Do SoC's even matter that much anymore. The article is full or nice graphs and numbers, but at the end of the day, we're at a point where everything is fast. These days, the improvement in processing and memory are negligible. What matters much more to me is things like battery life, computational photography and new features that actually make a difference in my everyday use.

For example, with night sight, I actually took a bunch of pictures during Halloween, whereas otherwise I wouldn't even have tried. With call screening, I actually get to check all those scam calls I get every day. Wireless charging is also a pretty nice feature to have.

Things like that are much more impactful in my everyday use of a phone than having a 5% faster CPU.

> the 8 month old Galaxy S9 is now selling far below MSRP. You can get them new for around $500

I am only seeing them ~$800 (not plus or note which are obviously even higher), e.g. from AT&T [0] and Verizon [1]. That's quite the difference from $500, can you link where you are seeing this or do you mean second hand or when you switch carriers or something?

0 - https://www.att.com/cellphones/samsung/galaxy-s9.html#sku=sk...

1 - https://www.verizonwireless.com/smartphones/samsung-galaxy-s...

- Unlocked: https://swappa.com/buy/samsung-galaxy-s9-g960u1-unlocked?con...

$600 looks to be the most reasonable price for a sealed new unlocked Galaxy S9 [in the US]. The lower priced 'new' copies on Swappa look open-box, which are likely not new, but a refurb/return, or someone selling their used device as new. Most of the new copies on Swappa are apparently open-box units, as are most of the new units on Ebay. Definitely hard pass there.

Best Buy has new copies for $700 - that'd probably be the... best buy. Maybe you can find a like-new refurb for $500, but it seems like a sealed actual new copy will be harder to find for that price.

So like $150-250 saved by choosing Samsung, and probably getting a superior package in most ways. Google has reduced the warranty period in the US of the newest waves of Pixels by 1 year, so really they aren't offering a ton of value for that high price.

I don't think the price from private seller should count, so yeah, That BB's price ($700) should be the one used for comparison.

B&H for 600: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1406055-REG/samsung_s...

That's an international model. Who gives a warranty, B&H?

The NA model is still $720.

Oh, right. I've missed that, thanks.

At the same time - yes, B&H gives it their own warranty.

Consider that by the time a phone arrives in your hands that the SoC has been in development for at least a year or two, and the phone has been in development for up to 18 months. The SoCs in all modern phones are years old, even if someone shipped one sooner than others. And there's much more to the phone than the SoC. Single threaded performance is one number that's easy to point to and say "up == good; down == bad" but it's a single number that's not the end of the conversation when it comes to the full experience of owning a modern smartphone, and doesn't matter that much to a majority of the smartphone market.

What I was saying was, if the SoC is 8 months old (8 months since it began selling in retail devices), then the 8 month old device will likely be on sale. Getting a device that just launched (but contains the same 8 month old SoC) likely won't be on sale.

In this example, a Galaxy S9 is 8 months old. It retailed for $720 8 months ago. Now it sells for $520.

The Pixel 3 (with the same SoC) sells for $800. So it's not just $80 more. It's really like $280 more.

OEMs have different release cycles to maximize their sales; you see the same thing with blockbuster movies releases and television programming.

If there's one high end CPU from your favorite CPU manufacturer that comes out each year, guess what?

I guess it seems $280 more expensive for the same SoC, but consider that Pixel has plenty of custom silicon in it to justify a higher price (than simply the SoC). The camera literally relies on it.

I have a Pixel 1 and neither the Pixel 2 nor the Pixel 3 are a compelling upgrade for the price. I'm worried that Pixel 4 will be also be mediocre, but I'll be forced to upgrade anyway because Google will start to drop support for Pixel 1.

You have until October 2021 before you need to worry about support being dropped. Plenty can happen before then, I would be worried more about putting your phone in the washing machine than the lack of updates from Google, it will still turn on in November 2021, you just won't get Android Yummy-sweets or whatever the release will be called by then.

You mean security updates?

The Xiaomi Mi 8 has the same SOC and Sony IMX363 sensor as the Pixel 3, so if you want a cheaper device that's a good option. The only thing you really miss out on are waterproof and wireless charging, but considering its less than half the price...

The sensor isn't what makes the Pixel's camera great though, it's the Pixel-exclusive camera software.

They are in general providing hardware well above the competitor at most price points, just got an A2 and I'm loving it, camera included, gives a real run for money to high end devices

I thought that Samsung did a bunch of buy 1 get 1 free offers.