I must admit, the last 12 months have been a bit of a whirlwind when it comes to me and smartphones. I’ve switched and changed pretty much once a month trying to find the perfect device for me.
I started the year with a flagship, wanting premium features but then found myself fearing damaging it because of its high value. I then went to the bottom end of the market to counter that, but then was disappointed with the lack of features. I got annoyed with Google threatening to lock down android and switched to iPhone, only to struggle to find workarounds to their closed environment and switch back to Android. From then I justified switching for size issues, storage issues, you name it. If it gave me an excuse to switch I took it. Novelty was what I was subconsciously chasing. In reality, any of these phones would’ve satisfied my requirements of a phone.
Really 1 year later I’m in exactly the same boat I was in 12 months ago, only the problem was worse than in 2024 where I only owned 3 or 4 phones. Thankfully now I have some motivation to stop, money. Making the best out of a bad situation I’ve found myself in a situation where I need some fairly expensive dental work. To maintain a comfortable financial position I need to cut down on unnecessary spending while this is ongoing.
I have sold all of my phones that I’ve purchased to offset some of the hit my savings have taken. I’m now in a position where I have 2 phones for personal use, neither of which have cost me anything and technically aren’t mine to sell. I have the Samsung A26 which was a work provided device, and most recently a Samsung A17 5G which was sent to me by mistake from an online retailer. I tried to do the right thing and return it but because there was no order it was linked to they basically didn’t want to know.
So my long term plan now is to use these 2 devices and not spend any money for as long as possible. Both of these phones have a 6 year update promise, and the A17 is the worse of those two devices so it makes sense to use that one first. In theory after a few years of updates the A26 will still perform better so it’s better to save that one for further down the line.
Setting up the A17 didn’t fill me full of confidence because it was a laggy, stuttery mess, but after a bit of time to settle down it’s absolutely fine. The camera is decent, the screen is high quality, battery lasts ages and overall it’s just a nice phone. It does make me feel slightly stupid for having thought I needed flagships in the past when in reality I am a light user and only have basic requirements. I wonder how many other people overspend on their phone purchases because they’ve massively overestimated their own requirements?
Readers; please don’t be like me. Use my experiences to learn from. Smartphones are not a hobby, they’re a tool and if you believe otherwise you’ve fallen for the marketing. Use your phone until it no longer serves you well, don’t buy a new phone just because it’s new and shiny, and don’t spend time lusting after other phones. If your phone still works, chances are it’s still absolutely fine. Save your money and mental energy! The only people that can justify this are reviewers who receive the phones for free and get paid to do it.
Leave a Reply