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Too Many New Smartphone Models Released Each Year: Survey (livemint.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Consumers think smartphone makers are releasing too many new models each year, a survey showed on Tuesday. The survey conducted in six countries, commissioned by the environmental group Greenpeace, showed that more than half of those who responded would prefer to change their phones less frequently. Handset devices are one of the most frequently replaced electronics products. The top cellphone companies, Samsung and Apple, launch new flagship phone models at least once every year, showing off the latest display and mobile processor technologies. Phone makers typically upgrade their cheaper lineups as well. "Over half of respondents across the countries surveyed agree that manufacturers are releasing too many new models, many designed to only last a few years," said Chih An Lee, global IT campaigner at Greenpeace East Asia. "In fact, most users actually want their phones to be more easily dismantled, repaired and recycled."
I don't change my phone.
They make disposable, thousand dollar accessories.
peace, showed that more than half of those who responded would prefer to change their phones less frequently
Then simply don't replace your phone as often? Just because a new phone is released doesn't mean you have to rush out and buy it...
If you prefer to change your device less frequently, then don't change it. I have an iPhone 4s and it runs the latest iOS. I think the going rate for one is about $60 unlocked. I only get laughed at by hipsters with the 6+ gigantic iPhones in huge otterbox cases. But then I let the air out of their fixie bike tires and they aren't laughing any more.
Come on. Everyone knows this: You DON'T trust Greenpeace. They lie. About pretty much everything. Greenpeace is WORSE than anything you can imagine.
"The survey conducted in six countries, commissioned by the environmental group Greenpeace, showed that more than half of those who responded would prefer to change their phones less frequently. "
I'm sorry, is there some law that says just because a new phone comes out you HAVE to throw the old one away and change to it?
Fucking sheep...
But i want others to do it so that they finance research so that when I buy a new phone after 7 years it will be as good as possible.
the site alibaba is injecting code to make money using advertising. prtobably is theretarded fernanda brizola from pop3 that does that. I don't care is your father is freemason, that only makes I hate your family more, did you know that?
It isn't the number of products, it's the quality. For instance, look at how Samsung responded to the camera glass issue with their S7. So all these new versions coming out, and if you happen to have purchased one that works, why spend money on a gamble?
Greenpeace also found that people prefer to not be run over by a steamroller on Tuesdays.
Yeah, it is hard to do, no matter who you are. So don't. The reason this happens is marketing and people buying into it.
Happens with a lot of things, if not everything; shoes, cars, houses, jobs (Oh noes, you are not going to college, but that means you must work with your hands and that is terrible and those are thieves, because look what they charge per hour)
I say there are not enough phones coming out or at least not enough competition. Samsung, Apple, Windows, Huwaii and that si about is realistically. I would like to have at least 20 more available with a lot more choice AND have 20 more telecom operators available to put something together what I need. I want a nice screen, but I do not want a camera.
I also see many people who work with 5 year old phones and they work. But that is in Belgium where is is possible to buy unbundled and locking phones is forbidden by the Communist state. That means I can still use any provider with any phone, regardless how old it is, as long as it can do GSM network. Nokia 3110? Just put in a card ad a working battery and you can call, sms and play snake. On the plus side, no Facebook App.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
I mean, there's just too many cars, too! I mean, you have to buy them, but there's a new one every year! What is this? Call of Duty!?
What the fuck does new device availability have to do with "having to buy a new phone"? My phone is over two years old and I plan on getting 4+ years out of it. It does what I need it to do. It's a tool, you replace it when it needs replacement/updating based on functionality not just because there is a newer one. Everyone wonders why people are broke, have no retirement savings, etc. This is why, abysmal money management skills.
The rate of smartphone release and the myriad of options is incredible. On a typical life of a smartphone I will skip an entire generation. Then within each generation even if you limit to flagship models only and even if you have a preference for a single vendor there's still an incredible choice. So now I'm sitting here wondering if I should get a Galaxy S7, S7 active, S7 edge, S7 edge plus, and that's before looking at other manufacturers or daring to pick a cheaper phone, or consider a phablet.
