smartphones

1. Only buy new phones from two or three years ago. So, in 2022 buy a brand new 2020 phone with the price reduced about 40%.

 2. Buy nicer budget phones. They do all the same stuff for the average user. So, a $400 phone reduced %40 is $240. It's the same new phone, now pretty cheap.

Now you can skip the stuff below.

Smartphones are truly an incredible piece of computer technology. They rival supercomputers of years gone by. They far surpassed most supercomputers from the 70s. The point of this talk about smartphones is to ask the question how much smartphone do you need? The smartphones of 7 years ago are still fantastic. They have improved, but if we were stuck with smartphones from 2015 from now on we would still be able to do all the amazing stuff we could do 7 years ago. Like buy stuff on Amazon, interact with web pages, use phone apps and take pictures and videos of stuff.

The new phones focus more and more on advanced functionality. Super smooth stabilization, super advanced movie shooting technologies. Stuff that 99.997% of all customers will never use or care about. The glass still shatters if you drop it on the floor, the battery still goes dead in about 3 years. They have a business model which doesn't really match the best customer model. If you had a really great phone from 2015 that the battery lasted 10 years, and was fairly unbreakable, then you wouldn't need a phone for 10 years. People have talked about this before but when electronics first came out people would buy a TV and have it for 15 years, or radio or a record player. These things lasted a long time and people used them a long time. But our business model has changed to where we need to sell you more and more junk faster and faster. Even though the stuff itself would actually last longer than 10 years. So it's kind of a weird environment we live in. For several years almost all phones had replaceable batteries, but a $20 battery is way cheaper than a new $1,000 phone so we'll just quit making replaceable batteries. Now you need a $1,000 phone. Gee that sounds like it's $980 more expensive. 

Until somebody comes out with a really revolutionary new purpose for phones they aren't really advancing in revolutionary ways. They've got a g-wiz camera, they play videos and music, they play games, and they do stuff through apps and browsers. And then there's the thing that it was supposed to be about in the first place, you can make phone calls on it.

Here's my advice, never buy a brand new phone that just came out this year. Never buy a used phone. Only buy brand new phones from previous years probably 3 years old. So if you wanted to buy a phone in 2022, buy a brand new phone from 2019 or 2020. These are heavily discounted, and are very close to the same phones that are coming out right now. They don't seem to be trying to change that part of the model. The part where phones come out and are the most expensive for 6 months to a year, and then the price starts dropping pretty quick. I guess they could change the model to where they sell the phone for one year and then simply discontinue it. This would force people to either buy used phones from that year or buy a brand new phone. 

The problem with used phones is they are used. They have scratches and dents and the battery isn't as strong. Sometimes they promise you that they've checked the battery strength and if it was too low they replaced it with a new battery. But I don't know how you can prove that. 

My guess is that the vast majority of phones that get to where they won't hold a charge go in the trash. Even if you trade them in they probably just trash them. What's really sad is the battery is not that difficult to replace with the right tools, and if they made even minor changes in the design it would be incredibly easy to replace any of these batteries. It's a massive waste.

Think if we treated cars this way. Well, your battery has gone dead we're going to have to sell you a new $30,000 car.