Comment by antifarben
2 hours ago
I'm an exception for sure but I have not seen much innovation in the phone space that you'd genuinely make me buy a new phone.
Yes, cameras are better now. But some phones had good cameras years ago. I bought new phones mainly because of battery decline and/or not getting security updates.
If one of these will be solved, that might change my phone buying behaviour.
I don't care whether a display is called "retina" , whether the next edition comes in the colour "space banana grey while lion tiger snail".
And I don't need to impress someone by proving that I'm able to buy a new phone either. Such behaviour gives me a good hint what to think about them though.
A phone that will have the battery situation solved is a killer argument. Then I'd like to have a software distribution on top that it's "mum compatible" and doesn't need nerd knowledge to maintain. Something that allows to use banking apps.
Let's see how it goes. Also I hope that there can be third party batteries without DRM-like behaviour.
To me the best "tradeoff" right now is buying used Fairphones from ebay.
It is LineageOS HEAD compatible and has replaceable batteries.
But it has some quirks. Medium performance if even that, non working fingerprint sensor. Camera quality from 2005.
I don't have gapps installed so I'm using my phone without any type of payment/2fa/banking apps. That decision from opsec makes it easily reflashable, so my anti malware strategy is essentially just reflashing the phone every couple weeks :D
My battery usually lasts a week because of using only f-droids chat, navigation, and translation apps for the most part, aside from the browser. I use Firefox with uBlock Origin, saves an insane amount of battery lifetime.
To me, repairability is the feature I value the most in a phone, so I'm kinda willing to compromise on the other features.
Fun fact: Did you know that WhatsApp, Telegram, and Signal all restart themselves when you connect to your headphones? If you froze them before, they'll just drain your battery again when you have any bluetooth changes. You can easily verify that by staying in airplane mode and freezing them, then connecting your headphones in airplane mode.