. . . and selling their perfectly-good, last-year's new-hotness phone for a small percentage of their purchase price.
. . .and people like me buy them, and have a solid, reliable, stable phone without paying the premium price for the extra 12 square millimeters of display space.
Heck, my family of 4 has 4 perfectly good Galaxy S3's, in good protective cases and with add-on Gorilla Glass protectors. . . for half of the retail price of a Galaxy S6. . .
I'm perfectly happy with them rolling out new models in a non-stop stream. I have a 3 year old phone and it works fine for me. Thanks to the never-ending roll out of new phones a 1 year old model (which is also going to be just fine to me) is going to be heavily discounted because they're pushing "this-year's model".
When I do chose to update, I'll buy a new phone that is a model or two out of date and save $100s. Constantly spewing out slightly better phones is good news for the smart consumer who understands that a miniscule gain in performance isn't worth the extra money.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
I am still using my 10 years old nokia ! And it has more than 1 week battery...
Consumers are not "upset" that handsets (who calls phones that???) are being released frequently. Greenpeace is.
We ("consumers") don't actually care what Greenpeace says... unless we're green-loving whaleboat-storming garbage-recycling nuts, in which case, good for those of you who are, and don't buy any new smartphones.
However, when data goes from 2G to 3G to 4G to (future not yet existent 5G) and Bluetooth and HDMI and everything else gets upgraded and you want your phone to work with all your cool peripherals and your new smart (don't get one) TV then YES YOU UPGRADE.
Greenpeace - your time on this earth is over. You've hurt a lot of sailors. It's time you STFU and went away.
*goes to buy a new smartphone. On credit. Like a millenial*
E
I'm happy with my flip phone. I don't want to upgrade until I can get something like a (functional) Nokia Morph. See also the linked YouTube video.
AKA "omniphone" or just "omni" in Mayer's T-Space novels.
People lie now in survey. They say what is PC, but always think and do the contrary. If they'd really think there are too many smartphones released every year, they'd stop changing phone every 6 months. I'm sure Samsung would stop releasing 35 versions of it's Galaxy line if people would simply, you know, stop buying them when their previous phone is still as good.
I would prefer a high speed of change and a low cost to migrate to the next thing while my old thing can be ground up and reused to make the new thing with as little loss as possible. Keep 1000 units in museums around the world if you like.
goes to buy a new smartphone. On credit. Like a millenial
Hah, busted!
Everyone knows Millennials can't get credit!
/ Well, aside from hundreds of thousands of dollars in federally-backed student loans...
They could release an updated model every day for all I care, I'll replace my phone when I need a new phone, not because they released something new.
Where I think the real problem comes in is that many manufacturers have a dozen different models of phone, all of which are almost the same thing with little to differentiate them, and names and descriptions that make it hard to tell which one is supposed to be better than which.
When it does come time for a new phone it's very difficult to figure out which of a couple dozen phones from a dozen manufacturers is supposed to be better than which other one.
Sure I know that a Galaxy S7 is supposed to be better than the S6 which is better than the S5, but where does the S5 neo fit in? it's newer than the S5 so it should be between the S5 and the S6 right? except it turns out they used a cheaper processor than the S5 so it's actually bellow the S5. And where do the J1 and J3 fit in? and how about the A5? and what about the "grand prime"? These are all listed by Samsung as current devices, about the only ones that are easy to understand are the Note and Edge devices because they're relatively clear about what they have that differentiate them from the others.
Their website gives all sorts of superlatives for each device, but you have to dig to find specs, and then trying to compare the specs is often difficult as they use different terminology or focus on different aspects.
Manufacturers need to do a better job of communicating what makes their phone different from the dozens of others, and they should probably stick to a much smaller lineup unless they can find some real differentiators to separate their offerings.
I had a Droid and a Droid 3. It felt like after a year of use it would start running slower and the battery wouldn't hold a fraction of a charge that it used to. After 18 months they were almost unusable (coincidentally that was about the time Verizon would offer me an upgrade). Now I have a OnePlus phone that I purchased two years ago. As far as I can tell it runs as well as day one. I'm not sure if the Motorola phones were crap or if it is a matter of forced obsolescence, but I have almost no desire to upgrade my phone.
