is that smartphones are way too expensive. No. People keeping their phones longer is not a problem. People creating less trash is not a problem. People choosing to hold on to their money rather than pumping it into tech companies at a furious rate is not a problem.

asdfasgasdgasdg 8y ago
Something can be a problem from one person's perspective and not a problem from another person's perspective and/or globally. :) (Full disclosure: I upvoted you, because from a global perspective I agree that it is not a problem.)
- bunderbunder 8y ago
  I'm going to go ahead and say that, if you have a perspective where it's that important for you to be figuring out ways to compel people to send you 1/10 of the average person's discretionary income every 1-2 years, then it's that perspective that's the problem.
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 8y ago
    Sure, but if your perspective is that you want to design something compel-ling enough that people would send you that money, then maybe it's not so bad.
  - CydeWeys 8y ago
    There's nothing inherently wrong with that perspective though, as the benefits can easily be worth it to the individual. Consider that in many places smartphones are the only gateway to the Internet, and that having access to the Internet (and all the productivity that entails) can easily be worth more than 10% of discretionary income. As one example: https://foodtank.com/news/2015/01/five-ways-cell-phones-are-changing-agriculture-in-africa/ https://foodtank.com/news/2015/01/five-ways-cell-phones-are-...
    - 8y ago

nabla9 8y ago

There is also rapidly declining value from smartphone as a status symbol and part of identity. People are willing to pay extra for real or imagined increase of status. It has been few years since someone asked what phone I have. Sometimes someone asks "Apple or Android?" for practical reasons. People check out new smarphones when they are considering buying a new one. They (mostly men) are not so interested checking out new phones all the time as they used to be. Only thing can think of that could change the trend is AR/VR (Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality) really starting to deliver.

lawnchair_larry 8y ago
What makes you think people buy phones as a status symbol? I usually hear this from people who don’t buy Apple products misunderstanding the motivation of those who do.
- danmaz74 8y ago
  It used to be a real thing until a few years ago. Now, it's debatable.
- nabla9 8y ago
  Decades of research for marketing, branding and consumer behaviour seems to indicate that signaling to others is large motivation in buying decisions. Links between status signaling behavior based on expertise, need for status, and brand prominence seem to be significant. People are not always consciously aware of their motivations. Something just makes them feel right and they rationalize other reasons to justify it for themselves. Interesting recent research: Coming apart? Cultural distances in the United States over time https://www.nber.org/papers/w24771 https://www.nber.org/papers/w24771 >The brand most predictive of top income in 1992 is Grey Poupon Dijon mustard. 42 By 2004, the brand most indicative of the rich is Land O’Lakes butter, followed by Kikkoman soy sauce. By the end of the sample, ownership of Apple products (iPhone and iPad) tops the list. Knowing whether someone owns an iPad in 2016 allows us to guess correctly whether the person is in the top or bottom income quartile 69 percent of the time. Across all years in our data, no individual brand is as predictive of being high-income as owning an Apple iPhone in 2016.

gambiting 8y ago

>>One manufacturer even threatened to stop paying for in-warranty repairs if the company offered an out-of-warranty repair service. That is...100% illegal. Especially if we are talking about EU.

nty 8y ago
Why would that be illegal?
- kyriakos 8y ago
  Cause 2 years warranty is required by EU law
  - gambiting 8y ago
    That's not really true and is one of those myths that are repeated all the time. The EU customer law says that any defect present at the time of purchase has to be repaired by the seller if found within the 2 years of purchase(it's actually 6 years for most products). The problem is only faults found in the first 6 months are presumed to have been present at the time of purchase by default - any fault found later has to be proven to have been present at purchase by the customer(and predictably, that can be very difficult). So no, if your iPhone breaks after 18 months in EU, Apple doesn't have to fix it unless you can demonstrate that the fault existed on the day you bought the device(that it's a manufacturing defect essentially). And even then, it's not on the manufacturer - the law binds the seller, not the manufacturer of the devices(however, obviously whoever sold you the device can use the same law against whoever sold it to them in the first place)
    - kyriakos 8y ago
      https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/guarantees-returns/index_en.htm https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/gua... Read the first sample story, exactly the opposite of what you described. I agree with your second point even though in the case the store it received the product from a European distributor then the store has a 2 year guarantee from the distributor.

