Apple iPhone 7...

Meanwhile at Xiaomi:

 

I tend to upgrade every three years.

MY first proper smart phone was an iPhone 4, which after 3 years had a failing home button and the sleep/wake button had no travel in it anymore. The software updates over time had also left the phone running like an absolute dog too.

I've now reached the 3 year point on my 5s The frame has a slight bend which allows the front screen to lift occasionally letting dust/lint in behind the front facing camera (I assume a retaining clip can't fully engage). Apart from that though the buttons are in fine form, though the figure print reader maybe isn't as good as it use to be (no firm evidence of that though). Also the usability of the software is still good (as of ios 9.3.5). The killer though is the degradation of the battery which now requires a battery case to make it though a day.

I wonder how brittle it is though.

 

This is a key point. The main significant damage I see to smartphones these days is a shattered screen. This is typically because the energy an impact on to the rigid case is transferred to the hard but brittle screen. I'd be worried that ceramic would either shatter itself (which would be pretty catastrophic) or have even worse impact characteristics than aluminium.

This is why I prefer plastic bodied phones. For all the talk of premium look/feel and such, I think plastic does a better job than aluminium at flexing and dissipating the energy from impacts away from the screen and delicate components. It makes more practical sense to me.

 

The whole durability thing can be quite tricky:

Look you can put 90 pounds of weight on a Nexus 6p and it survives...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHBPjCa2_xI

Oh wait, you can easily split it in half with your bare hands:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3cWVdLqXCg

Point being what pressure is applied at which angle and where exactly can make an absurd difference.

 

Got an iPhone 7 Plus 128GB & iPhone 7 32GB sat in the Apple cart waiting to hit pay.....

 

Oneplus 3 is better and half the price.

You could get a oneplus 3 and a PS4 Pro, or a Xbox one S, or a Holiday, a GTX 1070, a new TV or monitor, live off takeaways for weeks or a second Oneplus 3.

 

Cons of upgrading:
- Cost, if not budgeted for (£500 every 2 years is a wee bit over £20 a month, minus resale of the 'old' phone).

Pros of upgrading:
- Security updates. Apple are slightly better at this (though nearing the end of life the phone will be running like molasses), but Nexus phones also do well with this with a 2-year guaranteed update window (and security updates for some time after that). Other OEMs may be SOL though, but that's on the OEM.
- Feature updates. e.g. NFC, basic mobile VR (I'd consider GearVR or Daydream a minimum acceptable level. Cardboard really isn't), etc.
- Battery life. Batteries degrade, most aren't replaceable.
- General wear. Less of an issue if you always keep the phone in a case, but even then ports can wear out from repeated use.
- Usability. Demands on what a phone needs to do (as with any general-purpose computation device) are increasing continuously. Even without any raw performance degradation, practical performance is going to reduce over the life of the phone.

 

The cost argument is fine when used against the comically overpriced products from Samsung, Sony and so on, but not so much with the equally comically overpriced products from Apple, simply put, have you seen the ridiculous prices you can get for used Apple stuff on ebay?

 

I'm still using my 3GS 16gb in my Otter case

 

Euro land pricing on Apple products has always been crazy. U.K. Pricing is getting there as well in truth. Enough the base IPhone 7 32gb is still cheap enough.

Comparing IPhone 7 to Samsung g7 or IPhone 7 + to note 7 is a more relivent price points though.

Most people buying Apple and Samsung would not be after a one plus 3.

 

Have to agree with other comments that the Apple upgrade program seems pretty good. New phone after 12 months (trading the existing one in of course), or after 20 months the phone is yours. Still 4 months less than your usual 2 year O2/EE/Vodafone/Three contract. I Recently finished my personal contract on my Galaxy S5, and was close to a new contract for an S7, but decided to go onto SIM only for 12 month with option to upgrade after a few months if I wanted to change. So glad I didn't upgrade as I am now in the position to got doen the Apple upgrade program. Also get Apple Care as well. The phone isn't cheap, and I'd be looking at the 256GB option.
P.S. Also have an iPhone 6s and to be honest only reason for keeping with Samsung was the picture quality for photos, but nothing stopping me carrying on using that for photos!

I think definitely go onto SIM only, it keeps your options open!

 

Call it a security feature of android, no one is going to mug you for a phone they can get £50 for on a good day when they can just mug an iphone owner

 

Excellent. I tried to change the battery in my 3GS but it refused to charge (The battery wasn't OEM tho). Still running on the original battery, it last 2 days with the wifi turned off.

 

With Microsoft once again throwing in the towel in the smartphone market I'm not sure how much longer the software will remain up to scratch though, so it may not matter too much how long the hardware in your phone lasts.
So it will be back down to just ios / android to choose from soon.

I used to have a windows phone (LG) some time ago and the only thing to like about it was Windows Mobile, the phone itself was beating the ever loving s*** out of even Apple in the race for most anaemic battery fitted.

But seriously, windows mobile isn't actually that bad, unlike their new unified OS approach which just ends up working nowhere, luckily both my compact and my big tablet are android / windows dual boot so I have android to fall back on or they would have both ended up in a trash can already.

 

You're connected to a data network, so you either keep the software updated or become vulnerable to trivial automated attacks.

 

Picked mine up this morning, it's a very nice phone.
A bit of faff as the apple upgrade plan backend died so ended up buying mine outright

 

Apple are saying that every 7plus on the planet went to pre-orders, so stores won't have any for weeks to come.

 

http://metro.co.uk/2016/09/17/new-i...-a-speaker-behind-the-speaker-grille-6133482/

New iPhone doesn’t actually have a speaker behind the speaker grille

 

The fact Intel is finally back in the IPhone is the bigger story tech wise.

 

The Intel phones only give you CAT 9/10 and QCOM ones give you CAT 12. Or the QCOM ones are limited, which might mean the 6S outperformed it? Dunno yet. I'm still interested in a 7 Plus though