zlacker

>>alphab+(OP)
It's starting to feel silly, having a yearly release cycle for smartphones. So much of this product page is focused on new software functions that may have some vague relationship with the slightly upgraded hardware, but that could mostly be released to existing phones. Every new iPhone, Pixel, or Samsung phone basically claims the camera is marginally better and hey, look at these software features that have very little to do with the hardware and should not fundamentally be a reason to upgrade to this phone.

There is so much time, effort, and physical waste that is generated by slightly redesigning phones every year purely for the sake of making sales (as opposed to meaningful improvement upon the existing design or introduction of a new hardware feature). Think not only of people upgrading for the sake of it, but all of the cases, screen protectors, and other assorted accessories cast in plastic for previous models that are garbage now.

It would be nice if we could just space these things out to 5 years or so now, because that's probably how long it takes for anything to change enough to justify a new model.

>>kimber+T71
The status quo is great. You have yearly releases that are stable and allow anyone to upgrade without fear of the new model coming out like with traditional video game consoles.

No one is forcing you to buy anything you don’t want.

Also, the OS and apps need to take advantage of new hardware, so it’s not a surprise if your seven year old phone becomes slower.

If you don’t like the status quo then I would go with a non-iOS and non-android phone like pine phone, Mairena, librem, or anything else that based on a more open Linux distro.

>>chaost+Yn1
I think it's interesting that you cite video game consoles as a negative. I'd argue the opposite, I think phones should be more like them.

With video game consoles, you have a single device where micro-optimizations are constantly done, new features are added, and all software can be purpose-built to work really well on that specific hardware. All of that for ~7 years means a really fantastic user experience and a massive community of people that have collectively worked through solutions to common problems and forced the company's hand on defects (joycon drift, for example). It also means tons of high-quality hardware-specific accessories, both from the company that made the console and from third parties.