Other than your carrier give it for free or cheap, I don’t really see the reason why should you buy new phone. I’ve been using Redmi Note 9 for past 3 years and recently got my had on Poco F5. I don’t see the point of my ‘upgrade’. I sold it and come back to my Note 9. Gaming? Most of them are p2w or microtransaction garbage or just gimped version of its PC/Console counterpart. I mean, $400 still get you PS4, TV and Switch if you don’t mind buying used. At least here where I live. Storage? Dude, newer phone wont even let you have SD Card. Features? Well, all I see is newer phones take more features than it adds. Headphone jack, more ads, and repairability are to name a few. Battery? Just replace them. However, my Note 9 still get through day with one 80% charge in the dawn. Which takes 1 hour.
I am genuinely curious why newer phone always selling like hot cakes. Since there’s virtually no difference between 4gb of RAM and 12gb of RAM, or 12mp camera and 100mp camera on phone.
Google provides a stripped down base Linux kernel to hardware manufacturers. This kernel works with android and allows the manufacturer to load all the proprietary code needed to support the processor, modem, and hardware peripherals without the manufacturer merging the source code into the mainline Linux kernel. This means the community can never support the hardware in the kernel. As software changes in android, features are added, and vulnerabilities are fixed, the only party that can update the device’s kernel is the manufacturer. This is a criminal scheme to exploit the end user and force them to constantly buy new hardware. Proprietary is always about theft of ownership from the end user. It is a tool for exploitation. It is not about intellectual property or business. These arguments are praying on naïveté. Everything can and is reverse engineered in this hardware and software by every serious competing company. The only reason proprietary exists is criminal exploitation of the end user.
Aka planned obsolescence