This must be a universal experience at this point for people who aren’t swayed by the latest and greatest marketing hype around new phone models: there’s just nothing out there that fits one’s needs.
When I walked into a phone shop, I expected to witness with amazement how much technology has advanced in the present day compared to my eight-year-old model, and for the power of marketing to mind control me into buying a new phone that would bring all sorts of benefits to my life. But instead, I felt disappointed that I’d be forced to choose between two suboptimal devices, either of which would be a compromise compared to what I already have. I felt frustrated that my OnePlus 5T, which still meets my needs and is working wonderfully (apart from the volume buttons), is being taken from me by the 3G shutdown.
↫ Cadence
It’s remarkable how a market that was once rife with competition and choice, has now been reduced to well I guess I’ll settle for this one then in such a short time frame. There’s barely any competition, the number of device makers in (western or western-adjacent) countries has dropped to two, maybe three, and all of them are making what is essentially the exact same device with only the smallest of differences between them. For most average, normal people, it’s some model by either Samsung or Apple.
There’s definitely more choice once you’re willing to leave local stores (and thus, easy and quick repairs) behind, but most normal people who just want a phone aren’t going to do that. You can also spend like twice or thrice the amount of money to get some foldable thing, but again, if you’re just looking for a bog-standard normal-person phone, that’s not a realistic option either. Smaller devices, headphone jacks, SD card slots – so many things have just disappeared from the face of the earth for most people, something that will definitely come as a huge, unpleasant surprise if you’ve been happy with an older phone that just had those things.
It’s like driving the same car for a decade and needing a new one, but you can only choose between a Toyota and a Volkswagen that look and feel entirely the same. And also the seats are now candles, door handles are gone, and there’s no trunk.
The situation seems to be slightly better in Europe than the U.S., where de-Googled and non-Android/iOS phones are available,
Its true you can buy non-google more easily, but they are a real limitation in real world use.
Not having access to banking apps, or supported payment methods (goodle/samsung/apple pay) is a major limiting factor.
Those devices also tend to be mid-range spec’d at best. Certainly not a 1-4-1 replacement of a Samsung S series
Indeed, 2FA and banking apps are working only on “official” phones.
Plus this :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMFxJDpvQvA (France is Chasing Them Out.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCingzHsZkQ (GrapheneOS Leaves France)
The 3G shutdown in the US a couple of years back affected many of us here too. It felt wasteful to have to throw out working phones and have to shell out for mandatory new phones to continue service. Given that there’s only so much frequency available I understand that 3G would eventually need to be decommissioned to allocate spectrum for 5G, but IMHO it would have been nice to have more time for consumers to replace their 3G phones naturally. I’m not sure why New Zealand held out longer, did the government play a role? The carriers here in the US were thrilled to decommission 3G despite very widespread usage to force us to buy new phones.
To be fair, `we` had about 2.5-3 years lead time from the announcement of the phase-out til it actually happened. If that’s not a natural amount of time for people to replace their 3g phones, what do you think is when most people seem to be buying new phones every 1-2 years? I think 2.5-3 years is easily sufficient notice & time to plan. For the record, I am not one of those people who “upgrades” yearly or bi-yearly. I tend to buy my devices outright and keep them until the wheels fall off or my needs have outgrown their capability.
I don’t believe the decommissioning of 3g was a money-grab or nefarious because the simple truth is demand & needs ballooned beyond 3g’s ability to accommodate. You don’t wait until a cup is spilling over before getting a bigger cup.
friedchicken,
I question whether that stat is true, it comes across as luxurious to me, Most people in my circle were forced to replace their phone and I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the case for large segments of the population as well. My wife purchased a new phone less than two years before the carrier stopped supporting it. We could blame consumers for buying older & cheaper models, but even so the time frames involved were not reasonable at all IMHO.
