Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

What makes you decide to upgrade phones?

L

Legionnaire

Suspended
Original poster
Oct 10, 2011
331
88
Reason I ask is I have a 4 year old iPhone 5s and it's honestly perfectly quick as day I got it. Since contracts are gone it's hard to want to pay for the phobe unsubsodized. If I had too I'd get a 5se today, but by time my phone dies I'm hoping a 5se 2 will be out.


Do you upgrade because of wants or needs? Do you lose money upgrading routinely and if so, what's your justification?
 
  • Like
Reactions: m4v3r1ck
BeFore I upgrade, I always like to ask myself what are the changes that were made for the newest iPhone and are they compelling enough to want to upgrade for my current device?

As much as I like the iPhone and the overall experience, these last few years have been rather redundant and the changes have been positive, but they've been really small/incremental changes. If the next iPhone were to primarily be similar to the model that we have now, I'm not entirely sure I would upgrade.

With all the rumor changes coming this year for a revamped larger iPhone and an OLED display, I'm thinking it will be a better year for the iPhone for some more who are fatigued with the current model after three generations.
 
  • Like
Reactions: akash.nu, Superspeed500, eyoungren and 2 others
I normally just sell my old iphone as it still has some pretty high resale value and get a new one when it is available. 7 Plus feature I really wanted and use is dual camera.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Glideslope and MuGeN PoWeR
For Instagram I need photos taken by a phone...!! Dual camera absolute reason

Normally It seems I change phone in 2years... anyhow i am a little attracted by phone feature and AD Image
 
I tend to upgrade for specific feature.
3GS: my first iPhone, because Apple didn't put a camera on the iPod touch at that time.
Then I upgraded to the 4 because of retina and front facing camera.
Then I upgraded to the 5 because of LTE and 1GB of RAM
Then I upgraded to the 6S because of 2GB of RAM and more LTE bands.

My next must have feature would be IP68 water proofing, and 3 or 4GB of RAM. I can see that my upgrade timing is getting longer as the hardware and features mature.
 
  • Like
Reactions: nj1266
I upgraded when I had an upgrade available with Verizon regardless if I needed it or not ($300 didn't break the bank). Had the opportunity for Verizon to thank us for being longtime customers (I have a family plan with 5 lines) -- they reset our upgrade so we could get new phones one time (I never threatened to leave).

Now that subsidized upgrades are gone? I'm keeping my phones a LOT longer than I have. My 6+ I kept for 1.5 years, paid off the balance, sold it back to Apple for $300 and got my 6s+ (1 year 1 month ago). I plan on keeping this another year at least because popping $1000+ on a phone isn't easy.

So what do I look for in a phone? What $1000 gets me. The 7+ minus what I could get for my 6s+ isn't worth it in my opinion. The 8? Well, I probably won't look to upgrade till my 6s+ is fully paid off a year from now and even then I might keep it for awhile longer. It's doing everything I need. The only thing I don't like is the battery life is at 93%.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 44267547 and ardchoille50
Legionnaire said:
Do you upgrade because of wants or needs? Do you lose money upgrading routinely and if so, what's your justification?
Click to expand...
I upgrade because of wants. The phone already meets needs (my needs are simple). If I like the phone's looks and it's been some time (2 to 3.5 years) since the last upgrade, I upgrade.

As to money…I suppose you could say I lose money if one is of the mindset that the old phone should be sold to pay for the new phone (at least partially anyway).

But we keep our old phones until they die (which means the point I no longer wish to pay to replace it) or we give them away. Thus as secondary devices they still serve a purpose. In that way I consider myself to be getting more out of the device than what I paid for it.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: 44267547, Sunny1990, AlphaHumanus and 1 other person
Specific features that I "need" and the age of my old phone. My 6+ is going to be 3 years old and the iPhone 7 was not different enough from my 6...so, it's time now.
 
BigMcGuire said:
So what do I look for in a phone? What $1000 gets me. The 7+ minus what I could get for my 6s+ isn't worth it in my opinion. The 8? Well, I probably won't look to upgrade till my 6s+ is fully paid off a year from now and even then I might keep it for awhile longer. It's doing everything I need. The only thing I don't like is the battery life is at 93%.
Click to expand...
That's the main point right there. No point in upgrading if the current device is still able to accomplish its mission.
 
  • Like
Reactions: millerj123, Sunny1990 and BigMcGuire
I change phones maybe 4-5 times a year. I usually get something if it's on sale and resell my old one. I don't pay for more than $500 for a phone anymore. Whatever next iPhone I will get, I'll wait till I can find a new one for that price or less.

I think going to Apple reduced the buying a bit because there are limited Apple devices and they tend to work the same and stay updated. Also I don't like to fiddle too much with software anymore.

Technically I could get by with a $40 Android phone.
 
Legionnaire said:
Reason I ask is I have a 4 year old iPhone 5s and it's honestly perfectly quick as day I got it. Since contracts are gone it's hard to want to pay for the phobe unsubsodized. If I had too I'd get a 5se today, but by time my phone dies I'm hoping a 5se 2 will be out.


Do you upgrade because of wants or needs? Do you lose money upgrading routinely and if so, what's your justification?
Click to expand...
I upgrade when I can't tolerate the lag on my previous device any longer or the device dies.

My only exception to this was last year when Verizon offered me $650 for my 16GB iPhone 6. This was too good of a deal to pass up. Now I have a 128GB iPhone 7 which cost me $100 and will last for quite some time.
 
