People who've upgraded their smartphones recently, what has gotten better?

B

BullettuPaandi

I've been using a K20 Pro for almost 4 years now. I upgraded from Redmi Note 4 then just after about 2 years of usage. It was a huge upgrade for me - flagship(*then) SoC, large notch/bezel-less display, better cameras.
Now I feel like I want to upgrade, but there's nothing really enticing, save higher refresh rate displays. Also, reluctant to switch to a notched/punch-holed display.
Granted, my usage has gotten a bit lame - Calls, Banking/UPI & PUBG. Most of the camera usage would be for QR scanning. I charge overnight and after a late night PUBG session (usually about 2hrs), I find at least 10-15% battery left.

I'm just trying to see if I'm missing anything on latest smartphones that'd benefit me; even little things like - better DAC, better display - other than refresh rate, colours, contrast etc, better battery life, better haptics... just anything!
If my phone dies on me today, I find Poco F5 as a reasonable option. Anything more than that feels like diminishing returns, at least for me.

So, here's the question - People who've upgraded their smartphones recently, what has gotten better?
Would like to expand on "recently" - Let's say, people who had a decent flagship in late '10s & upgraded since. This is just to add perspective & not a constraint. Everyone is of course free to add their thoughts.
 
I have K20 Pro, OnePlus 8 and iPhone 13 at home. Compared to OnePlus 8, k20 pro has:

  1. Inferior camera system.
  2. Lags, even though it is stuck one Android 10.
  3. Inferior display (though it has AMOLED).
  4. Inferior battery life.
  5. Inferior charging.
  6. Lack of availability of parts. They don't even have the back panel. Another has issue with display and there are no spare parts.
All this when compared to OnePlus 8 that came out in 2020 (K20 Pro in 2019). K20 Pro has aged really badly, thanks to typical 'sell it, shut it, forget it' attitude of Mi (lack of parts, no updates, OS that is made to look like iOS). Do not even ask how it compares to iPhone 13 :D
 
desiibond said:
I have K20 Pro, OnePlus 8 and iPhone 13 at home. Compared to OnePlus 8, k20 pro has:

  1. Inferior camera system.
  2. Lags, even though it is stuck one Android 10.
  3. Inferior display (though it has AMOLED).
  4. Inferior battery life.
  5. Inferior charging.
  6. Lack of availability of parts. They don't even have the back panel. Another has issue with display and there are no spare parts.
All this when compared to OnePlus 8 that came out in 2020 (K20 Pro in 2019). K20 Pro has aged really badly, thanks to typical 'sell it, shut it, forget it' attitude of Mi (lack of parts, no updates, OS that is made to look like iOS). Do not even ask how it compares to iPhone 13 :D
Click to expand...
In fairness, it was competing with 7 Pro, which it undercut by around 7k, I believe(?). 7 Pro had better storage, display, charging, haptics but still think K20 Pro was better VFM. Needless to say iPhone 13 is at much higher price point.

Anyway, the point is, if you had upgraded from K20 Pro to OnePlus 8, it wouldn't have been much for what you'd have paid. Today, Poco F5 > OnePlus 8 (both are around 30k) and yet feels like not much of an upgrade for the price from K20 Pro.
 
Displays, by a long shot, so many edge to edge bezel less phones coming out. I went from a OnePlus Nord to S23 and the difference is so so evident.
Apart from that I'd say cameras have evolved exponentially, but seem to have plateaud now
 
I moved from LG G8x to iPhone 14. I seemed to have pulled the crap lottery with my LG G8x, it has a syndrome where it thinks its a midranger. Phone lags like hell, even when I wake the phone from sleep and pull down the notification shade, it can sometimes take 2-3 seconds to respond. Apps started opening slowly, ex. I would open the Phone app, and it would take 2-3 seconds to become usable. I would play Genshin Impact at lowest setting @ 30 fps mode, but I could never get a smooth experience for more than 2 minutes where it would throttle to oblivion. Camera was decent. Right now kept it as a backup phone, might restore it to android 10 soon. a11 toh bhai raita failaya hai.

iPhone is a great upgrade, purely for the smoothness in iOS alone. Photos look great, display is good. Got used to face ID, as in my older phone (Redmi Note 6 Pro) I used face unlock even if it was the unsecure kind. Still getting used to quirks of iOS. I use altstore and uYouPlus, that was the only non-negotiable for me.

