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Choosing a New Phone

I have had the same iPhone for the last 7 years and it is starting to become really slow and unreliable. I am slowly coming to the realization that I have to choose a new phone relatively soon. Like any market you’ve been out of for years, dipping your toes in again is a little frightening. There are plenty of options and you know that there is some phone which will do a little better in your hands than others. I have sworn by Apple’s iPhone for years, but after becoming quite security conscious a little over a year ago I’ve grown really suspicious over Apple’s track record in privacy12. But actually more than the privacy aspect, I am actually really afraid of losing my precious home button.

So, that just leaves me with the endless ocean of Android phones with their various quirks and proprietary OS’. In this category we can divide them up in the numerous other categories like:

And last but not least, Flagships are the top of the line, but they also cost a pretty penny. The big problem with flagships are that once you have one it only takes a generation until you are “behind”. A terrible anxiety starts to crop up about needing a feature only on the newest thingy or an upgraded camera. I am not terribly dependent on amazing specs on my phone, so while buying a flagship could future proof my phone for a while (hence my iPhone), it would ultimately be a lot of phone for someone you doesn’t need it.

Some of these new flagships are starting to become ridiculously optimized! Insane cameras, 1TB of storage, and lightning fast processors capable of buttersmooth 120 fps refresh rates. It’s a dream! But wait… there’s a problem with the USB-C connector. I guess the whole thing is generally broken. If you know your way around phone changing a USB-C connector is probably not the hardest thing in the world, but how many people will actually try to pry their Samsung Galaxy S24 open and dig in there to get it loose and change it? Or even worse, you bring your iPhone to a non-Apple certified repair shop and you get what is essentially a permanent “Check Engine”-light on your iPhone. Although USB connectors generally don’t dislodge themselves it is a little worrisome that some of the products we buy we essentially have no control over. Which is why you use the big bucks to get something sturdy. Unless the battery explodes in your pocket.

Foldables are so darn cool that I want to have one just because they look fancy. The problem is: have you looked at their retail price? It is bonkers what they can charge for a magic slab! But I still want to use it as my daily driver for a month or two just to see how impractical having two screens can become. You could always go with the downgrade and go with the flip-design. Not as cool as the double screens, but I gotta admit that when I see one in the wild I am a little jealous of the owner. But having a hinge immediately makes beach days a no-no. I wouldn’t want to let my desire for the perfect beach bod get in the way for my phone pick. It’s not like there are many beaches where I live anyway. Foldables are more like no-dables.

When it comes to gaming phones I have only one thing to say: emulation. If I had a gaming phone I would play Sonic Advance and Mario 64 hacks. I wouldn’t get anything done. Although if I was 10 years old today, I couldn’t imagine a more fruitful environment to not sleep than a gaming phone. Previous generations had Gameboys, Lynxs, PSPs, and DS’, but this one has the Switch and the variety of smartphones which with a little bit of tinkering (downloading a scary .zip-file) could easily be modded with every emulator under the sun. When I say that it sounds incredibly appealing, but I wouldn’t want to get any ideas. Fun fact, Sony Ericsson basically made a PSP Go phone early in the 2010’s and I still think that the push-design is the coolest thing in the world.

Which gets us to the last on the list: gimmick phones. And there are lots of different ones to pick from: privacy-oriented phones, open source phones, cryptophones, modular phones, and “dumb” smartphones. It is absolutely the market for niché Android-phones. If you need a smartphone that does nothing: Lightphone, or The Minimal Phone. If you want a very specific distro of Linux like Debian, there are plenty of open source phones like Pyra which are in testing now. I’m partial to the privacy aspect so an OS which doesn’t just beam all of your details to Google or Meta like /e/OS could be an option. If your both an asshole and an idiot, you could always buy the Solana Saga.

Having a gimmick phone does put you in the crosshairs of anyone who isn’t familiar with your device. “What phone is that? Why don’t you have a regular phone?” Are you ready to answer those questions for the next 3-8 years? I’m not sure I am. I do not want to be difficult here, but I know what iPhone-people are capable of and I don’t want to get on their bad side.

In all seriousness, our phones are contributing to a lot of different problems including but not limited to climate change, e-waste, and the staggering amount of manhours spent consuming content. The reason I have kept my iPhone for so long is mostly because I don’t need to change my phone every 2 years as I find some new flagship to hold me over. The best thing for the environment is to keep your phone for as long as you can3. When I think about what I really need in my phone it actually not that much. I need some specific functions on my daily driver, but those could be filled by most any Android model. In this sense, I feel even more overwhelmed. Since there are no specific prerequisites I need to have, I have every choice on the list as a potential. So in order to keep myself a little grounded let’s say that I limit my choices to these three:

The first one is a foldable which isn’t a Samsung or Google product. The Nubia phone is surprisingly cheap while still being a passable phone. As long as I don’t do long chains of multitasking or very heavy duty tasks I think it should fit well into my daily driver needs. It has some nice aesthetics, but unfortunately it is hardly repairable and probably won’t have the longevity I’m after.

The second one is a phone that is intended to be a somewhat sustainable product. The Fairphone 5 purports to be a more ethical product at all ends of production. It uses less conflict minerals, has better working conditions along its supply chain, and is fully repairable which helps with the longevity. The one thing I have heard about the Fairphone however is that it unfortunately is prone to lag and performance issues. I’m not sure if it would be consequential for my day-to-day use, but all of the ethical considerations is a major pull towards this option. Plus, /e/OS is easily availble both pre-packaged or just downloadable.

The third option is to literally just change the battery on my iPhone. No file transfer from Apple to Android, I don’t lose my precious Home-button, and my performance issues won’t be fixed. But what is a couple of seconds waiting for response time if I can do my part in reducing e-waste?

All in all, I think the amount of time I have spent thinking about this stuff could probably be better spent by just forgetting about the whole issue and touching grass.

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Comments

  1. Apple Ordered to Open Encryption -Whether they are going to comply is going to be interesting to see, I wouldn’t hold my breath.↩

  2. iPhone Tracking Analytics↩

  3. Tips for reducing your phones carbon footprint↩

#misc-tech #rants