this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2024
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I'm gonna say phones. If you're getting a new phone and you're on a budget, always get a refurbished flagship from Samsung/Google (they support those ones for 5-7 years of updates now). They're often far better than new budget phones for the same price. They are built better, they last longer with far better specs, and are generally far more refined in all aspects.
Hard disagree here. My daily driver is a 5 year old Motorola phone here that cost me a whopping โฌ159 back in 2019. It is fast enough for the things I do with it. If I'd bought a flagship phone by then, the OS updates would have stopped long ago (but things appear to have improved since).
I actually buy cheap budget phones $~200. I'd disagree with this. I've had more issues with the flagship phones especially Samsung. The budget phone I am using now has had no issues. The name brand phones run a lot of bloatware on them too. Unless you want to throw your own OS on there, then I will say budget is fine.
My experience has been the complete opposite. I've had a couple Xiaomi/Samsung phones in the 300$ range. They all worked like crap. The midrange chips were fast for about one year, and then kept heating and dropping frames in the simplest animations even in custom OSes. The cameras took really awful photos. The batteries degraded really quickly. The displays weren't bright enough, the vibration motors felt bad after a while. Even some of the little things like the touch response, raise to wake, double tap to wake or auto brightness never worked well on any OS. My Pixel 6 Pro refurb for 330$ US felt COMPLETELY different. It was such a big upgrade, the screen was so much better than the shitty LCD/OLEDs on budget phones. It was brighter, faster, more responsive to touch. The build quality is honestly excellent. This phone feels great to touch and hold. The glass doesn't scratch nearly as easily too. The cameras are amazing. And my god, all the little things like auto brightness, raise to wake, tap to wake just freaking works. And the vibration motor is honestly just freaking amazing. There is no way I'm buying new phones again from now on. The smartest move for me is to get a two-year old Pixel for like 350-400 US and flash GrapheneOS on it. In 3 years, when I get rid of my 6 Pro, I can get a 9 Pro and use it for like 5 years and it's going to be better than any budget phones I can get for the same price.
Agreed, started with a Pixel 3 refurb. Just don't thik this applies to Samsung too. Pixel just doesn't have the bloatware stuff and that really does get in the way with other phones when it gets older. For my partner it's similar experience with refurbished Apple phones though.
I don't consider my pocket 'puter a lifestyle accessory or a status symbol, so... no.
Like you, IDGAF about status symbols. It's just that a two year-old flagship/high-end phone will work better and longer than a new budget phone for the same price. Like you can get a 300-350$ Pixel 7 Pro right now refurbished from Amazon and you'll have a better experience than the myriads of new phones on sale for the same price. This holds true for the cheaper Pixel 7 as well. That saves you a ton of time and money. Not to mention it's better for the environment.
Some people value a fresh new battery that can last rather than gamble on a similarly priced refurbished flagship with unknown battery degradation.
It doesn't have to be a flagship. Just make sure the phone has a decent amount of RAM. There are even modern phones that come with Android Go and 2GB of RAM that are not futureproof and absolute crap.
I tend to look for phones that are supported by LineageOS so I know there will be community updates.
Throwing in Fairphone, when you can use it with your carrier. It's modular, as ecologically fair as possible and has 10 years of software support, many years of replacement parts. And it is sufficiently modern.