Samsung Galaxy Note 8

My daily driver is still a Samsung Note 8. Yes, from 2017. Screen is almost unusable in sunlight, usually needs a mid-to-late-day charge, and I officially can't use banking apps. But it still does 90% of what I need it to; not bad for $600 used (so less than $80/yr). I think it's a route everyone should consider. Less resource consumption, better for the environment, and if you're a smarter person than I am, you'd take the hint from any decreasing utility and ween yourself off your phone reliance altogether. I've thought about using my experience as street cred for a gimmicky YouTube video - "I'm selling ONE $60 iPhone 17 case for $5000, to encourage the lucky owner to keep using their phone for at least 5 years! (You're not buying a case, you're buying a promise to yourself~)" - but I had enough trouble selling mobile accessories at MSRP in a past working life, so...

dunno, I have electricity problems (especially on winters when Russia strikes the hardest on infra) but I usually have this time as a downtime for lightweight C coding in Termux and retro gaming, all on Galaxy Note 8 (Android 9!!) + power bank. I guess it feels less like a problem when you have that problem regularly and are forced to adapt. and I guess I'll just HAVE to switch to Pixel 10 when Pixel 11 comes out - the integrated Linux terminal right there is awesome. or maybe just get a MacBook like most around me did

My Galaxy Note 8 is still going as my main daily music player/backup phone. My Galaxy Note 4 still works. Had to sideload updated web certificates. My Galaxy S1 would still be going, but somebody got the charging port wet.

I know I'm an old grouchy cranky so-and-so :), but the case for upgrade is really not compelling. All the majors have followed Apple's lead and create crippled Flagship phones with no 3.5mm, no MicroSD card, and compromised usability. Meanwhile, they don't bring me anything I don't already have on my Samsung Note 8. On the Apple side, my wife still uses iPhone XR. It's fine. It surfs, it banks, it calls, it messages. Photography is the one area new phones excel at, but jeebus - For $1500+, I can (and will) get a nice real camera instead :).

This started with my LG g3. That was a flagship when I got it. My HTC M8 also died. I had a galaxy s3, s4, s6, and a note. The note 8 was the only one that survived longer than a year. Meanwhile, my iPhone 7+ was in service for 6 years. I owned it until I upgraded to an XS, and a family member used it up until last year. I used the XS until I got a free upgrade to the 13.

Went from a Note 8 to iPhone. Lack of stylus bugs me all the time. One of my favourite features was being able to hover over foreign language words and it would translate them, even if the word was in image or a button on an application. On iOS if you wanted to translate the text on a button you have to take a screen capture, then translate the screen capture. This was possible partly because of the stylus hover feature, but also because the Android permission model allowed for applications (translation service) to 'see' the screen of other applications. Something I don't think iOS allows. If you enjoy using foreign apps, learning languages or living in an area with a different language the Samsung Note series was fantastic.