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> So the only compelling reason to upgrade from the 14 is... Your brain has been rotted by product marketing and tech consumer hype fanaticism. If your phone

> So the only compelling reason to upgrade from the 14 is... Your brain has been rotted by product marketing and tech consumer hype fanaticism. If your phone is a year old then the only reasons to buy a new one are - you make a living developing software for that phone - you make a living writing about that phone - you are a hobbyist or enthusiast who loves phones and wants to spend disposable income on them

palla89 3y ago
Thank you, because you just took me on the Planet Earth: I’m using a 14 Pro and I upgraded from a XS and the change was impressing. Now… I was just being victim of the hype :D better save these money!
rrrrrrrrrrrryan 3y ago
Well, it's a tool. It's not just a computing environment that runs applications. For people that don't work in software, the biggest change here is the camera upgrades. This thing has 8x optical zoom and can record 3D video. Many people use their phone camera as part of their job, and many more people as part of their hobbies. For some of these people it's worth the cost to upgrade, especially if their current phone is a couple generations behind.
- FrozenSynapse 3y ago
  - 3D video that can only be played on their 3500$+ device. - camera is marginally improved, no difference from 2-3 years ago when looking at the pictures with the naked eye
cactusplant7374 3y ago
Camera upgrades are worth it if you travel a lot as I do.
- n0zmer 3y ago
  Buying a real camera was the best travel decision I've made. Everyone thinks phone cameras are just as good until you actually get a decent camera. And they are just as point and click. Seriously, phone travel photos are garbage in comparison.
  - pertymcpert 3y ago
    Nah. I use an XT-4, and while it's certainly a better camera, it's quite easy to take a worse photo with it than with a new iPhone. Yes low light perf is better with a camera, sharpness too. But unless you use HDR bracketing you're DR limited in a lot of every day situations that the general public will be disappointed with. Blown out highlights or indistinguishable shadows. The iPhone or other high end phone will stitch multiple photos with HDR automatically. People prefer that. Auto-focus is generally not as good as with iPhones either. The amount of computational power in the SoC dwarfs modern cameras, and while you can get very good auto-focus, you've never heard of any iPhone user complain about the camera not focusing on the right subject. Still, wouldn't trade the XT-4 at all. It's ceiling is vastly higher than any phone camera if you know what you're doing and understand the limitations.
    - Fethbita 3y ago
      Which lens/lenses do you use with your XT-4? I am in the same situation, I have an iPhone but while the photos it makes in certain situations are better I would prefer the XT-4 in other situations, if I have the camera with me that is.
      - pertymcpert 3y ago
        Sorry just noticed your reply. I have the 16-80mm kit lens, and also the 23mm F/2. Both are good lenses. What I have noticed with this XT4, and I don't know if it's a general problem or specific to XT4/Fujis, is that it's very prone to choosing slow shutter speeds. I normally shoot effectively in aperture priority, but when I first got the XT4 it was constantly picking too slow of a SS to capture people/kids. The way I fixed that was to go into the settings and find the "auto ISO" section, and set a minimum SS of 1/125s which works well for most everyday situations. Then bump up the ISO ceiling to something very high like 12000. The idea is that if your SS is too slow you basically have an unusable image, whereas at least with high ISO you can denoise and have something useful. I also now use custom film simulations I got from Fuji X weekly. My favorites are these: https://fujixweekly.com/2021/05/03/fujifilm-x100v-x-trans-iv-film-simulation-recipe-xpro-62/ https://fujixweekly.com/2021/05/03/fujifilm-x100v-x-trans-iv... and Portra 400 and some others I can't remember.
