but... your pixel was more than $100 new. the phone you use does not normally fit into the category you describe. the only part that makes it work is the "second hand," bit.

cheap/expensive is relative, and $400 is cheap for a phone (for north american audiences).

fwiw, i find even pixel phones to be sort of slow after a couple years into software updates, mostly between multitasking/app switching. so I think that the compute actually doesn't really scale well into the future as you imply, which is a separate unfortunate fact.

> i find even pixel phones to be sort of slow after a couple years into software updates

I assume that's because they're Google's software updates. Removing all Google apps, and most phones are fast. My BlackBerry KeyOne, with its midrange chipset, is still fast five years after it was released. Hell, I wanted a smaller form factor for a few days, and threw my SIM into my Nexus 5. Changing apps, installing updates, and navigating with OSM were all just as fast as 2013, when the phone was new. I even flipped through a few Tiktok videos to try it out - and while the first video stuttered a bit, everything after that was still quick.

Google Apps, like Google Play Services, the Play Store, and especially Maps, all seem to expand over time to consume all available resources. OS updates don't slow down your phone - the software you just want to run (and are pushed heavily to keep up-to-date) simply keeps getting heavier.

If I removed all Google apps, my phone would be like a paperweight to me. Maps, Photos, Calendar, Gmail, Drive, Books, YouTube and others are all critical to my workflows, and even just for navigating the world and taking photos in general.

You can find replacements for all of those through f-droid. You do lose a little bit of functionality and/or polish with those alternative apps though.

There's no replacement for Google Maps and Google Photos in the current world IMO.

That feels hyperbolic, but any alternative to Map that I've seen were either:

- strongly platform limited (e.g. only works on android/iOS, and you lose bookmarks, preferences, or even finding consistent info when using any over device)

- use inconsistent apps (e.g. OSM will have different clients on different platforms, which crosses the first point)

- be straight bad (e.g. Apple Maps in low population areas)

- have little to no third data integration ("what's the website of that business I'm looking at")

Photos is another can of worm, as outside of Apple Photos and Flickr every service gaining popularity just died a horrible death. Then Apple Photos is heavily platform limited, and Flickr isn't great for personal photo maintenance and sharing for many reasons, not going into the Yahoo part of it.

These two products have I think a stronger stand than Gmail or even Google Search, and they are the closest to someone's day to day reality.

Yes, excellent points.

And then Google Photos works together with Google Maps Timeline to show you pics taken on a given day in a certain place. Theoretically possible on any platform since photos have appropriate metadata, but practically only available from Google.

>not going into the Yahoo part of it.

Flickr hasn't been owned by Yahoo for a number of years at this point. I've had a paid Flickr account for quite a few years but I admit I don't use it a lot these days.

I find Google Maps is in a different category than Photos. I use Photos from time to time for image identification but that's pretty much it. (And there are a lot of alternatives for that these days.)

Flickr is now independent, but it was part of Yahoo for so long I’d guess most people having all their photos in it probably used a Yahoo account. I’ll confess I tried accessing mine after a years long hiatus and it didn’t work (endless password resets)

On alternatives, which storage/sync and management service do you see working at the same level as Photos ? I’m genuinely curious and would move if it matches up (Basically, what is the Gmail->Fastmail like go to alternative for Photos ?)

Image identification looks to me like a very fringe use for a photo storage service, or perhaps you’re referring to searching all your photos for specific keywords ?

PS: Reminds me of the photos services curse from “The Prompt” podcast, where every time they’d present a competitive photo service, like Everpix, it would go out of business or something horrible happen to it a few months in.

I use Flickr for a curated subset of my photos but it's honestly been a while since I've uploaded anything.

I have Apple Photos but only what I shoot on my iPhone.

Primarily though I organize and edit photos locally with Lightroom Classic. (And, in addition to local backups, it's backed up by Backblaze along with all my other files.

That's the problem though, those f-droid alternatives are nowhere near Google apps' functionality. Believe me, I've tried, and I've always gone back to GApps.

Sadly Maps is the killer phone app for me. Otherwise I'd try harder to get rid of the google stuff on my phone.