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It's random, but my posting it here is probably considered illegal to someone.
The market reality is that mobile tech is still advancing quickly enough that if a company doesn't release a new model every year, people shopping for a new device will simply not buy their 1.5 year old model. So a 1 year release interval is going to remain the norm until the rate of technological advancement slows down. That's what happened with Intel. In the early 1990s, after 1.5 years your CPU was 2x slower than the newest and you felt compelled to upgrade. By the 2000s this interval had stretched to about 5 years. And currently it's about 10 years. This slowdown has correlated to a drop in annual PC sales - people don't upgrade as frequently because there is simply less to gain with a frequent upgrade. But with phones, the rate of advancement is still enough to make a compelling argument for upgrading every 2 years, 1 year if you're willing to pay.
If you have a problem with that, don't upgrade your phone every year. I used my Galaxy S for 4 years, then upgraded to a Nexus 5 which I'm still using (2.5 years). There's no law saying you have to upgrade every year. And it's arrogant and selfish to try to prevent people shopping for a new phone from getting the latest tech simply because you don't have enough self-control to resist buying this year's new model. That's the real issue here. Except it's Greenpeace, who believes everything is the fault of corporations. So rather than tell people they need to show some restraint and stop upgrading their phones so frequently, they word the survey such that the blame is on the phone manufacturers for releasing new models too frequently.
I can only say, fuck you.
If bringing in the car analogy, it's like people bemoaning the fact that automobile companies often refresh their cars ... every fucking year. Well, the truth is they really do, and no one forces you to update your car every 12 months.
So, moar stupid polls, more 1st world problems.
I get a brand new phone every 2 years for free. I paid into the system once about 6 years ago, and now the sales price (or trade in value) of my 2 year old phone is equal to or higher than the brand-spanking-newest phone on the market. Now when I say "free" what I mean is that I don't pay any more to have a new phone than I would pay for identical service if I were to keep my phone forever. My plan rate is basically fixed no matter what device I use.
So instead of having a CDMA locked phone with dial-up modem speeds and 8GB of memory and a mobile OS which is no longer supported (which also means being locked out of revisions to the applications I run), I have this year's latest and greatest, with a pen to take notes on the screen, enough space to hold everything I need, two options for biometric authentication (if I should choose to use them), a camera which is as good or better than my last point-and-shoot, significantly more secure storage, and internet that is faster than all but one of the land-line providers to my house.
I would love to have a phone that never needed upgrading, sure. But I'll bet Greenpeace didn't ask if you wanted a phone that was insecure, limited in usability, and had poor performance on current generation software.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
It's sold as a 24-month contract with a free phone, but it's still credit. Not very competitive credit either.
So fuck them and their opinions.
Too many deodorants! Government needs to step in and put a stop to this waste! Let's wreck the economy... for humanity! /Bernie Sanders
Leela: Granted, we later learned some positive things about recycling. But
a better solution is to use our electronics as long as possible, instead
of throwing them out in the first place. I'm gonna start by keeping my
old cell phone, even if it is outdated.
Announcer: With the new eyePhone, you can watch, listen, ignore your
friends, stalk your ex, download porno on a crowded bus, even check your
E-mail while getting hit by a train. All with the new eyePhone.
Mom (v.o.): From Mom.
Leela: A new eyePhone? Forget this junk.
"Commissioned by the environmental group Greenpeace"
Stopped reading here. I don't want to have anything to do with these uneducated eco-terrorists
Nexus 5x is the best phone I've had and so far the easiest to repair. Had to replace the screen a couple months ago and all I had to do was pop the back case off, remove a few screws, pry the screen off, disconnect a ribbon cable and swap in the new screen and put it back together. Whole process took about an hour and the replacement screen was only about $40. A replacement iPhone 6S screen goes for about $120.
Are they mindless sheep? You replace your phone when there is a need for it. Replacing it because there is a new model is that hallmark of the sheep.
