[tablethnuser]

I've been using the budget Moto G+ line for the past four years. I can upgrade my phone every year around Black Friday and get the latest model for sub $200. The older phones still work well and get handed down to my less tech savvy family members.

I'm not really sure what people are paying for when they get those $800+ beasts for phones. When I use a friend's I can tell they are higher quality; either they feel more fancy or load apps more quickly. But it's marginal like the difference between a workstation and a gaming PC.

I think more people should try out budget Android lines. One really nice benefit is they only contain the technologies that have proved themselves. This article focuses on headphone jacks but there's quite a lot of silly phone tech that comes and goes in the name of marketing showmanship.

[wilsonnb3]

The biggest difference between budget and flagship is the camera, which is very important to a lot of people.

There are a lot of people on hacker news (myself included) who hardly ever use their phone cameras and tend to forget that this is such a critical feature to so many people.

My personal reason for using flagship devices is simply because I use my phone an absurd amount. If you're using something for hours every day, marginal speed and quality of life improvements add up.

[phjesusthatguy3]

I'm on a second-hand Oneplus One, and I use it for a TOTP client and Firefox. The camera sucks. It's much worse than the Epson digital camera I bought 18 years ago.

That said, it suits my uses absurdly well. I have no reason to replace it.

[davchana]

Well I used $200 Honor 7 for 3 years, most of the regular non vacation days I didn't carry my Canon Canera, but used Honor phone camera only. Then because of battery degradation, I bought $200 RealMe Pro 2, again using its camera & phone for a year now. Saw an ad for UMIDIGI S3 Pro for $249 with NFC on Amazon, but camera is literally shit, with photos having water drop patches, so returned it.

[hakfoo]

Gotta say, that's been Umidigi's one weak point. I've got a F1 Play which hits most of my buttons-- cavernous battery, Micro-SD and 3.5mm sockets, and USB-C, but the camera has a distinct "We set the focus at one specific point about 2 metres away and nothing else is ever going to be sharp" compromise. I've tried Open Camera to no avail; perhaps it needs some sort of manual aperture control.

[davchana]

Yes, true that. I also used Open Camera too, focus was fine only if I breath in before pressing the shutter. Even then, there were marks on photo like wet water drops on a piece of paper.

[gjash]

I have this Umidigi S3 Pro and it takes great pictures.

[linuxftw]

Cameras are important to most people in the way that shoes are important to most people. You can take perfectly fine photos with budget phones.

In any case, I have a lot of friends with phones much more expensive than mine. Their photos aren't that great.

[chaostheory]

> I'm not really sure what people are paying for when they get those $800+ beasts for phones.

The main reason for us is the camera. We do not own a separate standalone camera anymore. You're not going to be able to take a time machine to take better pictures of the past, which is also why we keep replacing our phones every year. Also I prefer Apple's walled garden especially for the less tech savvy members of my extended family. Tech support is much easier when you can point them to the Apple Store for one to one help and even free classes. Few people ever take into account Apple's physical stores when accounting for the price.

[navigatesol]

>The main reason for us is the camera. We do not own a separate standalone camera anymore.

The next question then, is: how good of a camera does the average person need?

I'd fathom the vast majority of people viewing pictures are rapidly flipping through them on some app like Instagram. How much difference does the latest camera make for the average user, really?

[baddox]

It's unnecessarily tricky to talk about what an average person "needs." It's pretty tough to justify any cell phone features as a "need" except perhaps for emergency phone calls (and yet, 20 years ago it seems most people didn't "need" that either).

High-end phone cameras are just really really nice, and they do tend to receive regular improvements that are noticeable to people who are interested in photography or just pay close attention. In 2006 I paid $325 for a Canon PowerShot SD870 IS that was pretty nice at the time, and almost any photo I took on that camera would look noticeably bad today compared to flagship smartphone cameras.

[tln]

For low light situations, the latest phones can make a big difference over a budget phone like Moto G6. Faster photo taking, better stabilization, do make a difference when taking anything moving.

FWIW I used Moto's for a couple of years and really like them. I used to get my wife's iphone for picture taking but now my pixel 2 is all I need.

[TylerE]

It's actually getting to the point where they are competitive with DLSRs in some situations. The processing really is doing some pretty amazing things.

[kitsunesoba]

I think there’s a lot of value in quality for personal archival. I keep full resolution originals of all the photos I take, and even doing that there are some I took with my iPhone 3GS a decade ago that I wish were higher quality now when I look through them. Things like ever improving displays magnify the problem further, revealing flaws and artifacts that wouldn’t have been noticeable back when the photos were taken.

