this post was submitted on 27 Jan 2024
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I'm not sure I'd call this "cheaping out" but unless you can't even afford that or you have a specific reason you need a more expensive one, you should buy mid-range ($200 - $400) phones. The early '10s are over and mid-range is more than adequate for the average phone user. Plus quite a few mid-ranges still have expandable storage and/or headphone jacks.
Honestly, most mid range phones are not built to last. When I spend hundreds of dollars on a phone, it needs to last for years and years.
I bought mine for a bit over $500. It has a headphone jack, IR Port, 1200 lumen light, and I only have to charge it 1-2 times a week depending on usage.
Which one?
Usually 2 Iโd guess
The difference between a 300-400โฌ phone and a 1000+โฌ phone is mostly just a faster cpu and a better camera. My 360โฌ phone even has a 120hz screen.
And the cameras on phones these days can lose orders of magnitude of quality and still blow any photography setup the CIA owned in 1995 out of the water.
Left Samsung's ever more expensive Note and Galaxy S lines for Motorola's cheap ass G series like three or four years ago and haven't looked back. I buy a new phone once a year on my tax return for like $200-250. I gift my previous device to my younger cousins, nieces, nephews, and mother. Keeps everyone from having to pay off devices on their phone plans and the phones are still running rather well year over year. The only hold out, claiming to "need" the latest and greatest, is my older sister who insists she needs the new iPhone every two years.
How do I make sure the phone is clean, not stuck with a rootkit or something?
Poorly Google Pixels arent very cheap. You can soon get a Pixel 8 used for like 500โฌ but yeah that is not cheap at all.
All the other devices you should NOT cheap out on. They have no security updates, and you are the product.
Buying expensive Samsung stuff on the other hand makes no sense, because you are simply premium spied on.
GrapheneOS is really the only Android one should use. Everything else is a tracking platform or insecure, often both.