collyw 8y ago

I bought a Motorola last year for €160, which isn't a great deal. It works perfectly well. It isn't slow. (Admittedly I am not glued to my phone 24-7 like some people). I have no idea why people feel the need to spend 6 or 7 times more for the latest iPhone. What do you get for the extra money that is actually useful? I know it has a "better" screen but I never had a problem reading on the phone I have. Faster processor? Are people performing heavy computing on their phones, or just sending some whatsapp messages ans surfing the web?

mattmanser 8y ago
Generally it's the camera which incentives my friends with better phones, more expensive phone = much better camera. Apart from that, it's also the same argument about why would anyone buy an expensive watch or a branded handbag or expensive clothes? It's to show off.
pcr0 8y ago
I've purchased flagship Android phones from Samsung/Google for a while. The biggest differentiator for me is the quality of the camera. I've owned budget phones before, and even though I'm not much of a photographer, I find the (relatively) poorer photo quality a big turn-away. Other smaller reasons include convenience features like wireless charging, a fingerprint reader, water resistance, a nicer screen, and faster Android updates that are available for longer.
- dddddaviddddd 8y ago
  Water resistance is easily prioritized if the previous device failed due to water damage -- this was a big factor in my last purchase
wepple 8y ago
Security. My phone is the root of trust for my life. It has my password manager (I never use a PM on a full computer) and is my only truly trusted device. I wouldn’t trust your Motorola’s timely security updates or hardware trustzone implememtation.

golergka 8y ago

I baught Xaomi Redmi 5 for $150 a year ago. I could've easily bought the latest iPhone, but when I compared them, I saw zero difference except for the camera. This phone was pretty much ideal for me for the last year, until it broke down (turns out browsing Twitter while lying in a bathtub with slippy hands isnt the best idea). And because of how cheap it is, and the fact that pretty much everything important is synced in the cloud anyway, I'm about to go and buy a new one without stressing over it at all. Out of curiosity, I compared the latest Redmi with the latest iPhone and Samsung Galaxy, and I again don't see a single reason to buy the flagship phones, even though I'm exactly their target audience in term of income. The problem with smartphones is that they've solved all their problems and the cheap devices are just too good.

rjf72 8y ago

I think it's your latter point that's the key issue. This is something that has been able to be predicted from years ago. Most people do not use phones for many hugely intensive tasks: email, messaging, audio/visual (music, photos, videos), and a handful of generally low resource cost apps. Like you mention it's exactly what happened to PC. Phones that are now years old can perform these tasks practically just as well as new phones and will be able to do so for the foreseeable future, so why would you buy the new phone? The fact that new phones have become much more expensive is just going to accelerate a process that was already happening, rather than being a cause of that process in and of themselves. And really this process has repeated in countless consumer hardware products besides PCs. Televisions were another example. The change from CRT to flat screen was a pretty big change. And the TV's kept getting bigger, flatter, and with better image quality. But eventually people decided that their TVs were big enough, flag enough, and looked good enough. And so TV sales have begun their extremely predictable plummet.

nanoseltzer 8y ago
These are all welcome trends by a societal point of view. Living standards are increasing. Even low income have access to decent electronics such as iPhones and nicer TVs.

thaumasiotes 8y ago

> If manufacturers want people to upgrade more often they need to work on curbing the price of top end models. The more expensive they are, the longer people are going to want them to last. While I agree that lowering the price of a phone will increase the rate of upgrades, I don't think increasing the rate of upgrades is an end in itself for anyone including the manufacturers. If I can sell you one phone for $1000, that's almost certainly going to be better than selling you two phones for $500 each. It front-loads my revenue and most likely costs me less. For the two phones to be better for the manufacturer, they'd need to be taking the lowest margins on their highest-end phones, which is weird. Selling you a phone every several years means less upgrading compared to selling you one every year, but it also means a lot less work for me. I feel like the actual equilibrium is "manufacture fewer phones". > Also, a bit more innovation would be nice - must every smartphone follow the exact same black rectangle design template? I'd settle for the rectangle being available in the same form factors people used to sell. We didn't just converge on "rectangle", we converged on "rectangle so oversized it only makes sense as a laptop substitute".

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