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by krick 108 days ago
Exactly what I was going to say. I don't use iPhone because, well, it's iPhone. And until, like, this year, it was strictly more prohibitive than Android. Also, it was honestly just worse of a device than some Android flagships, and the tradeoff is only worth it if you are a lazy USA-ian, who doesn't use any "sketchier" non-mainstream apps, has an Apple account and owns a bunch of Apple devices anyway. Oh, and all your friends use iPhone Messages app. Then iPhone is the default. But outside of USA it was always more of a gimmick than a natural choice.

That being said, even if you wouldn't have said it before me, I probably shouldn't have said it too anyway, because I suspect that globally speaking the GP is right. Most people don't buy flagships, yet everybody has a phone. And Apple doesn't even try to compete in "non-premium" market, it's strictly impossible to buy a new iPhone for the price of some Redmi or whatever, which isn't even noticeably worse than an iPhone, practically speaking.

1 comments

I have 5 years old iPhone SE2020 that is relatively cheap having in mind that is 5 years old. None of Androids served me that long. Only Motorola tried, but water killed it. Water has not killed iPhone when my son threw it into pond. Which Android is that good, practically speaking?
> relatively cheap

relative to an iPhone Pro, yes. Relative to many other phones, No. It shipped at $399. You can buy 4 to 12 android phones for that price. I'm an iPhone user but my sister and her family are Android.

I doubt I would get the same quality and reliability. Good Android phones are equally expensive and it is very hard to know which are actually good without doing research. As well I had bad experience with some Google Pixel model.
That is always the excuse people bring up to ignore the point. You can spend $1000 on a fancy chefs knife, or you can spend $30 on an Ikea chefs knife. Sure, the $1000 knife is higher quality. Yet, millions of people are still doing just find with the Ikea knife.

A cheap car will still get you to/from work over an expensive "higher quality" car.

Lots of families don't have money to buy an iPhone for every member of the family but do have enough to buy an Android for every member of the family.

Sorry, but it is not fair analogy. It is comparison of ikea knife vs cheap chinese knife that breaks after 10 uses.
I am typing this on a 9 year old iPhone 8 Plus. Battery was replaced once after 6 years, replacement battery is still lasting more than a day. Apps are slowly losing support for it, but other than that it mostly does what I want, and still gets security updates for really bad stuff.

Is there a comparably usable 9 year old android?

My wife uses a OnePlus 8t (about as old as your phone) daily. It's survived drops, tubs, etc.
I still have one of those lying around in the draw. It's the backup phone and every time I or my partner needs to use it I am surprised at how well it still works.
Sad that it is Chinese one.
I have a S21 which was released in early 2022. Bought it new in late 2023 for 430€. I don't see any reason to get a new one currently. Had to service it twice for water damage to be honest but service was free
OK I had Samsung that was OK. Later after upgrades it became unusable, but that's it.