Hermitian909 3y ago
I think this is the parent comment's complaint, no? Go back a decade and the rate of improvement in phones meant there was reason to be buying a new one every year (just like computers in 90s). Now that innovation is slow, it's just this year's update to a consumer good rather than a leading edge of a tech revolution.
- graeme 3y ago
  With the older phones and the 90s computers, they were patently inadequate for the jobs they were doing. Every upgrade gave incredibly useful capacity. Now the phones are more than adequate. The upgrades are often fairly nice. Some years we've had 20% increases in processing speed or a doubling of the RAM be greeted with a yawn. And this makes sense because we aren't really constrained for most of our uses. But the phones were not generally tripling in capability in years past.
ulkesh 3y ago
Yeah, far be it for me to expect a 2.76 TRILLION dollar company to actually innovate within a single year. My apologies for having such expectations. And my brain is the one rotted. Okay. I love how downvotes are used here to punish those you disagree with. Such fun. I guess this is now Reddit.
- pertymcpert 3y ago
  Yep that's how it works. A 2.76tn company should be able to innovate and make a phone 2x better than a 1.38tn company.
t0ps0il 3y ago
> - you make a living developing software for that phone I fall under this. I'll be upgrading from an 11 Pro this time around mainly because I've let my battery go bad. We can do most things from the simulator and when we need bluetooth or CoreLocation we can always run the app as a Mac app and use the computers chips. The job title is a nice excuse to get the latest and greatest but it's not strictly necessary.
- notyourwork 3y ago
  Why not replace the battery?
  - t0ps0il 3y ago
    I've also dropped it a fair amount of times without a case so it's in rough shape. I'd be lying if I said the USB-C port and Ti shell weren't contributing factors to me upgrading.
paulmd 3y ago
> Your brain has been rotted this kind of rhetoric has no place on HN, and it's sad that it has been so casually normalized among the android fanbase. super tired of "brainless apple sheeple only buy because of blue bubble!" and similar stuff, it just is constant and offensive and android fans know it damn well, they just know nobody is going to call it out either. Doesn't belong on HN.
- waffleiron 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - paulmd 3y ago
    No, you need to fuck off, and not justify and defend this kind of rhetoric on HN. nobody should be calling anybody brainless here. The end. I will page dang if you want.
    - dang 3y ago
      You're right that nobody should be calling anybody brainless here, but please don't react to that by breaking the site guidelines yourself. That only makes things worse. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
wingerlang 3y ago
> you make a living developing software for that phone I am a professional iOS developer and I still use an iPhone X. I am convinced this one will carry me another 2-3 years.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
dang 3y ago
Please don't cross into personal attack and name-calling in HN threads. We're trying for the opposite here. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37486633 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37486633.