I want the cheap phones to not be crippled with inadequately small storage, non-removable bloatware, and to be finally killed by pushed updates that cripple it to the point of not being able to make calls (i.e. with the bloatware updates and uses of the few remaining megabytes of storage).
Both our previous phones were through Virgin Mobile, and within about 9 months, with almost no additional apps, they became frustratingly slow and useless. So 2 years ago I plunked down way too much for an unlocked iphone 5s for the wife (about $400), and got a nexus 6 for me a year ago as they were closing out for $400. Both are overkill for us, but don't come with bloatware that cripples them, and they actually get security updates semi-regularly. We have them on Ting for $34 a month for both phones for our amount of usage. We plan to keep them that way till they die and repeat the process. It sucks that you have to overpay for overkill hardware to avoid getting an unsupported bloated POS.
These same people complaining that new phones are coming out too often are the same people that would be complaining if they brought out model less often that the models are too old when they individually decide to upgrade.
People just like to complain.
"Grab them by the pussy" -- President of the United States of America
>The top cellphone companies, Samsung and Apple, launch new flagship phone models at least once every year,
Barack Obama uses Samsung, they are cooperative with the US government. to wit: they spy on you on more devices than phones. (TV's too yes)
Apple is in bed with China and their phones are gay anyway so who cares? FBI. Give us your backdoor Apple and we will help you sell more phones. --FBI
I went from an iPhone 3 to an iPhone 5 to an iPhone 5 SE.
Not much change.
Skip version numbers.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Dell Streak 5, Galaxy Note1, and for the past 2+ years, Huawei Ascend Mate2. Probably going to keep that one, one more year before updating. It's a phone to me...not a fashion accessory that "needs" to be replaced every year. Plus, the global economy is such, no one has that much free money left over to spend on these overpriced "flagships".
I typically get a new phone about every 4 to 5 years.
I've got high standards and a big mouth. Is there any way I could participate in focus groups or alpha-testing to tell companies what's wrong with their devices before they launch? I've had most of the flagship phones (one from each manufacturer) and while I love them, I've had serious complaints about each. I don't know who they have doing the testing!
Are there testing programs I could apply to join? I'm not interested in a full time job, but I'm a heavy user and find multiple problems per week when I have a new phone.
A cat can't teach a dog to bark.
Part of the problem in the US is having to buy your phones through your carriers. So LG, Samsung, Motorola, HTC, whoever all have to make slightly modified phones for each carrier (which costs money). Unnecessary development money and just bloats the cost of the things.
And they always want you to buy the current year's model, which cost too goddamn much ($625 for a LG G5?!? My laptops that last 5-6 years and are $1000 so I ain't spending half that on a phone for 3). I had an LG G2 that I loved but the screen was failing me (already replaced it once) so I figured I could upgrade the 2.5 year old phone for not too much. I wanted the LG G4 (which just came out last year) and it's already out of stock. Ended up getting the Nexus 5X. Affordable and snappy enough for me. I love it. I may never buy an overpriced carrier phone again.
Well, it should taste like a *ripe* tomato.
GMO doesn't change the flavour of the tomato per-se, what it does it make the tomatoes appear a nice ripe red colour/texture when really they're not. That gives you a watery tomato with little flavour.
You want to know what a tomato should be like? Walk into a greenhouse or a garden full or real, fresh tomatoes. You can *smell* them before they even get near your palate. Most local store tomatoes here are watery, with little flavour and next to no scent. I do have to take care that my garden tomatoes don't spoil, as once actually ripe they can soften or split quickly, but the flavour is far and beyond the store stuff. Also, there's a lot of different *varieties* of tomatoes. Some are stronger tasting than others, have different textures, and come in a vast array of sizes and colours. They all taste pretty damn good though.
Apples on the other hand... well I don't grow those but I've tasted "wild" ones, and with those as well as store varieties some I like but others I find are sour/bitter. Maybe you got a "crab apple", which are a particularly sour variety and can also do a number on your stomach if you eat too many. I'm not fond of the crab apples myself but I have tasted some pretty good pies with them, and I understand they're pretty nice for making cider as well.