Comment on Vodafone Finds Brits Keep Mobile Phones for 4 Years Instead of 2
NuPNuA@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Unless you’re doing very specialist stuff, phone tech peaked a while back for the average user who’s only going to do some web browsing, social media, listen to some tunes or watchbsome funny videos. All the little incremental changes aren’t groundbreaking for that use case.
Until foldables are both reliable and cheaper, phones have stagnated in terms of visably appealing features.
Yup. Price per flop or whatever is cheaper than ever but after a certain point it doesnt matter. Also I don’t do specialist stuff on my phone. I do it on my desktop rig that can actually run arbitrary code I give it.
I do have a few friends with money who just need that latest 50 megapixel phone camera or that 4k phone screen. But I don’t much care.
SeaOtter@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
Not sure I agree that phone tech has peaked a couple years ago for the average user. What technology peaked years ago?
Camera? Efficient processors? Display panels? Biometrics? Batteries? Cellular/Wi-Fi modems? I cannot think of a single technology (I am on iPhone 14 Pro) that is not at least marginally better than a year or two ago, and pretty meaningful improvement from ~5 years ago.
The rate of technological improvement has slowed or plateaued, but there is a pretty reasonable argument that current flagship technologies are the “peak”, even for average user, if only incrementally. I agree that this plateau, coupled with upgrade cost, is making it a harder choice to decide to upgrade for average user.
nudl@lemm.ee 1 year ago
If anything if you just go with “got good enough for the average user years ago”, that works.
I’m on a cat s62 pro with a 5 year old Snapdragon 660, and, while it shows its age, it functions just fine and will for the next few years.
SeaOtter@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
Agreed, but that is not what OP said.
stealth_cookies@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
Cameras are mostly software improvements these days. I argue displays have gotten worse with the drop from QHD to 1080p. Many think that the back fingerprint readers are better than the under screen of facial ones. 5G is mostly pointless. All while costs have increased greatly. A phone today doesn’t better meet my use cases than the phone I had 6 years ago and in many ways is worse (lower res screen, no headphone jack, inflated prices).
WagesOf@artemis.camp 1 year ago
You're on apple, they certainly haven't had a user noticeable change for the last 6 years.
For me on android the last "must have" was variable refresh up to 120hz. I'll probably even do a battery upgrade on my s21 when it can't last a full day rather than hit an s25.
The only blocker I've hit with is yuzu on android, which kind of just doesn't work at all still.
SeaOtter@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
Okay. Trying picking up a iPhone X (releases Sep 2017) vs iPhone 14 Pro and see the difference. There are a lot of quality of life improvements that make a noticeable user difference.
I can confidently say everyone of these features has improved my user experience. None of them by their self are earth shattering, but taken as a whole, the constant iterative improvements have amounted to quite a lot.
Freeman@feddit.de 1 year ago
As someone who just had an Galaxy S7 or something for 6.5 years this all sounds way overkill. I’d probably disable everything possible to get even more battery life out of it.
If someone uses this phone for gaming or working or for documenting/photographing a trip or something, then its maybe worth it but for everyday use its just overkill imo
waz@feddit.uk 1 year ago
Still using an iPhone X abs the only things in your list that interest me are faster charging and LiDAR. But nothing to do with portraits; I want it for 3D scanning objects for CAD models for 3D printing. But I’d use it maybe a few times a year.
BlueEther@no.lastname.nz 1 year ago
as someone with an XR the only thing on that list maybe the camera and sat coms, but I have a DSLR and InReach device
itsJoelle@lemmy.world 1 year ago
It’s interesting you claim “they certainly haven’t had a user noticeable change for the last six years”, and then cite a feature addition “on android” which was implemented on the iPhone 13.