Is a flagship smartphone worthwhile?

Is a flagship smartphone worthwhile?

  • Yes

    Votes: 45 26.0%

  • No

    Votes: 114 65.9%

  • Other

    Votes: 14 8.1%
  • Total voters
    173
Use a Samsung S24+ and extremely happy with it. Used to be a Xiaomi Redmi pro user for a number of years and they were alright but compared to my Samsung extremely happy with it.
 
I got a flagship once (iPhone 13 Pro), heavily subsidised by Vitality back when that programme existed. The trade-in value was good, and I found a use for lidar (it's a must-have feature for me now) so I'll be staying with iPhone Pros for as long as iStore gives acceptable trade-in on a 4 or 5 year-old phone.
 
Scooby_Doo said:
The Samsung FE range are great.
Click to expand...
i can attest to that - i help my buddies out with their S24 Ultra's while i use the exact same software on my S24FE at around 90% of the speed ..... other than that they have the S pen (not obligatory for me) and better cameras (redundant for my usage) and a better screen (which i would have loved to have) but not much else is different and my FE was less than half the price to do 90% of the job

i laugh at the people who say if you don't buy the top of the range then you are a don't have ..... as an example a while back when i was at my financial peak at about 2007 i was debating whether to buy a Golf GTI or a Polo GTI and i landed up buying the Polo GTI and some morbid cant on some other forum said i was a don't have because i couldn't run with the "big boys" well at the time i was living in a flat that was freehold and belonging to me worth R4 bar and i paid cash for that car and i also bought a home theater setup and a relatively large TV at the same time as the car all for cash (the difference between the golf and Polo was R40k and the TV was at that time R25k and my AV receiver was over R50k ..... then there was the cost of the speakers and wiring etc and i spent R600k in the space of one month for lots of things ..... all paid in cash - no debt incurred so how many of those farking big boys that this tw@tty was talking about owned their cars instead of the bank owning them - all in 2007 whereas my cars logbook was in my bedroom sized vault at the business not at the bank ...... so yes there are many reasons to WANT something top of the range and being a don't have or otherwise is the last consideration regarding all these considerations

there is a matter of wanting the bragging rights or claiming business expenses and many other reasons why someone would want the top of the range anything - right now i'm happy doing the research and getting something that is as functional as the top of the range at a way lower price - and i keep the money saved for my next purchase just in case i don't insure this item (talking insurance on the phones mainly at this point) and yes i am no longer in that financial position but i was then and some ma-s-po35 whose cars logbook was being held by the bank was busy insulting me

going back to the phones strictly - i will no longer buy top of the range because the midrange stuff is going a long way to blur the lines between the expensive flagship schit and what was regularly called midrange level
 
I got an orange 17 Pro from Amazon when it was released last year.
Coming from a 5-year-old 12 Pro, I can say that I am happy.

I keep them long enough, I feel, to justify the purchase.

Still, it is a fsckton of money for a phone.
 
Yes but not the brand new, current model. My next phone will probably be an iPhone 16 Pro. Flagship at some point
 
I don't know, it depends on what you want/need. I wanted a phone that can take great photos and will last me at least 7 years so I got the Samsung S24 Ultra. This is my first ever flagship though.
 
I'd still have my s6 edge if I could
 
It depends on what you do with it and the definition of flagship. The price of the top tier of flagships went up, doesn't mean the rest isn't still flagship pricing (iPhone 17, Pixel 10 Pro, the base model is upper mid-range to me as ~R12k).

Generally would also keep the price comparisons in dollar/EUR as rand dropped over the years, but anything $1k mark is flagship.
I would generally go flagships nowadays as EU has a law that mandates 5 years of updates, and e.g. Pixels get 7 years from release.

My 8 Pro will have updates till 2030, and have had it for ~2 years 3 months, around 35 EUR/month but included the pixel buds pro. For something I use daily, plus the LTPO 1Hz for reading meant battery life is great for my use-case, and I do a lot of trips, so having a good camera and telephoto is worth it to me. It's a noticeably better camera than my old mid-rangers used to have (OnePlus Nord). Have used my friend's Pixel 10 Pro for a bit (10 Pro XL is the same tier, so this is one down but same price at launch), only the fingerprint sensor, and slightly better at realistic color tones in photos is better, else not really that interesting.