Phones should be expected to last 6 years at a minimum. While some people will elect to purchase phones more frequently, secondhand markets still manage to make used phones useful and decelerate the ewaste cycle. In this respect it’s hard to deny that the 3G shutdown was harmful for lifetime and ewaste. This is just one provider in the UK and not US, but I think the point is still valid everywhere…
https://envirotecmagazine.com/2025/03/20/13-7-million-of-e-waste-will-be-generated-by-april-3g-switch-off/
3G wouldn’t have needed to “balloon” to accommodate anything new, I don’t object to 5G but I don’t think it was ever demand driven; it was carriers pushing for an insane 5G revolution that barely materialized.
https://cheezburger.com/32079367/was-5g-just-a-big-scam-five-years-later-its-time-we-had-this-conversation
My provider gave ample notice of the pending decommissioning of 3G. I’m sure that’s the case for most people as well. No provider his their customers out of nowhere with the news. If your wife willing purchased a 3G phone knowing the 3G decommissioning was coming, that’s entirely her fault no matter the reasoning. I absolutely believe 2-3 years is plenty of notice for anyone.
I fully agree that phones should be expected to last a minimum of 6 years. The majority of them probably do. I don’t doubt the 3G decommissioning caused a lot of e-waste, but also probably a flood in the secondary market in places still operating 3G. It’s collateral damage, if you can call it that. I’m not convinced dragging the transition on and on would produce any better of a result. What may seem like a good solution can often just creates other problems. I believe keeping everyone and everything on 3G as long as absolutely possible would not have ended well.
I remember all the marketing around 5G. I’m fine that reality hasn’t satisfied all of it (yet, maybe). There’s no question demand has and continues to skyrocket. Both the number of users and number of devices has exploded. Even if many devices have minimal needs, it adds up in a very significant way when you’re talking millions, hundreds of millions, or even more. Two things can be true at once. Do I think it was dire that we transition away from 3G when we did? I don’t know but probably not. Did we jump the gun moving to 5G? Again, I don’t know but probably not. Is 5G nothing more than some big scam that everyone fell for? No. Even the article you cite concedes, “So Was 5G a Scam? Look, calling it a scam might be too harsh. The tech is real. The physics checks out.”
I didn’t lose any sleep over the termination of 3G. I didn’t love needing to buy a phone when I already owned a perfectly good non-5G phone. I took advantage of one of the offers, got more than my `old` phone was worth, and “upgraded” without any hassle. I don’t feel scammed or duped at all, and don’t think anyone else should either. But, to each their own.
friedchicken,
I don’t think I got a notice until the year of. A 2-3 year support for a new phone really is not acceptable anyway regardless of notice.
Sure, although once we start getting into big numbers like tens or possibly hundreds of millions of devices, I’d consider it less “collateral damage” and more willful disregard of the ewaste problem they created.. You’ve made your position clear about blaming customers, but we should still agree that even if those phones had not been sold they would still end up becoming e-waste. Right? The only way to solve this would have been to give the industry more time. If it was announced today that in 2-3 years current phones being sold would no longer work, that’s objectively an insufficient amount of time to avoid an e-waste catastrophe.
But it was never the case that we needed to “keep everyone and everything on 3G”. 3G got phased out as 5G was phased in. This is a sensible strategy in principal, but the problem stems from 3G phase out being rushed even as millions still used it instead of phasing it out as demand fell naturally.
I think part of the problem is that carriers had become desperate to show the success and rapid uptake of their 5G push even if it was the result of coercion, as it clearly was.
That’s fine, and I’m not trying to convince you that you were scammed. Although it does seem that I have stronger feelings about e-waste than you. I never took issue with 5G itself, it’s just a protocol, What I dislike is the extreme hyperbole carriers resorted to using to promote it. Laymen can’t be expected to know better, but the way carriers tried to oversell 5G as a panacea came across as snake oil salesmen.
The link from earlier covers my opinions and thoughts on this pretty well…
There’s some really bad assumptions being made..
That I “blame customers” for anything other than making purchasing decisions that may not have been very smart considering they knew the device they were buying would soon lose one if not the most important capabilities.
