[ireallywantthat]

Too expensive for my tastes.

Give me 380USD phone which lasts for next 5-8 years, feels premium, is repairable, camera is decent, replaceable battery, OS is just Vanilla Android with atleast 5 years(more years of Software updates would be welcome) of Software Updates and when you can't provide it, make it hackable enough to install Custom ROMs.

[12907835202]

No company will ever make a 5-8 year phone at that price. That's $47-76 a year.

People pay that amount or more for apps that help manage their fantasy football team...

Comparitively that would be an insane bargain for a phone and it's absurd for that to be your requirement.

I do wonder what the right price point would be for a subscription model. At the moment the average replacement time is every 2 years which would be the equivalent of $30 a month basic and $40 for pro.

Could they afford $30 a month sub but you got the yearly upgrades rather than every 2 years?

If the price of the parts is quite low compared to the R&D that could be feasible.

But I actually have no idea.

[plorkyeran]

The current iPhone SE starts at $430 and will (probably) get at least 5 years of updates. If budget phone makers can't do something cheaper than the iPhone SE then surely their entire business model is just fucked?

[Gigachad]

Economies of scale. The SE is basically the hand me downs from the mainline iphone and couldn't exist without it. It's not surprising that no name brands can't compete with the richest company in the world.

[LeifCarrotson]

Why would they not make a budget phone? It's not like the BOM + assembly for a touchscreen, first(!) battery, motherboard, and plastic case cost that much. Check out some of the public reports from counterpointresearch.com: the profit margin on flagships is often double the BOM cost, the profit margin on budget phones is a little tighter but still not bad. Who cares what the revenue is per year? What matters is how much it costs to make the thing. Most vendors are just tweaking reference designs anyways.

The Moto G Play is just $170 list, currently going for ~$110. It has a rather pathetic 3 years support, but that's $4.72 per month at list, or ~$3.95 at current list rates - assuming you throw it away when the support contract ends. The Samsung A14 5g is $200, and gets 4 years' support, which is $4.15/mo, again, assuming list price and discarding when security updates are over.

I'm currently typing from my Moto G6, which came out in April 2018. I bought in July of that year for $100 (it was a BOGO with a buddy's $400 Moto One Zoom, they were literally giving them away as a backup to promote their more expensive phone because the BOM cost was so cheap). I plug it in on my desk at work because the battery sucks now, but that's no great hardship. By that math, I've enjoyed the use of a smartphone for $1.62 per month (would be $3.25 at list). Yes, it's only running Android 9 and not getting "security updates" anymore, but I have my phone app, messaging app, a camera, and Firefox, and that's about all I need.

I think it would be ridiculous to spend $30 or $40 A MONTH for a smartphone. It doesn't matter what some people pay for a fantasy football team app, that has nothing to do with buying hardware. Other people are buying 3000 lbs used cars for the same price others are paying for a flagship 200g slab of glass!

[jfengel]

One of the OP's requirements was a vanilla Android. Vendor Android versions aren't features, they're profit centers.

I know the Samsung phones come with a fair bit of crapware, cuz I used to have one. How's the Moto?

[abdullahkhalids]

I have the Moto G4, which is on its last legs after 8 years.

It barely had any non-android, non-Google apps. If there were any, I uninstalled them all except one from the Apps list without having to root my phone or anything. The last one is called Moto, which is disabled (can't be uninstalled).

[alamortsubite]

Motorola is a lot better than Samsung on that front.

[eertami]

> No company will ever make a 5-8 year phone at that price

But they already do? I used my Oneplus X for 6 years and that was $249. Battery is the main reason I stopped using it. That's $3.50/month, maybe an outlier, but I wouldn't pay 10x that to check my messages and get directions.

[soperj]

I still don't get the "premium feel" line when everyone covers their phone in a case anyway. I don't care if my phone is made of plastic when it actually makes it less prone to breaking when dropped.

[Jcampuzano2]

I've been saying this to people for years. Tons of companies market how a phone feels, its looks/colors but then almost everybody just ends up slapping a case on it.

I literally couldn't care what a phone was made out of/how it feels since I just put a case on it before I even use it for a day in most situations.

