this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2026
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There's no way I would ever pay $1300 for a phone. I could buy a new HF radio for that, use it for 20 years then sell it for more that half of that. The phone will be worthless after a couple of years.
I am on the S22 which is now 4 years old and as you say worthless. The only thing i can say is yeah the phone may be 1k or more but i would hope nobody is buying it at retail. When i got this one it was 1k, but my phone trade in brought it down to $500 and they offered a deal that added another $100 off by doing that so it was only $400. I hope i can continue buying new phones every 4ish years around the $500 mark, definitely won't go higher myself.
Especially when you can buy really great (arguably better) models from Samsung's own A Series lineup for like $400.
That's why I buy them used a few years after release. No reason to create more e-waste plus they're still premium devices even if two or so years have passed. That being said, Samsung began enshittifying their phones generation after generation.
I've been buying mid-range devices since mid 2010s (Nexus 5, Xiaomi Mi A1); mid-range devices were fine then and even more so now. The one drawback was camera quality, but IMO this has been resolved. These days I stick to the Samsung A series. I bought my A73 in mid 2022 and I see no reason to upgrade (although battery charge is starting to become an issue, although it's manageable). It's too bad Samsung sunset the A7X series.
I can't imagine spending more than $500 - $600 on a smartphone (and even that is pushing it past the optimal spot on the price to performance curve).
My last two phones were around $250 and have done everything I need. They have SD card slots, headphone jacks and physical sim cards which the higher end phones are lacking. I don't care about camera quality. I have a nice DSLR if I need good pictures.
The only problem with Samsung A series is that the phones are huge. Phones the size of base S model are rare. Beyond Samsung S series there is only Pixel (which has its own issues) and some Chinese models.
I am one of those people who likes huge phones, even back when they were called Phablets (I also had company provided Note 3 and aNexus 6P).