That anyone has “stronger feelings” about e-waste considering I’m a huge promoter of and participant of repurposing and e-recycling.
That all the unsold or used phones just become e-waste. Nope, they simply wind up in markets still supporting 2G/3G, Yes, 2G is still a thing still supported around the globe with its retirement schedule for sometime in the 2030’s. That gave/gives plenty of lifetime to all those `outdated` 3G phones.
That granting `more time` to transition was the magic solution when in reality the demand has been skyrocketing year after year and certainly not going to slow down so 3G devices could stay on life-support longer. The “natural” trajectory of the demand is a hockey stick, which isn’t compatible with giving 3G a long drawn out decommissioning. Either the demand would’ve had to slow significantly, or 3G would simply have to be put to rest.
Like I said, I don’t think the retirement of 3G had reached a critical state, and I don’t think 5G was some big scam everyone fell for. I agree the hype oversold what reality, at least for now, provided, but that’s always the case with everything. Every advancement is initially oversold while under-delivering. It’s so common that I expect it to be the case with everything and therefore don’t even bother giving it much attention. I never buy into all the hype because history shows nothing ever lives up to it. Could 3G have had more time? Sure, a little bit. Did we get -anything- that was hyped about 5G? Sure, some of it and more as time goes in. Two things can be true at the same time and I believe that’s the case here. I don’t propose to know what approach would’ve been any better, or worse for that matter, because at best it’s only hypothetical speculation. *I* would’ve handled it differently but sometimes there just isn’t any ideal paths forward. _Something_ has to be sacrificed. Like I said, you don’t wait until a cup is spilling over before getting a bigger cup.
friedchicken,
You are explicitly assuming they did know at time of purchase, but I have my doubts that ordinary consumers would have known this.
TBH I don’t see how you can say you care about e-waste and not be critical of an accelerated shutdown wherein devices still in widespread become e-waste, in some cases these devices weren’t even two years old. The urgency was not pushed by their customer base, but by carrier’s own agenda.
To this end, I do blame the government’s role in this as well. Unfortunately it’s all too common that no-one is watching out for e-waste and consumer interests.
It irks me to see e-waste be brushed off so trivially, but it’s a bigger problem than you realize. Device locking is an obnoxious but prevalent barrier to phone activation on foreign networks. Even if you propose carriers unlock them, that’s a huge expense for both staffing and logistics to unlock countless millions of phones. And then it’s packaged for the wrong market, perhaps with the wrong firmware loaded. And even if you want to sweep these under the rug, there’s also the issue that local markets often use physically different radios. Have you ever traveled internationally and experienced how poor the service is on a US phone? I have and at times it’s practically unusable, not really fit for sale.
And on top of all these problems, all of which are significant, you’d be guilty of repeating the same strategy that I am criticizing: moving 3G phones to markets you know will be sun setting them. So for all these reasons, these ideas don’t work. Having a plan to phasing out 3G along it’s natural lifecycle is the only solution that does not dramatically contribute to e-waste.
The demand for 5G was overblown, most people I knew had to upgrade prematurely because they were forced to, not because they demanded it.
These devices have a natural lifespan. What’s wrong with waiting for a reasonable device lifespan to more or less complete naturally? At some point I agree you have to make a switchover, but 2 years is NOT a reasonable lifespan in terms of hardware.
I’ve never opposed 5G evolution even though the benefits have been greatly exaggerated. Regardless, talking about 5G benefits doesn’t address the crux of the issues that stem from aggressively forcing so many consumers to upgrade. The crux of the issue has nothing to do with the merits of 5G or the lack thereof.
This is sort of like someone complaining about windows 11 not supporting relatively new hardware and then someone else claiming it’s not an issue because TPM has merit. It’s fine to discuss both topics, but the merits of TPM aren’t really the problem.
When I was looking at phones due to the pending 5G switch, I was warned by an unsolicited salesperson not to bother with any non-5G phone specifically because it wouldn’t work for long and I would be right back to buying another phone. I can grant you that some how some way some people may not have been aware but I’m confident most people were. Everyone I know was, technical people or not.