It’s one of those things where better quality is never a bad thing. Eventually, it’ll get to the point where no further meaningful improvements can be derived from smartphone photography but we’re nowhere near that point today, even with the best smartphone cameras on the market.

[chaostheory]

> The next question then, is: how good of a camera does the average person need?

I have a family and now time seems to be running much faster than before, and you can't buy back this time which is even more precious now. I want the very best device to preserve this time in amber, while being able to fit in my pocket and simple enough to quickly point and shoot in less than ideal situations and lighting.

[CDSlice]

Nobody needs a smartphone at all, a feature phone can handle calls and texts just fine. People want the latest and greatest camera, processor, etc and are willing to pay for it.

[ses1984]

>need?

"Need" doesn't factor into it. People want the latest and greatest.

[HeWhoLurksLate]

At this point, if I don't have a phone with a good camera, I'll have to go buy a new standalone camera- probably a point&shoot- in order to satiate my need for documentation and taking photos of my kids.

Also, nobody here seems to mention convenience- carrying around a smartphone is a great replacement for the calculator, watch (possibly with an integrated stopwatch, if you don't get anything too fancy,) walkie-talkie, stress toy, fidget spinner (there's an app for that), elephant, newspaper, or tabloid that might otherwise be on their person.

Utility!

[mattmanser]

Yes, but apart from the camera even a $20 phone can do almost all of those functions.

[Paianni]

People want the cheapest and easiest.

[ses1984]

Not all of them, apparently.

[ebiester]

My apple phones have consistently been good for 3-4 years, making the yearly outlay similar. The differences aren't in the CPU features but rather the screen and camera features. The high end apple phone from two years ago still has a better screen than the budget android today and the camera is probably better as well - perhaps equal at worst.

No, I don't have a headphone jack (and yes, it is annoying) but it isn't the only tradeoff. (For example, being left handed, my palm triggers the back button on many android phones when I reach for something on the screen.)

[SECProto]

> My apple phones have consistently been good for 3-4 years, making the yearly outlay similar.

That depends a lot. The sum total of every smartphone I've owned since 2012 (4 phones, ~$1100 Canadian before tax) is comparable to the cost of a single current generation iPhone.

[bscphil]

That's a good way of looking at it. In my case, the total is $600 (US) across three phones since 2011, thanks to Google's discounting of off-contract phones on the Play store for Google Fi customers. I've been consistently happy with these phones, and they're flexible in areas that I think would frustrate me if I tried to use an Apple device.

[tablethnuser]

I may revisit Apple devices once they're done with their headphone jack fiasco. I like their recent privacy focus.

I had used them in the past and even tried to take them into their third and fourth years, but they felt sluggish and had more and more app crashes as I fell behind the adoption curve. At their price point I'm absolutely expecting a 4+ year lifespan. I think Apple has a different vision though and is aiming a little more upmarket than where I am.

[jvagner]

Not sure what you mean. Headphone jacks are never coming back to Apple devices, but Apple’s improvement of performance for older models has gotten better. iOS 13 will significantly benefit devices going back quite a few models.

Latter stage CPUs in iOS devices hold up better than they tended to 5 years ago. I have an iPhone 8 in my house that gets used every day. Not a struggle.. I do remember when a 2 year old iPhone would feel crippingly slow around the time a new model was released. Not the experience these days.

[bdcravens]

Apple is well known for removing things: floppy drives, optical drives, serviceable storage and RAM, serviceable batteries, F-key rows, FireWire ports, Ethernet ports, MagSafe, USB-A ports, matte-finish displays, etc. There’s always dissent. Yet they never reverse course.

[astine]

"Yet they never reverse course."

That's because they don't have to. A lot of Apple customers don't even consider competing products. Apple could release a Macbook without a keyboard and there would still be a contingent of users willing to stick with it and explaining that you start to prefer it after a while. A lot of their decisions were good, or at least made sense in the long run (and were just introduced earlier than customers would have preferred,) but they're pretty much unaccountable at this point, I think.

[javagram]

> Yet they never reverse course.

The “trash can” Mac Pro would like a word...

[bdcravens]

I guess that depends on whether or not the new Mac Pro is reverting to what they had previously or they simply ended a design and replaced it.

[donarb]

> I like their recent privacy focus.