[thesuitonym]

Same here. I think it's ridiculous we make phones out of glass, then put more glass on them to protect that glass. Phone screens should be made of plastic, which doesn't break, and then let me put a piece of glass over it to prevent scratching. And then if that breaks, oh well, I don't care because i can replace it for $10.

[ChatGTP]

I put one of those ridiculous military spec, carbon fiber reinforced type cases on mine, it would be in pieces otherwise. It bulks the phone up a lot but every time I drop it, I smile.

[justin_oaks]

Speaking of cases, the case near the bottom of the page is being sold for $35. That's a lot of money for some molded plastic.

[amelius]

Not really true for the Samsung Flip phones out there. I don't know many people who use a case on them.

[kelnos]

I don't know if I've just been excessively lucky, but I've never put a case on any smartphone I've owned since 2010, and I've only cracked the screen on two of them. These days (probably for the past 4 years) I do put the thin-film screen protectors on as well, and replace them if they get damaged.

I've always been of the feeling that I'm buying this lovely, well-designed piece of hardware, why would I want to cover it up in an ugly plastic case?

[matttb]

I don't put cases (or even screen protectors) on mine either (since 2015). I've dropped it many times, obviously, but I've only ever had the edges of the phone get the slightest nicks - which I prefer to having a case on it.

[patall]

Exactly because you have cracked the screen on two of them. I (and many others with a case) am at 0 cracked screens.

[tredre3]

We can throw anecdotes to each other all day. I've been using smartphones since 2010 as well. Never used a case. Never cracked a screen.

[alamortsubite]

That was exactly my situation, too. Until just recently, when I cracked two almost back-to-back.

[freeAgent]

There are also some plastics that feel fine, IMO. It’s mostly a matter of whether the phone creaks or bends easily.

[kiririn]

Even worse is when the premium feel is at the expense of usability as well as durability. Matte glass backs and rounded aluminium sides might as well be a bar of soap

[jassyr]

The pixel "a" series match your requirements for the most part. An inexperience phone stripped of unnecessary features. Unfortunately I don't know any phones that are also repairable, replaceable, and hackable.

[eertami]

I guess a Fairphone 5 (which will also have 5 year OS, 8 year security updates) is the best chance of this.

[TheBigSalad]

So you want the same thing but for less than half the price?

[Night_Thastus]

That's why I think I'm going with the Samsung A54. It's around that price (if unlocked), but has decent specs. I eventually want to phase out my 4-year-old A50, mainly for android auto reasons. Need to ask online though, there may be better spec'd phones for the price point.

No replaceable battery, sadly, but those don't really exist at this point.

[abdullahkhalids]

I am also in the market, and replacing my small/compact Moto G4 after 7-8 years. Sansung A54 seems to be the most appropriate replacement, based on my criteria.

I just looked up the battery replacement procedure, and it is not horrible for something you want to do once after 4 years.

[manuelabeledo]

Sadly, you are part of a minority that rarely gets any attention from mainstream manufacturers.

[sho_hn]

Samsung sells their regularly-refreshed A series into something close to this price range, and they're great devices. For some reason they don't get nearly as much attention in the US as they do in Europe and other parts of the world, though.

[Night_Thastus]

Yep. My first smartphone was the A50, which has done well up until now. (Though I may upgrade to make android auto stuff a bit faster)

[kras143]

Check this out https://murena.com/america/shop/smartphones/brand-new/murena...

[rtcoms]

Pixel 7a ?

[xnx]

A Pixel 6 Pro meets all these criteria except for replaceable battery.

[jfengel]

The battery is replaceable, just not by the user (at least not easily). I've had my Pixel battery replaced; the cost didn't seem exorbitant.

It would be nice to be able to pop batteries in and out on the fly, but I suspect that would make it a lot harder to waterproof. I've lost more phones to water damage than I have to battery death.

[imiric]

The Samsung Galaxy S5 from 2014 had a removable battery, headphone jack, a microSD card slot, and was IP67 dust/water resistant. We lost removable batteries because it was an easy way to make devices obsolete.

IMO smartphones peaked around that era, and we've only seen incremental improvements and enshittification ever since. I used to be excited about every new device, but these days all manufacturers are grasping at straws trying to differentiate their rectangular slabs from the competition. AI is the latest gimmick in this trend.