I am not `brushing off e-waste so trivially`. All the 3G phones did not instantly become some enormous mountain of e-waste. Regardless of the potential issues you point out, reality is that yes phones are sent to other markets. Yes, including markets where support or compatibility may be limited. Yes, even when doing so requires flashing different firmware. For that matter, used phones are often used for just the basics; camera, video, audio, calculator, notes, contacts/address book, offline games, and plenty of other useful things. I am not saying the e-waste isn’t real or isn’t a problem. I am saying I believe you’re exaggerating how much e-waste the move to 5G produced and the rate at which that happens.
Yes, devices have a `natural lifespan` and in my experience it’s a lot longer than 2 years. However, you simply can’t ignore the skyrocketing demand just because every existing 3G device hasn’t reached its natural EOL yet. There’s no question companies took advantage of the situation and used it for a money-grab but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t a real problem on the horizon. I’ll say it again, you don’t wait until a cup is spilling over before you get a bigger cup.
This isn’t like Windows 11 and TPM at all. I get that people may sometimes have extreme opinions and positions. That’s fine, but it doesn’t justify being so dismissive and hostile towards people who don’t agree with you. I think you’ve made some valid points of consideration but I don’t think you’ve made the case that 5G was a hoax resulting in an e-waste dystopia. I don’t personally know anyone who believes that either but whatever.
friedchicken,
Be that as it may, a significant number of people ended up needing new phones. We may have to agree to disagree about it.
Physics limits the available bandwidth much more so than protocol, 5G is not a panacea and many regions did not see the improvements promised.
https://networks.imdea.org/5g-is-deployed-but-it-doesnt-always-deliver-faster-connections-than-4g/
https://www.businessinsider.com/why-5g-failed-to-change-the-world-2025-3
What it really takes to improve capacity is to construct more towers and/or add new frequencies. 5G adds new high frequencies, however since higher frequencies attenuate rather quickly, it ultimately comes down to needing more towers. In theory 5G delivers mind-blowing speeds, in practice though most 5G consumers still have no access to 5G ultra high bandwidths to this day. They’re still getting 4G speed. And to be honest I don’t think most people even care; 4G was already capable of covering their video streaming needs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRz6Kc_aqEg
“Why 5G Sucks”
I don’t agree with the title here: 5G is fine. But in terms of 5G improvements being much less important than advertised, that is spot on.
One of the main reasons 2G/3G still exists is actually for a technical reason you pointed out – that 5G requires more towers to cover the same area. Rural and un(der)developed areas benefit from 2G/3G in terms of connectivity, though not without sacrifice. You may not be streaming 4K tv, but at least you can make phone calls and ask Professor Google if aliens are real.
Another downside of that 5G push is the increase in power consumption. Not just that but also what affects smothering the nature world with all of the EMF saturation has.
Phones are trash and it’s getting worse. User replaceable batteries are essentially gone. You have to be a soldering/circuit guy to take a phone apart now. Cost is insane and features are rubbish.
Current phones are not trash and they’re aren’t getting worse. Replacing batteries isn’t as easy as replacing the batteries in your tv remote, but in most cases you don’t have de-solder anything or tamper with any circuitry – at most deal with some tiny screws and ribbon cables, not _that_ difficult. The `worst` part probably being heating the glue that secures the cover – also not that difficult with a little care & patience. I’ve seen people achieve success with harder challenges using nothing more that youtube videos as a guide.
I can agree that phone prices are insane but we live in a society that prioritizes profit-at-all-cost so no surprise there. The “features are rubbish” part though, also disagree there. My current phone takes great photos, crystal clear calls, fast data speeds, great integration where I need it, etc etc etc.
I would add that prices are not “insane” since not every phone has to be the top spec of the premium tier.
Most of the neophytes/progress hating posters in this site would be perfectly served by value-tier SKUs, Which are pretty cheap.