Yeah, I switched to iOS but still keep Google Maps around for the times when Apple Maps doesn't quite work the way it should. I'm still 90-95% Apple Maps but sometimes I have to call for backup.

Google also works better for "browsing" the neighborhood to see what businesses are nearby.

I mean, in the case of phone comparisons, what you want to benchmark is the phone with it's default services and apps (which is what people use).

If you can modify those, then what's the comparison on? How fast it boots to no apps or services running?

I wasn't trying to compare second-hand price vs new, I just added that since I didn't want to come off as complaining when I'm not really concerned by the cost of new phones (or electronics for that matter), it was just an observation. If anything, I'm thankful for consumerism enabling me to buy from an ample supply of quality second-hand electronics.

>cheap/expensive is relative

I guess that's kind of my point if there was one. Today's cheap smartphones are at the price of flagship phones from <10 years ago. I find it noticeable how far goalposts have moved when it comes to what cheap (let alone expensive) means for smartphones. Which is just a remark and not a criticism, consumers command markets as it should be and I'm more than aware my habits are not extrapolatable.

We are arguably in a tech golden age where all this cool stuff is cheap now.

Look at video cards. Counting for inflation those things were expensive. Then they got cheap. Now they’re gonna get expensive again ( look at the proposed prices for 4000 series GeForce cards ).

I think we are eventually going to see more expensive phones simply because people won’t really need to buy new ones anymore.

Through luck or minor hacks, I have been able to keep my phone costs less than $100 a year over the last decade. The nexus and pixel lines have almost always offered a new phone around the $300 mark (black friday, trade in, some promo, etc.) and they last for about 3 years.

It took me a long, long time to get used to having an expensive device on me that is bulky, fragile, not waterproof (includes iPhones after you drop it once), requires daily charging, and not durable in general (due to battery or sabotage by update). Jewelry is more expensive but has none of these issues.

They are certainly very useful, but I don’t think the current standard is the best compromise.

FWIW dropped my iPhone 12+ several times (a recurring occurrence with some pants I use when I put the phone in the front pocket and sit on my office chair). So far, I can still wash it and even use it in the pool with the kids.

Of course, YMMV.

I bought iPhone 11 when it came out, never wear a case and dropped it numerous times. It still works fine, with the original screen intact(not counting some scratches).

It survived even flying from an e-scooter after I’ve hit a bump on 15 km/h and sliding couple meters on asphalt afterwards.

And after all that it still had no problem when I dived into the pool with it and shot how I’m riding on a water slide.

Maybe I’m just lucky but it feels like you are exaggerating iPhone fragility. They’ve improved a lot recently.

Perhaps we were unlucky. Fyi: the standard iPhone warranty does not cover water damage (and it was just a spill, not submerged). Found out the hard way.

The price is "cheap" because it is low enough that most carriers will give it to you basically for free if you trade in your old phone and/or agree not to switch to a different carrier for 18-24 months.

That’s not free. They’re amortizing the cost of the phone into the service fees.

Even budget carriers do this. Google Fi charges $450 for the 6a or $240 if you agree to two years. Their cheapest lines are $15/mo, which is $360 over two years, so you can see how they can offer the $210 discount.

It is functionally free if you were going to pay for the same service from the same carrier for that period of time anyways.

> Am I cheap, poor, frugal or outdated to find it mildly funny US$400-450+tx are considered cheap phones nowadays?

I can’t speak to whether you’re any of those, but I can say this. Anyone spending significantly more than that (I’m included in this category) is either:

- Buying it for the quality of its camera (me again, not that I’m an especially avid photographer; I almost exclusively take pics of my pup)

- Some mix of spending too much or not realizing they’re in one or more categories below (some large majority, I’d wager)

- Doing a cost benefit analysis that favors spending more upfront for a longer-term investment (me again again, although my phone ownership lifecycle has shortened significantly; it’s still beneficial because my hand-me-downs benefit loved ones)

- Married to the software (me once again, much moreso on mobile than on general purpose computers these days)

- Enthralled by compute power or some other hardware particularity (o_0 I’m probably just getting old but I mostly don’t get this… okay I’m amused that my phone is more powerful in many ways than its current high-end laptop companion)

None of your reasons cover the hordes of people buying the pro models when there’s absolutely no reason to. Especially in India. I live in an upper middle class apartment complex and half the folks living here have a 13 Pro. It costs 60% more if not higher here than in the US as well. You have to be in the 99.5th percentile of salary earners to cover the price of the phone in a single months salary.