And the games now look great, COD mobile and genshin both look stunning.
 
BullettuPaandi said:
In fairness, it was competing with 7 Pro, which it undercut by around 7k, I believe(?). 7 Pro had better storage, display, charging, haptics but still think K20 Pro was better VFM. Needless to say iPhone 13 is at much higher price point.

Anyway, the point is, if you had upgraded from K20 Pro to OnePlus 8, it wouldn't have been much for what you'd have paid. Today, Poco F5 > OnePlus 8 (both are around 30k) and yet feels like not much of an upgrade for the price from K20 Pro.
Click to expand...
Not sure what your point is. Op asked what he will miss if he sticks to K20 Pro and I told him just that. I am not comparing Oneplus 8 with today's phones. I just showed how bad K20 Pro is even when compared to a solid phone from 2021.
 
I used an iPhone 8 and switched to a Samsung S21 FE. Things that I noticed:

Display: Samsung makes great OLED panels and it's certainly an upgrade over the LCD 720p panel of my older phone. Plus, 120Hz is cool and all but I don't use it often.
Battery: At 88% battery health, I had to charge my phone twice a day. And that's with using Bluetooth and listening to Spotify for an hour, maybe more and with some light Instagram scrolling. Couldn't rely on it for hotspot and all that.
Camera: Not a massive change, mostly because I don't take a lot of photos at all. I'd probably give a slight edge to Samsung.
Perfromance: The iPhone was more than enough for me honestly, as I don't do a whole lot. Performance is similar though I could feel the lack of RAM when switching from one app to another.
UI: I love One UI and for me, I think it's perfect. I can transfer files easily, 'sail the high seas' and more. I am more of an Android guy over iOS though I will say, iPhones being supported for a lot longer is great because I am not one to switch phones every 2 years or so but rather 5-7 years (as long as apps aren't being supported) for me.
 
awestorr said:
90hz is a significant upgrade from past years.
Click to expand...
I had a 90hz (redmi note 11), and now 120 hz(poco x4 pro) phone. I have not seen any difference. I disabled it to save power.

PS: I can tell the difference. In my old CRT monitor, the difference between 60hz and 85 was very noticeable.

Cameras also I don't see much of a difference before. I had a pixel 3/4a before and things have not made any major improvements in the past 5 years other than the telephoto zoom on flagships. In fact, instead of one high quality cam, everyone puts a bunch of crappy lower res cameras to increase the camera count and then puts some "ai" trickery on top.


Processors switching to lower nm processes, 5g, better and wider adoption of fast charging, are the only good things I can think of.
 
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wheeledion said:
Displays, by a long shot, so many edge to edge bezel less phones coming out. I went from a OnePlus Nord to S23 and the difference is so so evident.
Click to expand...
I might be in the very small minority here, but I hate bezelless displays. I don't see the point of a tiny bit more of screen real estate at the cost of my fat palms causing near constant ghost touches. Give me a fat chunky bezel anyday so that i can actually grip my phone without launching an app on it.
 
desiibond said:
I have K20 Pro, OnePlus 8 and iPhone 13 at home. Compared to OnePlus 8, k20 pro has:

  1. Inferior camera system.
  2. Lags, even though it is stuck one Android 10.
  3. Inferior display (though it has AMOLED).
  4. Inferior battery life.
  5. Inferior charging.
  6. Lack of availability of parts. They don't even have the back panel. Another has issue with display and there are no spare parts.
All this when compared to OnePlus 8 that came out in 2020 (K20 Pro in 2019). K20 Pro has aged really badly, thanks to typical 'sell it, shut it, forget it' attitude of Mi (lack of parts, no updates, OS that is made to look like iOS). Do not even ask how it compares to iPhone 13 :D
Click to expand...
Custom Rom and Gcam solve 70% of the issues you mentioned
 
Moved from iPhone 12mini to S23. On papers it sounds like an upgrade. Felt more like one step forward and two giant leap backwards.

