Maybe. If you have the $399 upfront or the credit rating to get it on a phone contract. If you have anything to spend on buying a phone at all as opposed to having to use whatever hand-me-down device found its way to you.
> as opposed to having to use whatever hand-me-down device found its way to you
Given that Apple just issued another security update for the decade old iPhone 5s, your ability to hand down an iPhone is greatly extended, especially compared to the support policy you get with a bottom of the barrel Android device.
>Given that Apple just issued another security update for the decade old iPhone 5s, your ability to hand down an iPhone is greatly extended, especially compared to the support policy you get with a bottom of the barrel Android device.
I think this is a fair point in favour of Apple, but I would be surprised if many people who are weighing up hand-me-downs vs cheapest models are concerned with security updates
Build quality, years of OS updates and security patch longevity are absolutely reasons why iPhones hold their value much longer than a bottom of the barrel Android device does.
> based on handsets with an initial buyback price of $700 or higher, Android phones lose value twice as fast as iOS models over the first two years of ownership.
Low trade-in value is a reason a lot of those devices end up as hand-me-downs; there's no liquid market so they're notionally worthless, but they still work so people are likely to pass them on rather than trade them in. (Indeed one could argue that Apple pays inflated trade-in values to get their old models out of circulation and sustain their premium positioning)
One could argue that Android vendors intentionally refuse to support low end Android devices after the sale to force users to buy another device every year.
One could, but the competitiveness of low-end Android makes that pretty implausible; people buying a cheap no-name Android who replace it with another cheap no-name Android are unlikely to get that from the same company.
Given that Apple just issued another security update for the decade old iPhone 5s, your ability to hand down an iPhone is greatly extended, especially compared to the support policy you get with a bottom of the barrel Android device.