“Recent”? Apple has been focused on privacy for quite awhile , they just didn’t make a big deal about it. Apple has had my personal information including my credit card on file for almost 29 years and I have never received marketing emails from 3rd parties nor has Apple suffered a hacker security breach.

[radlad]

Slightly OT: The new Android 10 gesture navigation would likely solve your back button problem.

[IkmoIkmo]

Great points, although I would want to add a bit of nuance from my personal experience.

One thing that often gets overlooked in pricing is depreciation. Flagship models tend to keep their value quite well, whereas budget models depreciate to next to nothing.

Take the iPhone X, launched 2 years ago, used it's around $570 today, versus the $999 it launched at.

Meanwhile, a $300 phone tends to drop down to $100 on the 2nd hand market two years later.

It just doesn't hold value very well, for one because budget phones become so much better, and secondly because there's no marketing or natural demand for 2 year old budget phones, and stores themselves discount 1st hand versions of these phones to extreme extents 2 years later. Who here is googling to get a good deal on a second-hand Moto G5? A $300 phone 2.5yo phone that's $50 used today, and $150 new.

So after depreciation, the difference between a $1000 flagship and a $300 budget model isn't $700, rather it's the cost of depreciation $430 vs $200 (or $230 more).

That $220 isn't nothing, but it's $9.50 a month on a 2-year basis. If you compare that to say a Netflix account, a data plan, cloud storage subscription, Spotify, or two Starbucks coffees a month... $9.50 a month extra to carry a flagship phone is pretty doable for most people. And you get a top-notch flagship phone.

Not saying everyone should skip budget phones, but it's not as painful a financial decision as it may seem.

[robocat]

That analysis ignores the costs of breakage, theft, care plan, or insurance excess.

To get the best money for a second hand phone, you also need a good case (which is another sunken cost).

It can make sense, but pay attention to to other costs, because they add up.

I also do what the GP does: buy mid-range Android phones (Nokia at present, used to buy Moto), and give them to family and friends after a few years.

On topic: Nokia phones have a phone jack and have Android One (2 years version update, 3 years security, plus many more years of secure browsing).

[TAForObvReasons]

That calculation is contingent on the endpoint in both cases being "selling the old phone". I tend to hold onto all of my old phones and computers (still have 10+ year old MacBook Pros and iPhones going back to 3GS), so the residual value is $0 in both cases.

[layer8]

> Take the iPhone X, launched 2 years ago, used it's around $570 today, versus the $999 it launched at. > Meanwhile, a $300 phone tends to drop down to $100 on the 2nd hand market two years later.

This means the iPhone X still had more than twice the effective cost ($429) than the other phone ($200). So it depends on whether the user thinks that it’s more than twice as useful.

[sydd]

you forgot to take into account that most phones are replaced because they break - usually their display gets smashed. In this case budget phones come ahead too:

Let's say you drop your phone after 2 years of use.

If you got an iPhone X you need to spend around $300 on a screen replacement or sell if for $200.

If you got a 2 year old $300 phone you just buy a new for $300 (or do the replacement for $150.)

But anyway I really dont see a reason why someone would get a $500+ phone. I has better hardware (which most people wont make use of) and better design/bragging rights. What can do a $1000 phone better? A better camera (for most should not matter, instagram/facebook compresses your fancy images to shitty JPGs), a faster CPU/RAM (nowadays its barely noticeable unless you play stuff like Fortnite on your phone)

[linkregister]

> you forgot to take into account that most phones are replaced because they break - usually their display gets smashed.

Is that true? If so, how do you know it to be true?

[sydd]

look up some statistics. For example here they say that 72 million phones are damaged/lost/stolen in the US each year: https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherelliott/2019/07/06/a...

Actually this article mentions phones being lost or stolen - another 2 cases where a cheap phone comes out much better.

[adingus]

It's true, just confirmed.

[klodolph]

I do think it would be nice to see this kind of accounting taught in high schools.

[lazyguy2]

I could imagine:

Oh, shit.. I have "How to trick yourself into thinking overpriced prestige consumer goods are worth it: 101" with Mr. Conner. That guy is a pervert.

[secfirstmd]

Also let's not forget security updates in relation to Android phones...A two year old phone today, two years down the line may well not be receiving them

[robocat]

1. New Android phones are different: Android 9 was redesigned to make security updates by Google a lot easier. I have been buying Nokia which are getting good security upgrades/updates (and cost a few hundred USD).