It’s all about image and prestige and that’s one of the biggest reasons nowadays if you ask me.

> None of your reasons cover the hordes of people buying the pro models when there’s absolutely no reason to.

I’m fairly certain the second item does?

I have a rule that I spend the most money on things I use the most.

Mattresses, phones, computers, desks, chairs, etc. Is a thousand dollars for a phone a lot? Well, depends on how you look at it. I use it for more than an hour a day, every day, so a 1000 dollars over two years for a device like that doesn't seem insane to me. Comes out to about a $1.40 a day.

I think that’s a good thing to consider when making a purchase, but it’s also very one-dimensional.

To me 1000$ for a phone is a lot because it’s only marginally better than a 500$ phone.

Also phones are big liability. Odds are a good mattress or chair will last ages. A phone lasts 2 to 3 years generally.

I have no rule but my heuristic is to spare no expense on things that matter most to me, but to research them if I’m not already sure what I want. That research often factors in price because “spare no expense” can be absurd when it’s blind. Multiple orders of magnitude absurd when you’re not paying attention and think you have that lack of attention available.

Being taxed $1.40 a day EVERY DAY OF YOUR LIFE doesn't sound insignificant.

To own my own pocket supercomputer that also functions as a high quality photo/video camera? I'd gladly pay that "tax". It's about the equivalent of one meal a month in a restaurant.

I think you're missing a big one that applies to most people I know:

- Locked into two year contracts where a phone upgrade is "free" every two years, but they are spending $100+ per month for that "free" phone

As a Canadian, I have a $50 plan with 12 gb of data (pretty good deal for here). If I wanted to get a new iPhone 13, I'd have to spend $300 up front (would be offset if i had an old device to trade in), plus an additional $33/month for two years, plus choose a plan that was at least $60 base. So I'd get a "free" phone every two years (as long as I had an old device to trade in every two years, and paid twice as much per month).

I won't do these things, so I have just replaced my $300 all-in phone from 4 years ago with a $400 all-in phone.

That definitely feels like it falls under the spending too much category, but I’ve only once financed a phone (should be mine pretty soon I think!) and hope I never need to again.

That's fair, I just find that the number of people who fall into that specific source of "spending too much" makes it important to specify. Most providers bury the actual phone cost somehow, and only focus on the monthly total - normalizing people spending $100/month on cell services

Your description of that deal doesn't really add up. If you're putting down $300 and paying $33/month, that's just buying a phone.

Yes, but if you have a two year old iPhone then they give you a $300 credit for trading it in. And you're already paying $95 a month (to cover your two year old phone), so the monthly cost ends up being the same. And the only alternative the salespersons will mention is buying the iPhone outright for $1200. So people think they are getting a deal (when they're actually just financing a phone over two years with an overpriced plan)

So, are phones actually more powerful than computers? I know obviously there's a scale, but my understanding is that x86 stuff is an entirely different league than anything built for mobile. I wasn't really acutely aware of this until I started building some small form factor entertainment systems. After doing some research and testing I was getting far better performance out of old model x86 Chromeboxes than even the latest mobile hardware.

A15 in the iPhone SE is far faster than any atom-class CPU which is what you typically find in a chromebook. On JavaScript benchmarks it trades blows with 12th gen Intel laptop CPUs.

My iPhone 13 Pro Max absolutely beats my 2019 MacBook Pro 16” on several benchmarks. Subjectively it also very readily remains useful and responsive for many tasks when the same laptop doesn’t for the same task.

- cares about SW updates

The first generation iPhone from 2016 can still be updated with the latest iOs version.

I think that falls squarely under “married to the software”? At least it was part of the spirit of I intended.

