Nice try Sam, you can't have my ram.

Nobody buys Pixels for the processing power. If it weren't for GrapheneOS I'd be using something compatible with LineageOS, probably.

For me its definitely a camera thing. I recently downgraded from my s20 to a moto G stylus 2025 and while I have noticed a speed difference, the lack of the telescopic lens is killing me bad enough that when I am in a more economically stable state im probably dumping it to go to one with a telescopic again.

I'm no stranger to buying flagship phones, but I never buy them when they're the flagship. Used mobile phones depreciate so much from the original launch price after only a year or two! I'm usually paying $200-$300 for phones that came out with a $1100-$1400 price tag originally. Because the specs were so high on the phones when they launched, they're still very good mid-range performers. It also opens the chance to save money if there's a bit of a scratch on the outside (but not the screen!). I don't mind mild wear as I'm going to add my own wear to it, and if I happen to scratch it or dent it, its no worse then when I got it so I don't have huge anxiety about keeping my phone perfect.

Ultimately these are all consumable devices. Paying top dollar, then treating them like priceless jewelry doesn't make sense to me.

do you actually utilize its full processing power

No.

what was the reason you spent that instead of a mid range phone (or even a budget phone)?

Because there was an insane sale and the price was close enough to the midrange and budget models. I bought a Samsung Galaxy S23 for $450.

Or is it primarily a camera thing.

Yes. I bought the Samsung because I love their camera hardware (software, not so much). It also has emotional value to me, because my very first phone that I deliberately chose to buy was a Samsung Galaxy Note 9. Up to the S23, they were also incredibly easy to root using Magisk.

My theory is I can spend a little more money on a better phone and then use it for years longer than a midrange phone before hungry OS updates finally cripple it.

But what if I have to calculate in the price of a battery replacement before the rest of the system can’t keep up anymore? I haven’t done the math because I don’t want to know.

My SIL buys the top iPhone every 2 years for the camera. She cannot be made to understand that anything newer than an iPhone 4 is TOTALLY FINE for taking photos of a bunch of people sitting around a table not even posing. They just get shrunk down to potato quality before they’re sent to anyone else anyway.

I didn't spend money on it. No shit, I found my Google Pixel 10 Pro XL in a trash can in a park. I legit noticed it was a phone, reached in, took it out, got into it, and found out some fuckass threw away a whole operating phone.

I'm honestly not sure what to do with it, but I might flash Graphene on it and use it as a sidepiece to my iPhone.

For the last time, Sam, it’s my RAM, and no, you can’t have it.

Camera/processing speed. For what it's worth, I regret it and wish I'd gotten a pixel to degoogle.

I rarely use the full processing power of my phone, it's primarily a web browser and ebook reader. I wouldn't want to have less RAM though as it's annoying when tabs and apps get dropped off due to memory constraints (currently 39 browser tabs open, often more)

The main thing I was after when buying a phone was getting one of the size I like rather than the overly large size creep that keeps happening, followed by a decent camera, stock Android (or at least not Samsung-esque bloatware everywhere), and a high res enough screen to not notice pixels. The size alone knocked out a lot of cheaper alternatives and I ended up with a Zenfone 10.

I’m a firm believer you shouldn’t buy anything but a flagship phone. Even a decade old flagship is better than a brand new budget phone

i have an old flagship so it's not at all powerful in today's standards.. but I wouldn't have been able to use it for so long if it wasn't a flagship.

i don't do much heavy stuff on it other than occasionally running desktop softwares using termux/chroot

Video game emulation and it often matters a lot

My main draw to smart phones is the ability play any game of my childhood anywhere if I so desire

It was a great deal as the previous generation's flagship, had a large amount of storage space, a good battery, and a decent camera.

I mostly use it to browse the fediverse, take non-fancy pictures, play music, and watch videos in bed. Lifespan will depend entirely on the battery but it has been holding up pretty well for enough years that I don't remember when I bought it.

I use my S25 for work so I do use the full processing power. I use it to check 3D models and work on complex drawings and paintings. In fact, I'm actually looking to get the new fold 8 so I can use the bigger screen for my work

No, I do not. But there was no current alternative with comparable GrapheneOS support available, which I consider the minimum acceptable standard for mobile device security.

When I was last looking (Android), previous gen / used flagships were a decently better deal than any midrange phones. ~5-6 years on it and it's still running everything I want at least.

Nice try, Sam Altman.

I bought the nubia z60 ultra back when it first came out. Flagship specs for half the price. It's a great phone, but doesn't have all the US bands so it's cell connection is ~80% of my wife's phone. Still plenty solid.

No I don't use a fraction of what it's capable of. I bought it for the screen. 90% of my time on my phone is reading ebooks. I wanted a big screen and above all no cutout/notch, no rounded corners, small bezel as possible. I enjoy the words on my screen going from the very top of the screen to the edges and bottom. 0 margins, all text.

The fast processor is nice so things still feel snappy even years later. My battery still lasts 2 days. I did recently install DroidDeck and it's nice how well it works. But I don't really use it as I don't have a controller and screen controls kinda suck. I prefer to just whip out my steam deck.

I do buy my kids the budget/free phones, and it's quite obvious how slow they are compared to my phone.

Mobile developers are some of the worst developers on earth. I buy flagships because they hold their processing headroom the longest. Zero amount of dropped frames is acceptable to me: I need the high processing power to overcome the lack of optimization.

No. I wish I could, but I have yet to come across any android software that warrants such high processing power. Samsung S21 FE, by the way. While not a flagship any more, it used to be.