palla89 3y ago

Thank you, because you just took me on the Planet Earth: I’m using a 14 Pro and I upgraded from a XS and the change was impressing. Now… I was just being victim of the hype :D better save these money!

rrrrrrrrrrrryan 3y ago

Well, it's a tool. It's not just a computing environment that runs applications. For people that don't work in software, the biggest change here is the camera upgrades. This thing has 8x optical zoom and can record 3D video. Many people use their phone camera as part of their job, and many more people as part of their hobbies. For some of these people it's worth the cost to upgrade, especially if their current phone is a couple generations behind.

FrozenSynapse 3y ago
- 3D video that can only be played on their 3500$+ device. - camera is marginally improved, no difference from 2-3 years ago when looking at the pictures with the naked eye

cactusplant7374 3y ago

Camera upgrades are worth it if you travel a lot as I do.

n0zmer 3y ago
Buying a real camera was the best travel decision I've made. Everyone thinks phone cameras are just as good until you actually get a decent camera. And they are just as point and click. Seriously, phone travel photos are garbage in comparison.
- pertymcpert 3y ago
  Nah. I use an XT-4, and while it's certainly a better camera, it's quite easy to take a worse photo with it than with a new iPhone. Yes low light perf is better with a camera, sharpness too. But unless you use HDR bracketing you're DR limited in a lot of every day situations that the general public will be disappointed with. Blown out highlights or indistinguishable shadows. The iPhone or other high end phone will stitch multiple photos with HDR automatically. People prefer that. Auto-focus is generally not as good as with iPhones either. The amount of computational power in the SoC dwarfs modern cameras, and while you can get very good auto-focus, you've never heard of any iPhone user complain about the camera not focusing on the right subject. Still, wouldn't trade the XT-4 at all. It's ceiling is vastly higher than any phone camera if you know what you're doing and understand the limitations.
  - Fethbita 3y ago
    Which lens/lenses do you use with your XT-4? I am in the same situation, I have an iPhone but while the photos it makes in certain situations are better I would prefer the XT-4 in other situations, if I have the camera with me that is.
    - pertymcpert 3y ago
      Sorry just noticed your reply. I have the 16-80mm kit lens, and also the 23mm F/2. Both are good lenses. What I have noticed with this XT4, and I don't know if it's a general problem or specific to XT4/Fujis, is that it's very prone to choosing slow shutter speeds. I normally shoot effectively in aperture priority, but when I first got the XT4 it was constantly picking too slow of a SS to capture people/kids. The way I fixed that was to go into the settings and find the "auto ISO" section, and set a minimum SS of 1/125s which works well for most everyday situations. Then bump up the ISO ceiling to something very high like 12000. The idea is that if your SS is too slow you basically have an unusable image, whereas at least with high ISO you can denoise and have something useful. I also now use custom film simulations I got from Fuji X weekly. My favorites are these: https://fujixweekly.com/2021/05/03/fujifilm-x100v-x-trans-iv-film-simulation-recipe-xpro-62/ https://fujixweekly.com/2021/05/03/fujifilm-x100v-x-trans-iv... and Portra 400 and some others I can't remember.

Hermitian909 3y ago

I think this is the parent comment's complaint, no? Go back a decade and the rate of improvement in phones meant there was reason to be buying a new one every year (just like computers in 90s). Now that innovation is slow, it's just this year's update to a consumer good rather than a leading edge of a tech revolution.

graeme 3y ago
With the older phones and the 90s computers, they were patently inadequate for the jobs they were doing. Every upgrade gave incredibly useful capacity. Now the phones are more than adequate. The upgrades are often fairly nice. Some years we've had 20% increases in processing speed or a doubling of the RAM be greeted with a yawn. And this makes sense because we aren't really constrained for most of our uses. But the phones were not generally tripling in capability in years past.

ulkesh 3y ago

Yeah, far be it for me to expect a 2.76 TRILLION dollar company to actually innovate within a single year. My apologies for having such expectations. And my brain is the one rotted. Okay. I love how downvotes are used here to punish those you disagree with. Such fun. I guess this is now Reddit.

pertymcpert 3y ago
Yep that's how it works. A 2.76tn company should be able to innovate and make a phone 2x better than a 1.38tn company.

t0ps0il 3y ago

> - you make a living developing software for that phone I fall under this. I'll be upgrading from an 11 Pro this time around mainly because I've let my battery go bad. We can do most things from the simulator and when we need bluetooth or CoreLocation we can always run the app as a Mac app and use the computers chips. The job title is a nice excuse to get the latest and greatest but it's not strictly necessary.

notyourwork 3y ago
Why not replace the battery?
- t0ps0il 3y ago
  I've also dropped it a fair amount of times without a case so it's in rough shape. I'd be lying if I said the USB-C port and Ti shell weren't contributing factors to me upgrading.

paulmd 3y ago

> Your brain has been rotted this kind of rhetoric has no place on HN, and it's sad that it has been so casually normalized among the android fanbase. super tired of "brainless apple sheeple only buy because of blue bubble!" and similar stuff, it just is constant and offensive and android fans know it damn well, they just know nobody is going to call it out either. Doesn't belong on HN.

waffleiron 3y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- paulmd 3y ago
  No, you need to fuck off, and not justify and defend this kind of rhetoric on HN. nobody should be calling anybody brainless here. The end. I will page dang if you want.
  - dang 3y ago
    You're right that nobody should be calling anybody brainless here, but please don't react to that by breaking the site guidelines yourself. That only makes things worse. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

wingerlang 3y ago

> you make a living developing software for that phone I am a professional iOS developer and I still use an iPhone X. I am convinced this one will carry me another 2-3 years.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

dang 3y ago

Please don't cross into personal attack and name-calling in HN threads. We're trying for the opposite here. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37486633 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37486633.