You have to admit that there is some gap between "I want the latest re-rounded corners on app icons" (which fits into that category neatly) and "I don't want 4 years of unpatched 0-days still open on my phone" (which I'd argue does not).

I don’t know why I have to admit this, but sure I’ll grant it. I don’t think the former is a reasonable characterization of “married to the software”, I think it’s a caricature.

I mean it's all relative, but yeah, $429 starting price for a phone coming from a company that is known to support their products for a minimum of 5 years is really not bad. Especially since these phones hold their value far better than any other brand on the market. I bought an iphone SE (2nd gen) in 2020 for $450 and sold it for $230 in 2022, so it worked out to about $110/year. It was a fantastic phone, but I upgraded to a 13 mini because my work offered to pay for the phone. I used to have a Moto E, which I think most people would consider a "cheap" phone and a) it wasn't a great phone b) i had no desire to keep it more than 2 years and c) by the time i was done using it, it's secondary market value was low enough that i didn't bother selling it.

My phone is the thing I use most out of all things I have.

So spending a few extra cent per hour of usage to get a nicer one is very easy to justify.

But do you want to be spending so much time on your phone?

To me, buying an expensive phone is somewhat like buying an expensive tobacco pipe. It will just encourage you to use it more. When in fact, most of the 'use' is worse than useless.

$180 is about how much a phone should cost, and even that is too much what with forced (completely unjustified) obsolescence. $450 for a 'budget' phone is madness. $1000+ for a flagship is insanity. Unless you have a specific, legitimate need for it - most people don't.

Sounds like we should both have the phones we have :)

Exactly. Contrary to popular belief no one became poor by buying Starbucks or iPhones. For most folks their biggest financial blunders are likely always about real estate, marital, or career related not your petty cash spending habits.

In the US maybe, but there are many countries where housing or services are much cheaper, while iPhones cost the same.

In the poorer regions of my reasonably modern European country, getting even the base model of every iPhone generation would put significant stress on most families' finances, but it's what some folks actually do because it's such a status symbol.

You are not. And the camera in the pixel 6a is the same as it ever was and they made it worse by replacing the rock solid back fingerprint reader with a junk "under the glass tesla AI is coming next year" reader.

The real draw is the camera. The ease of taking videos, especially of your kids, is worth the price tag for many. And the camera is a differentiating factor between the lower and higher tier models. Is the state-of-the-art camera needed? Debatable, but once family and memories are involved all economic rationality goes out the window.

Good phones have never been cheap. NEVER.

Even the Nokia candy bar phones MSRPed at $USD 599 or greater. (Remember the Communicator? I think that thing clocked in at $USD 999!)

The current iteration of expensive phones have an incredible price to value ratio. High quality displays, professional grade camera lenses assisted with top-tier computational photography, extremely fast SoCs. The SEs are all of that with slightly lower quality bins...for $400.

Are you not entertained?

My suggestion is to buy them used. So far I've purchased ~4 Apple devices for family members on Swappa, each time I got a pretty good discount over the new device. So while an SE is $429 new, you can find one in mint condition on Swappa with 95% battery health (the most important detail when buying a used iOS device IMO) for $220, and if you're tight on cash and want to really go cheap, buy one that's been scuffed up for around $130.

I don’t know about everyone else, but as a professional in the film/video world having a new-ish (I upgrade every 3 years or so) iPhone actually helps me do my job.

I'm in the same camp as you. Running an T420 instead. ;)

My phone is a top-low end phone or a low-mid end Oppo A 53? Or something like that. It does everything I need with loads of head room. Will just run it until death.

The iPhone SE is in the high end of what I’ll pay for a phone. Sadly it’s also the only smart phone available to me, as I don’t want an Android phone.

expensive smartphones are Veblen goods [1] by now, they mostly make no sense, but they will be bought for other reasons

Personally, I won't spend more than 200 eur for a new phone.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good

Just to cite one example, all that blazing compute is what enables the cameras to work as well as they do.

Flagships are now so much better than when they costed $400. But don’t worry because there currently are phones that cost $200 and are better than what you got for $400 years ago, so you’re covered too.