I suspect that the majority of Android-using techies that notice this are either on a faster new phone cycle than 3 years, or have already priced that difference into their total value calculation.

I also strongly suspect that the average customer does not indeed understand.

I actually don't like to replace my phone a lot. The issue was, with each Android phone, despite great recommendations from others and lots of research I was left wanting. And after being disappointed by each Android phone, another Android expert would tell me that some other newly released hardware would blow me away. I was tricked by this again and again and again. Until eventually releasing I would just be so much happier on iPhone. I was.

I highly doubt this. A flagship iPhone costs $1000+. I would consider the Pixel 4a to be a "bit cheaper high end Android phone". You can buy a stack of 3 Pixel 4a phones for $1050. Are you confident 1 iPhone can outlast 3 Pixels? If you go to mid range Android you can get stacks of 4-6 phones. You could get 4 Moto G Power for $1000. My $250 Nexus 5X has lasted me 4+ years now, so a stack of 4 of them could last me 16+ years before hardware failure. In reality though, Android/app updates make my phone more and more sluggish over time and so I'm forced to upgrade every ~3 years to get a snappy experience again.

That's OK, of course, your mileage may (and apparently does) vary.

Service is very important to me. As described in my example: I destroyed an expensive smartphone and Apple allowed me to replace my smartphone for 30% of the original price on the same day.

I need a working smartphone all the time, I don't have to know the exact technical specifications. I don't need an open platform with only theoretical advantages and I'm willing (and able) to pay for a premium product. Again, there's no right or wrong in my opinion.

BTW, when I checked the N4 prices, I didn't find a 64 GB version. That makes a price comparison between your N4 and my (now former) iPhone 4S of course difficult.

I use an iPhone. Not for any philosophical reason. I tried switching to android 3 times over the years since the first iPhone came out. Same plan, same provider, grandfathered in, same house, same spot. Each android phone did not get the same level of cell service in my house as the iPhone. I have side gigs I do contracting for, I have had cases of missing calls where the androids have literally cost me $100's of dollars, phone didn't ring... just a voicemail notification showing up hours later.

After the 3rd attempt, last being a nexus 5, I gave up. I'm sorry but I draw a line when a device messes with my income regardless of my ideological stance on open source and not having a windows device or even an Apple laptop in the house for the last 13 years.

With that said the Pixel 7 Pro looks nice, and I would love to give it a try but I'll only do that if I have it on a separate dedicated line to try out besides my main one that have had for 20 years. Not sure it's worth the effort at this point.

I have the 3a and 4a (non-5G), if you can find a 4a someone is trying to give away on the cheap it's basically a nicer version of the 3a IMHO. It's going to EOL in a year so I wouldn't spend much on it, but if one crosses your path for $100, well...

1. It continues to be true that a new phone is noticeably faster and has a noticeably better camera than a 3-year-old phone (regardless of how gross the reasons are).

2. Phones break.

3. Phones are lost.

4. Phones are given away.

5. Some batteries in the batch lose capacity faster than they should.

6. New phones are given as gifts to people who might have gone longer before buying a new phone with their own money.

7. Features.

Even regardless of all that, three doesn't seem unreasonable if you have the money. I seem to be able to go about five years before the battery life and performance become too painful (though it's hard to get an average with data points that far apart), and my tolerance for those issues is probably higher than a normal person.

I would probably be typing this on a recent Pixel if it had a damn headphone jack.

(Or even an external ~magsafe-for-headphone.)

Instead I'm still wringing value out of a 3a.

This is totally subjective, but I don't get why anyone would buy a Pixel. It's overpriced, and one of the ugliest phones in the market. Sure the camera is the best available, but I just can't get past the looks.

Interesting, I would not have expected so much importance to be placed on unspecified rolling updates.

My current phone is the only Nexus device I've ever had, but it was easily my best unlocked option at $250-300 US. I think that holds whether it's running 4.2 or the latest.

Why wouldn't he? These are already luxury items... I wouldn't, but I wouldn't buy an iphone at first place.

This is getting repetitive, but why would you do that? There are no lifetime achievement awards for buying the most price-efficient phone, even if it costs you $750,000 ("but think of all the features you get!"). Compare the minimum price of $300 to the minimum price of $350. There's been a substantial increase.

The Nexus S was $400 (in some model, likely the cheapest). The 4 was a welcome signal of attention to price. This is going in the wrong direction.

Phones over 200 bucks are a serious liability, I agree.

Fortunately, that also happens to be the price of the fourth-fastest phone on the market, that being the iPhone SE (Gen 2).

The fastest phone on the market (that being the Gen 3) is twice that price, but I have an easier time accepting a premium for that that's closer to 100 than the 1000 you'd have to pay to get the most capable Android phones... and they're still 4 years behind the iPhone technology-wise.

The subtitle captures how out of touch I am with regular phone users. I'll be upgrading from a Pixel 2, and had a Nexus 7 before that. My purchase cadence seems different than what I perceive to be typical for iPhone users in particular.

For me, mmWave seems like a nice to have future-proofing feature.

And this reads like a sales pitch crafted specifically for me:

There's no squeeze to activate the Google Assistant, no "Project Soli" hand-waving air gestures, and no Face ID style facial recognition. The only thing you get for biometrics is the tried-and-true rear capacitive fingerprint reader, which works great. There's no headphone jack and no microSD slot, but there are two features you might not normally find in the midrange market: wireless charging and IP68-rated dust and water resistance.

...strangely negative review for a product that seems like a step in the right direction in a number of areas.

Bump up the price of Pixel by additional $100, and you get an 5 years guarantee upgrade.

Not to mention the Pixel isn't that powerful. iPhone 6s despite being 5 years ago, is probably as fast or still faster than some of the sub $300 Android Phone released today. ( Excluding Chinese Brands )

I think this is a terrible mindset, personally. There is so much waste, these are perfectly good phones but everyone is convinced to do a 2 year contract lifecycle.

True with the camera. But if you're like me, that's not actually a big deal. Better support? I wouldn't know, as I've never needed support so I can't compare. Better build quality? True -- but is that a huge deal? Even the cheapest phones I've used have lasted for most of a decade.

> Each brand has value adds like platform specific apps and ecosystem integration.

I always thought that stuff added by manufacturers takes value away from the phone. And worse, you often can't remove it.

Anyway, I think the point is that a $1000 phone is not 5 times better than a $200 phone. It may be worth the expense to people anyway, of course, but the price goes up far faster than the extra benefits do.

That's a wrong assumption to make. I think there are a lot of reluctant Android users around.

I'm one of them, and I've been using Android phones for well over a decade now.

I don't mind Android itself and the selection of apps, but I've never liked the phones themselves.

The Android phones I've used weren't sensibly sized, or had quality and reliability issues, or were generally tolerable except for one fatal downside (like a bad camera, or limited storage), or were too expensive for what was being offered.

The iPhones I've used have generally been decent, from a hardware perspective. I find the software situation to be terrible, however.

For me, a bad Android phone with tolerable software is at least kind of usable.

A great iPhone phone with unsuitable/insufficient/frustrating software is unusable.

Given that those have been the only viable options for a while now, I resort to using Android phones, even if I've consistently disliked the phones themselves.

My Pixel 4a here is also going strong, only the battery is slowly getting worse. I mean, it's 2024, do phones really still get slow? The 4a is now past android updates, but that was promised after 3 years. But at 350 bucks, it was like 40% less than the cheapest iPhone mini at that time.