An iPhone SE is half that. A budget Android half again. Both completely usable, just won't replace your mirrorless camera just yet.

There are other reasons.

I spend money where I spend time: phone, chair, monitor, mattress.

I rarely drive so my car is 19 years old.

I use my phone daily (right now!) so I have the newest one.

Why explicitly the newest one?

I’m on the apple upgrade program. So I just pay monthly. I could skip a year and own the phone, but don’t really care. I want the best cameras. Life is too short.

Exactly. Normal people have already replaced their computer with phones so how old is the PC that HN commentators use? Five years?

Phones are appliances that are being used up to 10 hours every single day. And sure you can keep repairing them but at some point buying a new one will actually be cheaper.

I'd love some honest mattress advice.

I'm on a pixel 6A. It cost me under £200 factoring in the trade in deal that let me trade in a 10 year old phone (if you don't have one eBay one for £5).

And there are plenty of reasonable smart phones for less than £100 these days. You can get something like a Motorola E13 for under £70 that will do everything most people use their phones for well (beyond the camera being nothing special, but we're comparing to a dumb phone).