2. Browsing on Android remains secure e.g. Android 4.4 is still getting Chrome updates (I think Chrome is generally more secure than Safari anyway). iPhones become insecure to use when they stop getting updates because the browser is not updated.

[robocat]

Note: nice recent article "Google can’t fix the Android update problem" https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/4/20847758/google-android-up...

I didn't know: "starting with Android 10, a new initiative called “Project Mainline” will mean some of the plumbing inside Android can be updated directly via the Play Store."

Nice graph showing that Nokia is really good at updating their devices (and also shows how abysmal most Android manufacturers are at updating versions!). That said, I haven't got Android 10 yet (although I might get it since it is a Nokia and I am still within the 2 year upgrade window).

[kevin_thibedeau]

The problem with HMD-Nokia is that most have a perma-locked bootloader. Otherwise, very nice phones.

[robocat]

Yeah - I used to only buy phones with an unlockable bootloader. But I found that I didn't actually ever install open source firmware (I have, but I don't trust the security).

Aside: the Android 9 security update feature is Project Treble. However apparently it doesn't make that much difference for many brands/networks because Google doesn't control the updates directly: https://www.computerworld.com/article/3306443/what-is-projec...

However, my Nokia has been getting security updates quickly enough for me. And I love dual SIM when travelling.

[mackrevinack]

that's usually my thought process as well, and also that high end phones are generally using this year's newest components while the mid range ones are using parts from previous years to dave money. two years from now the high end phone you bought might still be able to hold its own while you will have trouble selling the mid range

[moftz]

I used to get the flagship phones just simply because I could. My parents were still footing the bill so it was never a problem. Turns out I don't really use that many resources on my phone. I browse reddit, take the occasional pic, watch youtube, and maybe play low resource games maybe once a week. My phone is 95% an internet machine. It also turns out flagship phones are expensive as hell when you are buying it yourself. I bought myself a $250 moto g7 power. My Nexus 6p broke at an inopportune time and a flagship wasn't going to fit my budget. It doesn't play 1080p video but the different is almost negligible on a small screen. The camera is decent and internet resources load just as quick as anything else. The massive battery is a really nice feature and will definitely be something I will put on my need list for when I'm looking for my next phone.

[feikname]

I use the moto G line myself and the only thing I am dissatisfied about is Motorola's constant refusal to make use of it's 64bit hardware, forcing the OS to run in 32-bit mode.

Some games (Pokemon Masters for example) are simply unavailable because of this, and Google has already deprecated 32bit native code.

[SteveMoody73]

I've been on the Moto G range for a couple of yeras now. I don't know if it's running on 32 bit or not as i don't use the phone for much more than messaging, browsing and some light gaming.

As a budget phone i can't recommend the range enough. Been some solid phone and never had any issues with them

[abacadaba]

Never noticed. Loyal Moto g due to chop for flashlight and minimal crapware. Headphone jack has failed on last on a d starting to on this one though.

[hammock]

Pixel camera is pretty amazing/magical. How is the camera app on the Moto G+?

[tablethnuser]

I've probably taken under 50 photos this year so I am not a good reference point for camera features. I haven't been disappointed with the photos but I also probably have no idea what I'm missing.

[JohnFen]

You've taken about 10 times more than I!

[bjoli]

G6 plus' camera is not one of its selling points. It is OK for the price range, but not more than that. Older iPhones (as in iPhone 6) are better.

Edit: but the camera on g7 is apparently better.

[mceachen]

The G7 camera and app are serviceable. It's on par with my iPhone SE in speed, and bests it in low light. It has a reasonable portrait mode with effective background blur. In good lighting, landscape shots are indiscernible with my pixel 2.

It doesn't have the magical night shot mode that the pixels have, though.

[DanTheManPR]

The G series continues to have mediocre cameras. They have to make some sacrifices to deliver such a good value.

[axaxs]

The app itself is really nice. The pictures though, are not great. Don't expect anything close a pixel.

[ineedasername]

I generally go for the prior model flagship, which with some careful shopping can often be found for 30-40% of the original price. For example my current phone is a pixel 2xl I got for about $260. It's significantly better than newer budget models but for roughly the same price. I should note that this price decline is much less significant for iPhones though.

[Rebelgecko]

IMO this is the best of both worlds. After Samsung released the S9 I was able to get my S8 for something like $250. And since it used to be a flagship I get a lot of the bells and whistles that budget phones often lack (water resistance, SD card slot, wireless charging, NFC, MST, good camera, etc).

