Technology

Two cents on the headphone jack issue folks bring up all the time. The convenience of 3.5 mm is great and valid. Totally agree.

However, I use and own a lot of wired higher end headphones and a dongle DAC is just better audio quality than the 3.5mm jack. Let me explain.

3.5mm jacks means the phone's on board DAC is doing the work and outputting an analog stereo signal. You are stuck with whatever, typically sub-par, DAC is built into your phone. Yes, some phones have better DACs than others, but it is a challenge to sort out and is often not a priority for most manufacturers.

With type C dongle you can escape your phone's limitations and use dongles with audio features like fully balanced audio because the signal stays digital from your phone to the dongle. Personally, I'm a fan of 4.4 mm balanced connection, as most of my headphones will run balanced. This is something I could never do with 3.5mm alone.

DDHifi, XDUOO, ifi, etc makes some great 'audiophile' - dumb title but you know what I mean - DACs.

I often don't hear this side of the issue discussed.

Why the fuck would I upgrade my phone every single year? Don’t get me wrong, I love the one I literally just got, but it’s my first upgrade in years. At some point, the question becomes “what the fuck else do you want these things to do”

Everyone is poor from inflation and a million different subscription services and smartphone makers haven't done anything new in years so there's no point in getting a new phone unless the old one breaks.

My Samsung phones keep "mysteriously" going to shit after 18 to 22 months so I might try an iPhone when my current one shits the bed. Hopefully they will get their head out of their ass and reduce/remove the cutout.

Honestly, how much better can they get? I love to have the latest gadgets as much as the next guy, but I've got bills and shit too.

Still rocking my Pixel 4a.

There is nothing new and exciting coming out. I remember buying the first smart phone, that was really cool and exiting. Now they are like televisions, nothing exciting about them anymore.

Phones has been fast enough for me without upgrading to new hardware the last few years.

And with a Fairphone, it is actually feasible to repair and change battery once in a while :)

My pixel 7 that I currently have will probably be my last $1000 phone, there's no need to upgrade anymore.

Good.

Contract subsidies are kind of coming back in the form of "trade in bill credits.". Previously you'd sign a 2 year contract and they would subsidize your phone, however; I just got $800 of trade in credit at Verizon for a phone they normally give $150 for.

The catch, of course there are many... the bill credits are over 3 years, and in my case fully offset the cost of the monthly phone purchase price; if you leave you need to pay off the remaining balance, and if you upgrade you lose your credits. Also you need to be on an unlimited plus plan.

However; I now have a new phone with no additional monthly payments. The last Samsung I had made it 5 years, and the new one actually has a serviceable battery!

Good. Hope we can now focus on market consolidation and get rid of phones as fashion statements.

I'm not really surprised, smartphones kinda hit this point of "good enough for most people's purposes" 3-4y ago and short of an actual reason to upgrade like the 4g-5g switchover there isn't a lot of incentive for most people to throw down $400-1k for a new phone every couple of years.

I would have happily kept my OnePlus 7T for a few more years if the network switchover didn't require new hardware.

Personally I don't need a faster smartphone at this point, if anything motivates me to buy a new one it's usually better radios, better battery runtime and better cameras. The rest of the gewgaws don't matter much for daily use.

Well.. contract lengths are getting longer, what do they expect?

Also, one phone is very much like another these days. You don't get a lot by upgrading.

My Huawei Mate 10 pro (2017) was the last phone that felt like an upgrade. Everything since then has been better in some respects, worse in others. Just a replacement for a phone that is physically too broken to be used any longer.

I don't think I'll ever spend €1000 or more for a phone anymore, even though I could afford it. I'm just not willing to spend that much money on a phone that offers hardly anything new. Maybe if they finally make a fairphone with a decent camera, I would pay a premium for repairability so I can use it for more than 3 years before it inevitably falls apart...

Phones have provided nothing new in a decade exceot incremental upgrades and foldables are... fragile and expensive

I'd like netbooks to come back. That was a good idea (and sufficiently popular, and probably slaughtered due to some backstage pressure from Microsoft, cause those were often used with Linux, I even remember that some were sold with Linux).

I have a Samsung note 20. I got it some time in 2021, I think. I only replaced it because my previous Note 20 fell out of it's mount on my motorcycle handlebar on the highway, and while I apparently have international calls, this doesn't mean the phone can be run over by an International.

Before I got the original ill-fated Samsung in 2021, I was using a Moto X4 that I bought in 2017. That one still works, but the battery dies fast, so I use it as a screen for a camera drone.

If I were to go buy the latest Samsung Note, I seriously doubt it would be noticeably better than my Note 20. I normally wouldn't bother to get a phone this nice, but I wanted to treat myself, just once.

Good

Google and Samsung are winning and smaller vendors are being squeezed out.