It’s hard to resist the temptation of a newly released phone, especially when there’s a new breakthrough feature. But as much as we want to upgrade to the next most popular thing, sometimes, not all new phones are worth the upgrade.
READ: Realme 3 vs Huawei Mate 20 Pro Comparison: Budget Camera Phone Getting Better
Table of Contents
The Gap Between Smartphones
A few years ago, the gap between entry-level, mid-range, and flagship phones was clearly drawn. Entry-level phones came with very tight memory combo, which makes it a good phone solely for communication. Mid-range phones came with better processing power that lets you play almost any games. As for flagship phones, they came with the best processing power, the best camera features, and sometimes, the weird gimmicks.
The Birth of Affordable Flagship Phones…
In 2019, it seems like the gap between these categories is slowly diminishing. OnePlus started with the “flagship-killer” moniker — providing top-tier performance for half the price of flagship phones. Although the company has seen its most expensive phone yet on the OnePlus 7 Pro, it’s still significantly less expensive from the likes of Samsung, Apple, and Huawei.
READ: OnePlus 7 Pro launched: 48MP triple camera, SD 855, 12GB RAM for P35k price
And the Rest of the Pack.
Then, came the Pocophone F1 from Xiaomi — a beastly-specced phone that started at P17k. Today, you can even grab it for as low as P14k. By omitting some features, like IP rating, glass design, and an AMOLED panel, the budget flagship category was born.
After that, premium mid-range became a thing — phones with not the best processing prowess, but exceptionally great in terms camera. Case in point is the Samsung Galaxy A50, OPPO F11 Pro, and Vivo V15 Pro, among others.
READ: Why Samsung Galaxy A50 is the best midrange phone in 2019
Upgrading to a New Phone Makes Almost No Sense in 2019
As flagship features continue to trickle down to cheaper categories, the more the features become redundant. It was only last year when triple cameras were a unique thing, today, you can get that type of feature for less than P20k. Sure, the difference in photo quality might be different, but the sole function of these lenses are basically the same — main, ultrawide, and depth (sometimes, a telephoto).
There was a time when upgrading to a new phone made sense, but today, it seems like sticking with your old phone is the more logical decision.
Just to be clear, we don’t mean you shouldn’t upgrade to a new phone in 2019. We just think that upgrading is becoming less of an improvement and more of a burden, especially when the gap that separates flagship phones of today is only the price.