If you basically never take photos, or have partner who captures the moments with you, most of the time, any mid-ranger is more than good enough for most people's use-cases, and it's not going to stop you from taking the photo, it's just a small quality difference, and you'll still have a photo at the end.

Bottom of the barrel though, I am sad for people who can't push into the lower mid-range, there's usually larger jumps in quality there, from phone basically unusable to decent.


---
Personally, Pixel 11 series, if it has new under screen IR, I would consider the upgrade. Going to face unlock on the Pixel 8 Pro is a huge improvement for me that I didn't think I'd like as much as I did, as winter here with snow/gloves it's great, and falling back to fingerprint is way better than having to take off sunglasses or if at the wrong angle.
 
Jet-Fighter7700 said:
even the last gen flagships are still pretty decent phones, sitting here with my S21 ultra,
but again, and this is with Samsung and all the other manufacturers,

they deliberately slow down devices, stop updates from being pushed out, and generally nudge you ever s slightly to buy a new phone,
Click to expand...

you are correct about most of this - your S21 Ultra has actually now hit an update wall - it wont be getting any new O/S upgrades/updates (ironically the S21FE will get one more because it was launched a year after the Ultra so it will get One Ui 8.5 because it was also promised 4 generations of O/S updates) - your Ultra will still just get security updates for one more year
 
Jet-Fighter7700 said:
even the last gen flagships are still pretty decent phones, sitting here with my S21 ultra,
but again, and this is with Samsung and all the other manufacturers,

they deliberately slow down devices, stop updates from being pushed out, and generally nudge you ever s slightly to buy a new phone,

it started with the non removable battery, then it went for the limited software updates, and finally they went for apps that wont run on older phones, and making it hard for you to continie using an old phone,

its all deliberate and calculated, hence why I sometimes hate myself for having my Wileyfox swift with its removable battery stolen,
and why I wish for a fairphone to enter my life once again.
Click to expand...
1000086170.jpg
 
3WA said:
I got a flagship once (iPhone 13 Pro), heavily subsidised by Vitality back when that programme existed. The trade-in value was good, and I found a use for lidar (it's a must-have feature for me now) so I'll be staying with iPhone Pros for as long as iStore gives acceptable trade-in on a 4 or 5 year-old phone.
Click to expand...
What do you use LiDAR for ?
 
naughty001 said:
i can attest to that - i help my buddies out with their S24 Ultra's while i use the exact same software on my S24FE at around 90% of the speed ..... other than that they have the S pen (not obligatory for me) and better cameras (redundant for my usage) and a better screen (which i would have loved to have) but not much else is different and my FE was less than half the price to do 90% of the job

i laugh at the people who say if you don't buy the top of the range then you are a don't have ..... as an example a while back when i was at my financial peak at about 2007 i was debating whether to buy a Golf GTI or a Polo GTI and i landed up buying the Polo GTI and some morbid cant on some other forum said i was a don't have because i couldn't run with the "big boys" well at the time i was living in a flat that was freehold and belonging to me worth R4 bar and i paid cash for that car and i also bought a home theater setup and a relatively large TV at the same time as the car all for cash (the difference between the golf and Polo was R40k and the TV was at that time R25k and my AV receiver was over R50k ..... then there was the cost of the speakers and wiring etc and i spent R600k in the space of one month for lots of things ..... all paid in cash - no debt incurred so how many of those farking big boys that this tw@tty was talking about owned their cars instead of the bank owning them - all in 2007 whereas my cars logbook was in my bedroom sized vault at the business not at the bank ...... so yes there are many reasons to WANT something top of the range and being a don't have or otherwise is the last consideration regarding all these considerations

there is a matter of wanting the bragging rights or claiming business expenses and many other reasons why someone would want the top of the range anything - right now i'm happy doing the research and getting something that is as functional as the top of the range at a way lower price - and i keep the money saved for my next purchase just in case i don't insure this item (talking insurance on the phones mainly at this point) and yes i am no longer in that financial position but i was then and some ma-s-po35 whose cars logbook was being held by the bank was busy insulting me

going back to the phones strictly - i will no longer buy top of the range because the midrange stuff is going a long way to blur the lines between the expensive flagship schit and what was regularly called midrange level
Click to expand...
How can you people have all these fancy phones but you don't have these:
1000086172.jpg
 
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