  • Like
Reactions: rui no onna
Since the 6s/+, iPhones are plenty fast with adequate RAM.

So really many people will upgrade primarily on features or design, going forward.

I also lost the subsidized phone w/Verizon. I want to try OLED for my next phone, but the Android models... so far, are not what I need.

So I will wait.

I'm not rich and I'm reasonably thrifty, so my purchases (when it comes to phones) is under control. When I do decide to buy, it will be because I deem it, worth it.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Sunny1990 and willmtaylor
For me it's because I have a bartering sickness that is paired with a love of tech. Example: I just upgraded to a 6s plus last September and already traded it up for a 7 that I got a good deal on. Previous to that it was my 6 to a 6 plus. If I can upgrade while spending almost nothing I usually can't help myself.
 
Mostly for me, I upgrade if there is a feature that I like in the new upcoming phone. If I don't find a feature I like worth upgrading, then I usually just get it to have the latest tech. I have the iPhone upgrade program now, so that's the main reason. :p
 
Legionnaire said:
Reason I ask is I have a 4 year old iPhone 5s and it's honestly perfectly quick as day I got it. Since contracts are gone it's hard to want to pay for the phobe unsubsodized. If I had too I'd get a 5se today, but by time my phone dies I'm hoping a 5se 2 will be out.

Do you upgrade because of wants or needs? Do you lose money upgrading routinely and if so, what's your justification?
Click to expand...
First of all, everyone loses money when they get a new phone. It's an expense, not an investment. If you want an investment, buy AAPL, NFLX, QQQ, or SPY.

In the old days when handsets were subsidized, the costs were buried in the monthly service. Sure, your out of pocket expenses the day you got the handset were less, but you paid for it over the length of the contract. You always paid for it in one way or another.

Sure, your daily cost will be less if you spread out the total cost of ownership over a longer period of time, but $850 is $850.

Different people have different reasons for upgrading their phones. Some people simply want the latest and greatest.

Others might desire a specific feature like an improved camera, Touch ID, or Apple Pay.

And others might find that their old handset doesn't hold a charge very well or is running slowly with the latest operating system and applications.

For me, I'm not tied to a contract, so I could upgrade every year if I really wanted to. I usually upgrade every two years. I look at the new features on the recently released hardware and decide whether or not those are sufficient to justify the additional cost of ownership for the new device. Let's say I want a $850 phone and I think I can get $150 from Amazon, Gazelle, etc. for my old one. It's still $700 out of pocket. If I plan to own the phone for two years, that's about $30 per month or a dollar a day. So I ask myself, "Is it worth paying a dollar a day for this?"

It's the same question you should ask about anything you buy. "Should I have a $4 espresso drink 300 days a year? That's $1200. Is there something else I might want to use that money for? Toward a down payment on a house? A nice vacation in Mexico? Retirement?"
 
  • Like
Reactions: rui no onna and eyoungren
I used to upgrade when I was eligible for another subsidy. With that gone, I haven't upgraded my 6 yet. My main consideration now that I'm "out of pocket" is daily performance. I'm by no means an intensive user, but my 6 is slowing down. Looking at the plus for my next phone.
[doublepost=1496250122][/doublepost]@Bart Kela My phone is an investment. I use it for my work, as well as improving productivity and life management. It has, without a doubt, made me more money than its cost me. Not all use cases are equal
 
AlphaHumanus said:
I used to upgrade when I was eligible for another subsidy. With that gone, I haven't upgraded my 6 yet. My main consideration now that I'm "out of pocket" is daily performance. I'm by no means an intensive user, but my 6 is slowing down. Looking at the plus for my next phone.
[doublepost=1496250122][/doublepost]@Bart Kela My phone is an investment. I use it for my work, as well as improving productivity and life management. It has, without a doubt, made me more money than its cost me. Not all use cases are equal
Click to expand...
That's more of a tool basically, similar to a car, or something like that. It's not an investment in the sense of obtaining it so that it could then be resold (or traded) for potentially more, which is the typical sense of "investment" that is usually being referenced in these types of discussions.
 
  • Like
Reactions: AlphaHumanus
I have been replacing my phone when I am ready. I have used 3 cell phones since 2004 (really!), so I am fairly quick to replace my phones every 5 years or so.
I've got another couple of years on my present iPhone 5s.

I continue to watch for an implant design, so I don't ever have to hold my phone.
Apparently, implant models aren't ready yet.:rolleyes:
 
  • Like
Reactions: eyoungren
Years ago when phones were innovating new features constantly I'd upgrade every 6 months and sometimes more often, selling off the older one. Now with prices being what they are and innovations being much less, and I don't count lesser or no bezels a good upgrade reason, Nor is OLED IMO, I stick with my 2 flags and have no plans to upgrade this year. I see nothing in the pipeline that justifies a big cash outlay anyway. It's a nice feeling to have. Besides I'm done with big phones and that's mostly all that comes out these days. I'd have to be in dire need to buy a big one.
 
Legionnaire said:
Do you upgrade because of wants or needs? Do you lose money upgrading routinely and if so, what's your justification?
Click to expand...

I used to upgrade every year. I can sell last years' model for close to what a new phone costs.

I've had every model of iPhone except the 1st and the 7.

A phone without a headphone jack is worthless to me. I want to be able to plug in at kareoke, or a friends house, or car, or at a club. I run a recording studio and my phone has lots of nice synths. Useless without a headphone jack.

So I'm kinda stuck, I don't want to switch to Android, but they're kind of forcing my hand. I'll stick with 6S+ for as long as I can.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Math889
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back