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.
my previous phone, the mic pickup broke. works just fine in every other way so it’s now an alarm clock. used (as a phone) maybe 1 year.
phone prior to that, the charger port stopped working. used 2 years
phone prior to that, the phone battery needed to charge every few hours. used 2 years.
phone prior to that, I had it for 4 years & it was getting slow.
a lot of these issues I could have had repaired but I chose not to, as it just wasn’t worth it - a new phone would be a tiny bit more expensive & for a device I use at least 5 hours a day, I need it to be reliable.
my current phone cost $130 and is just as capable as a phone from 8 years ago - same amount of ram, storage space. way better SoC though, battery lasts longer, camera is more capable though I don’t really care much about that aspect of a phone.