I got it because my employer at the time paid for it; My current phone was dying after years of abuse in a rather rough working environment. I was out and about doing field work, so the last call I made was to my coworker who handled "normal" IT stuff, including phones, so he pointed me in the direction of the closest place where our vendor (a large consumer electronics chain) had a store.
Upon arrival my coworker had already authorized the transaction of whatever phone I ended up with, and the bill would be sent to the head office. S21 FE was what they had in stock there and then, and I needed a new phone fast.

Spouse bought 16 pro Max when trump got elected so we wouldn't have to upgrade during tarrif season. As for true processing power, probably more than an average user, but I refuse to use the baked in AI nonsense.

I hop between apps often - and, let me tell you, that 12 GB of ram is worth every penny to prevent apps from reloading on every switch.

Anymore, I imagine most people are just utilizing the upgrade models for their carriers and either getting these flagship devices with a trade in for essentially free (with monthly discounts) or with a nominal payment, after paying the sales tax. If people were paying full price for phones, only the true enthusiasts would bother paying for a $2000 phone. Those deals usually do basically soft lock you into their plan for the duration unless you want to pay off the remainder of the phone. But if you're not planning to switch carriers in the next two years and you can upgrade to the newest flagship or the last Gen flagship paying only the sales taxes on it... why not?

Also, sometimes there is some feature exclusive to the flagship beyond the processor and ram that makes it valuable. Anymore that's usually just the camera quality, at best, but if that really matters to you, then that can be a good reason to go with it.

Camera for me! I buy them used too.

I've played games that would make my phone quite warm and kill the battery in a couple hours if I wasn't plugged in. I've done this a lot less since I got a Steam Deck.

At the start of the year I upgraded from my S20, to an iPhone 17 Pro. That S20 lasted for 6 years, I plan to keep this phone for about the same amount of time. Eventually Samsung dropped support for the S20 so I flashed Lineage, which was great, but the camera suffered. Eventually the usb port began to fail, the battery was struggling to last a day, screen was cracked, so I thought it time to upgrade.

Unfortunately I bought into an Apple device under Tim Cooks stewardship. But it appears the new guy seems less impressive.

I have owned phones of all classes over the years. I have carried 2 phones for the past decade.

The only time I have used a phones full processing power is some games on a budget phone. Most of the time the extra power has no noticable difference.

For a long time there was a significant difference in the camera. Flagship phones had noticably superior camera systems. Today, mid-range phones tend to have as good or even superior cameras to flagships.

I used to buy one flagship (work) and one budget phone (personal). The contrast between the two phones used to be a lot smaller.

The last few years however I started purchasing only mid-range phones. The budget phones have fallen in overall quality and features. The flagship phones are massively overpriced for what they do. I have found that the midrange segment provides acceptable build quality and performance.

I got fat/big hands, couldnt type for shit on anything narrower than the pixel XL. Sucks, because i really just read text, stream music, and look at images/videos on it. Id happily go with one of the lower end model specs but with a wider screen 😞

Camera. Phones are the best way to capture those missable pet and loved ones moments that you don't want to lose, and flagships generally have the best cameras.

I don't usually buy new flagship, I'll wait a couple generations and get them at deeply discounted prices, or buy refurb however.

Only exception to that was this last time - as soon as the RAM crisis started and SSDs started to follow, I got a new flagship for me and my spouse, because I know that it will be years before they're either affordable again or with the same amount of on-device RAM/storage. Both our devices would probably have lasted another 2-3 years fine, but even back then I suspected we wouldn't be out of the woods by then (looks even worse than I thought) and an accidental break would be even worse.

Now we have our last, working phones as backups if these break. Hopefully things will shake out ok before we need new ones.

I bought a 12 mini when the 13 came out. Not "flagship", but not cheap. I bought it because it's smaller than the other phones, and I just had its battery replaced. I hope to use it for a couple of more years.

I'm not sure what I'll do next, I don't really need anything like the 12 mini, let alone a flagship phone.

I snagged an early iPhone Duo mainly for work. I use some heavy software, e.g., live ship tracking programs, real time price/volume monitors, a seriously draining SaaS based trading platform, several satellite packages, etc. My previous i-thing performed ok, but was very laggy.

The biggest thing for me was of course the screen real estate. I very much need to be able to see big version of a ship's trading pattern, STS, etc, and my trading platform was a nightmare to use on a regular phone because everything was so tiny (remember it's SaaS).

And before the Apple haters show up, I keep an all Apple ecosystem at home (although my work machine is a Thinkpad) because I am the only thing remotely similar to IT support for the entire family. Having everything in one admittedly walled garden ecosystem greatly simplifies my life.

Camera and screen size/quality mostly. It's my primary internet viewer too.

I do play games on it and I keep a whole screen just for that. There's some tower defense, a little run/fly and gun, pinball, R Type, Riptide, Worms, Plague Inc.

G Stomper would probably stretch it out a little, but I haven't really been in the mood to dive into it.

Pixel 11 Pro xl

I paint and sculpt a lot (though I've got a tablet that I use for that more often). That gets pretty demanding rather quickly

mid rangers usually have pisspoor battery inclueded. so i bought a 3 year old flagship.

For me it's a camera thing. I am otherwise quite happy with my old 12gb Motorola g84, but the lack of optical zoom is the one thing I miss compared to my downed Realme x3.

At the end of the day iOS has better accessibility, as much as I’d like a more flexible platform. And since I usually with a phone until it breaks I buy the best I can.