Other than your carrier give it for free or cheap, I don’t really see the reason why should you buy new phone. I’ve been using Redmi Note 9 for past 3 years and recently got my had on Poco F5. I don’t see the point of my ‘upgrade’. I sold it and come back to my Note 9. Gaming? Most of them are p2w or microtransaction garbage or just gimped version of its PC/Console counterpart. I mean, $400 still get you PS4, TV and Switch if you don’t mind buying used. At least here where I live. Storage? Dude, newer phone wont even let you have SD Card. Features? Well, all I see is newer phones take more features than it adds. Headphone jack, more ads, and repairability are to name a few. Battery? Just replace them. However, my Note 9 still get through day with one 80% charge in the dawn. Which takes 1 hour.
I am genuinely curious why newer phone always selling like hot cakes. Since there’s virtually no difference between 4gb of RAM and 12gb of RAM, or 12mp camera and 100mp camera on phone.
I finally dropped my S10e too many times. I tried switching to my backup phone which was a Pixel 2 but it is pretty limited in terms of bands for my carrier. So I bought a Pixel 6a. I would love a Zenfone 9 but it is a tad pricey.
Would I have upgraded of my phone hadn’t died? Probably. It stopped receiving security updates. The battery was starting to not last all day. There were some things it was starting to get slow on. The camera was okay in good lighting but shit in bad lighting.
Newer phones are not actually selling all that well. Still good but there aren’t really likes it the door on release day like there used to be. People are keeping their phones for a lot longer now or opting for midrange ones.
I drop my phone so often that how easy or hard it is to replace the screen on my own and how cheap a replacement is factors onto deciding to buy a phone.