In 2017 my employer gave me £1150 to buy my own iPhone X for work. I knew I would not be working there forever and decided to start saving £10 per month in monthly saver accounts, 2 years later I left the company and they didn’t want the phone back as it was too old. Yay!
I continued saving every month in accounts ranging from ~4-8% interest and my most recent monthly saver just matured and my fund has reached £1121.64
I’ve also been really savvy with my mobile plans over the last 5 years, my current monthly charge is £6 but has been as low as £3, and has absolutely been less than £5 on average. So my mobile phone costs have been on average £15pm.
The iPhoneX is not getting software/security updates anymore, but there is nothing really worth having in this years upgrade:
- 120hz vs. 120hz with ProMotion
- MagSafe - meh!
- 12MP vs. 48MP camera with better low light
- 4G vs. 5G - but HD video streaming works perfectly on 4G.
Do I keep saving and ignore the upgrade again? Or am I silly for running a phone with no security updates because I’m not that interested in a better camera?
Either way I thought my little-by-little saving to get something nice and a little extravagant was worth sharing. The number of people with £50-£60 phone contracts is crazy.
It’s one of those situations where if I jump to another ecosystem it will be a hassle, and ideally I would ideally avoid Google, maybe a Graphene or Fairphone but they are still Android forks.
I may end up having to replace a phone half the price after 4-5 years, rather than 8-10 years.
It’s not really possible to know what phone will last longer, but the higher end phones tend to have the latest tech, and will last longer, even if it’s just a couple of years.
You fear android, so you'll stick to apple? Mate, please consider what you're saying and, more importantly, where that comes from.
I’m a bit confused about your point here, Google’s business model is creating a profile on you to sell advertising, so is Microsoft, Apple sells the hardware for a high markup and keeps you in its walled garden in exchange for privacy, or at least there are no credible reports of Apple ‘double dipping’ and selling your tracking and browsing data.
I would rather have open source and fully transparent and secure, maybe Linux-based mobile OS, but I don’t think that currently exists.