at this point phones cost about the same as laptops and laptops have a ~3-4 year replacement cycle.
I won't be surprised if the same starts applying to phones, now that the improvements between generations are mainly cosmetic.
Having to pay $100 a month for a difference barely measurable in real world performance however... That will cause me real-world dissatisfaction.
An optimistic but realistic scenario is something like 40% faster and $20 a month, where the phone is used a lot and the speed translates into saving multiple hours a month. Definitely worth it there.
I regret not elaborating on how X% processor benefit would only be Y% real life benefit, but I thought my point was clear enough. I would have been making a much stronger claim about hours saved if I actually thought the total use of the phone would go 40% faster...
If the webpages I browse today load fast on my existing phone, network being the speed barrier... will I actually experience a 40% speed-up on a new phone? No way.
The value is just not there. And that’s not my opinion. That’s the market speaking. Figures are down for phones everywhere.
$20-25 a month lets you trade up to a new $700-900 phone every other year.
You won't benefit from that 40% all the time, sure. But if you get 8%, and you use your phone two hours a day, that's almost five hours saved! Processing is not a negligible amount of waiting. Plus new phones tend to have better radios.
My smartphone only sees data via wifi, and it is definitely not at the center of my life. I get more than enough internet exposure through my home and office computers and wifi networks. Being disconnected outside is one of my guilty pleasures. My main use of my phone outside work is for offline GPS and casual camera use in the wilderness, where there is no phone service even if I wanted it. As a result, I value a small and light phone since it is mostly a passive burden in my pocket. But, the battery needs to last a whole camping trip away from the electrical grid.
My current phone is an aging Moto G4 Play which can still go 5+ days with many hours per day GPS logging. I am starting to see reduced GPS reliability that I think may be physical antenna damage. So, I may replace it with a fresh mid-range phone, rather than replacing its user-serviceable battery and looking into non-OEM firmware updates to extend its life.
There’s a million things I’d rather spend $1000+ on that will get me real joy, rather than incremental improvements to a yet another generic product in an increasingly stale (and increasingly locked down) product-line.
Smartphones is just not a “it thing” anymore. Get over it. The market certainly says. (As in it’s not just my opinion.)
The market says that somewhat fewer people are seeing the need to buy new phones. It hasn't dropped to nearly zero.
Project that trend into the future and you’ll see just what happened in the PC market: ever decreasing sales.
Unless you’re prepared, that’s going to get ugly.
tl;dr the performance bumps cost more.
I even handed down a couple of iPads.
The last few years has been different though. The devices have been good enough. And the prices on the lastest iPhone has kept going up. Had the prices been cheaper I’d have upgraded. My parents are on 4+ year old phones (I use for 2, then they use for 2 before another hand down) and even older spares that are just used for travel and the get a local sim. The incremental improvement is worth it if I can pass down.
As it is, I think they’ll have to get new phones when they just stop being supported. I’m not upgrading.