The battery, storage, Always on display were upgrades.

The camera, ios like gestures, optimisation of work apps (line of business, ping ID, Microsoft apps, etc) makes me want to switch back.
 
I agree that earlier, changing phones every 2 years led to noticeable improvements. My last biggest improvement was moving from Sony Z3C to Samsung S8.

I moved from S8 S835 version bought in 2017 to S20FE 5G (bought in Diwali 2021). For me the upgrades were in every aspect including cameras, but lack of 3.5mm jack & size were downgrades (I don't like huge phones).

Today, if I change phones, I will like to buy S23 just because of the size & a similar battery life at a smaller size. I have tried a friend's S23U, sure in side by side comparisons, rear cams are better. Although my S20FE's main rear camera does come close & selfie cam of S23U is far better. I didn't see any noticeable difference in general usage.

With what began with Apple, phone prices have been increasing. S20FE 5G was a gem of a phone from Samsung, sadly no longer recommended because of OS updates. I doubt such good VFM phones will come out from Samsung again. Samsung released S20FE 5G & A52s 5G in response to OP IMO, but the merger of OP to oppo made OP phones inferior. This year OP is doing better so one can only hope Samsung tries to compete well again in the 30-40k segment.

I think Samsung's UI is at the top, I personally can't use stock because of lack of features. MIUI or BBK's UI didn't feel as polished as Samsung. Anyways, I plan to stick to my S20FE as long as I can. Still, my favourite phone I owned till now will be S8.
 
greenhorn said:
I had a 90hz (redmi note 11), and now 120 hz(poco x4 pro) phone. I have not seen any difference. I disabled it to save power.

PS: I can tell the difference. In my old CRT monitor, the difference between 60hz and 85 was very noticeable.

Cameras also I don't see much of a difference before. I had a pixel 3/4a before and things have not made any major improvements in the past 5 years other than the telephoto zoom on flagships. In fact, instead of one high quality cam, everyone puts a bunch of crappy lower res cameras to increase the camera count and then puts some "ai" trickery on top.


Processors switching to lower nm processes, 5g, better and wider adoption of fast charging, are the only good things I can think of.
Click to expand...
60 to 90 feels like a much bigger upgrade, similar to 60 to 144hz with pc.
Cant really tell much from 90 to 120/144 to 240hz. Its a diminshing return in all but some aspects.
 
Display is the major one IMO. 120Hz screens are pretty common now across all budget ranges.
Camera may or may not be that big of an upgrade depending on the phone.

I can tell more soon after I upgrade my iPhone XR later this week in the sale.
Eyeing the NP2 or the Nord 3 as of now. Even the Iqoo neo 7 pro looks good with the 2 year warranty deal.
Have put the preorder for both NP2 and neo 7 pro. Also if Nord 3 16gb variant will give the nord buds offer then that will be a good deal too.
However if the price drop on iPhone 14 is lucrative enough then will get that instead.
 
Soyab0007 said:
Custom Rom and Gcam solve 70% of the issues you mentioned
Click to expand...
Let’s not go in that direction. Custom ROMs have their own set of issues.
goDofWar_skr said:
Display is the major one IMO. 120Hz screens are pretty common now across all budget ranges.
Camera may or may not be that big of an upgrade depending on the phone.

I can tell more soon after I upgrade my iPhone XR later this week in the sale.
Click to expand...
Why XR. That phone is one of the worst iPhones of all time.
 
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