[lawn]

I've been using a G4 Play since... I can't remember. Many years ago. And now it's time to upgrade again, but I also don't see the reason to go for a high-end phone.

With one exception: the software. I want updates as long as possible and I want no crapware, so I'm thinking a pure Android or something as close to it as possible.

[saltcured]

I used a G4 Play for almost 3 years but got uncomfortable about the lack of further system updates. I am happy with a G7 Play now, which seems to have better radio and GPS performance and similar battery life. Prior to the G4 Play, I used pricier mid-range phones in the Nexus price bracket.

I can see myself continuing with the Moto G Play series, if they don't mess them up. However, I won't replace them annually. I expect I'll similarly drag it out and skip a couple generations until lack of updates make me uncomfortable again, unless I drop it/break it first...

[phreack]

My daily driver for years has been a Moto Z Play gen 1, with a battery mod. It's robust as hell, I have literally never had the battery run out, and I can go two days or sometimes three if I'm being careful without doing a full charge which is pretty much my top concern on phones. It has a good enough camera for my needs and a headphone jack. When it's time to change, I'm totally staying on this line.

[PopeDotNinja]

My strategy is similar to yours and I buy a $400 phone every 2 years. In 2017 I got an LG G5, which served me well. This year I got a Google Pixel 3A, which has also been great. I tried phones in the $200 range, but the user experience wasn't quite as pleasant as I cared for.

[RobertKerans]

Echoing sibling comments: camera, camera, camera.

Anecdata as to whether it's really necessary to have a very good camera backed by powerful hard/software -- for me personally, camera quality became my #1 priority after having a baby, & exact same with everyone I know in similar position. But regardless of whether they have family or not, peeps seem to like being able to take good looking photos and videos, and the current manufacturer war over cameras means if you can afford to spend a bit more then the market is fantastic.

Edit: also, acquisition of powerful status symbols via a monthly fee that is only slightly higher than the monthly fee for less powerful status symbols.

[interfixus]

Absolutely concur. And I'm only on a G6, a standard one I picked up some months ago at a clearance sale for ~nothing because Android was getting absurdly cranky about hardware limitations on my old phone. No idea why I would want a heftier model.

[jessewmc]

I'm paying for a phone that lasts 4-5 years (I'm on my 3rd iphone since the original, probably not going to buy another this year) and is still way nicer to use than a moto g (which is admittedly a great budget phone).

[eyegor]

> I'm not really sure what people are paying for when they get those $800+ beasts for phones

As someone with a painfully expensive phone, for me it was mostly down to the combination: 1) full radio support for us carriers (which also pulls along a decent chunk of europe gsm), 2) SD card support, 3) a headphone jack, 4) some level of waterproofing, 5) enough popularity that I expect to be able to root and install patches once it stops getting official patches. In that order.

That list narrowed me down to a very tiny selection of phones.

Edit: There are now many more options (and cheaper) than when I bought my phone. :sadface:

[frgotmylogin]

I love sticking with budget phones, you can take risks on trying different manufacturers. My last two phones were a Nokia and a Xiaomi, both were good phones and I never would have tried them if they weren't ~$180.

[JohnFen]

> I think more people should try out budget Android lines.

If I were willing to stay in the Android ecosystem, this is what I'd do. But I'm not (nor am I willing to go with iOS). It's just become too difficult, painful, and uncertain to secure them anymore.

Instead, when I need to replace my current (ancient) smartphone, I'm falling back to a feature phone combined with carrying a pocket computer that just runs plain old Linux.

[Lio]

I’d do the same or move to something like a Librem 5 except that my iphone is a useful platform for lots of little proprietary utility software.

Eg Shimano have a utility for updating the firmware on my bike (oh what a time to be alive...) they have software for doing that from Linux.

Keeping an old older iPhone around just to cover that is useful. Not sure what I’ll do when it dies or looses support.

[agumonkey]

I bought a few moto g since 1st gen. My moto G3 is still operating fine even after years of mild abuse (regular tiny drops, sometimes high drops, sand beaches, heat).

Very high build quality considering the price even brand new.

I even bought a 2nd hand G5+ because I thought the G3 was about to die.. but it didn't. I wonder if the 4, 5, 6 .. are as sturdy.

[Kiro]

I always buy budget Android phones the problem for me is the longevity. They simply start having lots of issues (both hardware and software) very fast. I haven't had a phone that has lasted more than a year.