And if you are bringing up games, wordle is an odd choice given that it's among the lightest popular games. My counter example is diablo immortal which just came out and I played some to check it out. I'm not convinced it would run well on your phone.
I used Wordle as an example of a game played by the masses. There are orders of magnitude more people who play things like Wordle than things like Diablo Immortal, hence my reason for using it as an example.
But still, gaming was poorly specified on my part; I should've mentioned that a $400 phone can play AAA titles, not that a $400 phone can play casual games.
Regarding the 525 dpi, you're correct, no $400 phone will have that. People who have trouble viewing a 300 dpi screen will have to pony up for a more expensive phone.
Where we've apparently landed is that $400 will let you play even AAA titles, but will not buy you 525 dpi.
I don't play AAA games and I need a camera good enough that I can read text I've taken a picture of with. I haven't spent over $200 on a phone in about 10 years (I think it was the NA version of the HTC One X).
The only real reason I’d consider upgrading is for the better camera on the newer phones. I think I paid $400-450 for that phone 2.5 years ago and just spent $125 on a screen and battery for a phone that will likely be great for another 1.5 years. Under $600 for 4 years seems pretty good.
While I was waiting on the screen to arrive, I bought a 2020 iPhone SE for $150. It’s perfectly usable and in some situations, I prefer the smaller form factor. (I hate the loss of FaceID.)
My wife’s 13 is better for sure, but only really noticeably in the camera.
I’m speaking as someone who has used both full time as well
For many people the cost of remaining in an iPhone-exclusive network may be worth the extra money, for others they don't have any opportunity cost to leaving the iPhone-exclusive network.
Anecdotally, I also thought that my iMessage contacts were worth the extra money, until I found out all the people in the network used whatsapp far more frequently.
Turned out, the important conversations weren't happening on iMessage anyway, which was a surprise to me at the time.
If all you care about is texting, making calls, playing the occasional game[1], browsing the web, doing mobile banking, listening to music, watching videos, using social media, responding to work emails, viewing the occasional PDF, word processed document or spreadsheet sent over email, screencasting to a TV, using the device as a mobile hotspot, testing software you write for phones ... and a few more less frequent things (Like using employers paging app, employers internal systems) ... then you don't get any additional value spending more than $400 on a phone.
Don't ask me what you can do with a phone that costs more, because I haven't yet seen anyone do something on their phone that my <$400 phone cannot do.
[1] Wordle, for example, is insanely popular right now.