In any case, handset durability/reliability and thus longevity have also increased. 5/6 yr old phones are perfectly useable nowadays.
Always used “used” phones with replaceable batteries like the Nokia N95, the HTC Evo3D, the LG G3, the Fairphone 4.
You can *always* find a good option, but sure not in the AAA-tier propositions.
That’s sure a “tradeoff” but it all depend on your priorities.
Chinese manufacturers have really progressed on the camera side with better sensors and good software. If you look only at Google and Samsung then you will see stagnation.
Once the industry chased Apple down the path of selling glass slabs, the writing was on the wall for smartphones. You would think that there would be space to add more innovations as they got larger, but the slab form factor seems to have prevented that. Perhaps foldable phones will shake things up.
Smartphones have peaked in terms of functionality and features a long time ago, and are now in a firmly downward trajectory. The best one I ever had was a Sony Z1 Compact, circa 2013. Positively tiny, it disappeared in my pocket, had a headphone jack, great sound quality, SD card, waterproof, good battery life. The only thing missing was a removable battery, but that’s not what eventually killed it. I held on to it as long as possible, installing an alternate OS once official support ran out, and only reluctantly looked for a replacement once it was physically falling apart.
Nothing that’s on sale nowadays even comes close to the convenience of it.
Not necessarily a “downward trajectory”, but once you’ve packed so many functionalities and features into such a small package, it’s hard to “revolutionize” but add a pinch of AI on top.
Any “disruptive” idea (but folding phones) ?
Im currently rocking a Hibreak Pro (colour). Its basically a midrange phone with a colour e-ink screen. Think kindle display. With Android 14 and Google Play.
Is it perfect, no, it definitely required some adapting to. You won’t be watching any sport on it anytime soon for example. BUT i really like how they are trying something different.
In my case the driver was eyestrain and behaviour changes. I now spend less time scrolling insta and more time reading books on it. So in that sense, its working!
I might be in a niche bracket where my idea phone would still be a Blackberry Bold. But sadly that isnt an option
If you’re pining for Blackberry-like keyboards, check out the “Titan” smartphones from Unihertz (https://www.unihertz.com/collections/titan-series): Android phones, real QWERTY keys, reasonable prices.
Me and my fat thumbs were happy enough when using an original Titan for a a few years. I’m now even happier with the newer, lighter Titan2.
“For most average, normal people, it’s some model by either Samsung or Apple.” There’s more choice than that. Not saying said choice breaks the premise of the articles, but e.g. Motorola, OnePlus and Oppo have good enough midrange models. And then there’s the Fairphone, expensive, but fair™.
My dealbreaking bugbear is the lack of “fullscreen phones” (ones without a notch/cutout/teardrop) at a sensible price – only expensive Sony Xperia and some gaming phones still have them – there’s nothing in the sub-$500 market at all! It all vanished at the start of this decade – pop-up cameras fizzled out and underscreen selfie cameras are on very few models still. My last 2 phones have been £150 second-hand models – the OnePlus 7T Pro was my previous one and my current one is a Sony Xperia 1 III. Both ran custom ROMs – the Xperia is running LineageOS 23 (Android 16) and gets weekly updates to the OS (more than Samsung, Apple or Google provide I suspect). Both are fullscreen phones and it’s looking like my next one will have to be a later Xperia model with a custom ROM because OnePlus abandoned fullscreen phones after the 7T Pro.
They’ve been “reducing features” for a very very very long time. Sure, the number of “this” or the speed of “that” does up for elementary common components, as you’d expect as things become more modern….
Best phone I ever had, HTC One M8. FM Radio, Infrared blaster, expandable storage, headphone jack, HDMI capable, kickstand. Yes, that incredibly ancient old phone had features that many would die to have today.
Just the ability to take control of a TV that doesn’t have a reasonable or working remote while traveling… victory!! Imagine a phone that truly is your universal remote. I want a very expensive device to “do everything”. Also, btw, I bought One M8s for my entire family, each one cost $0.01 (to own), because that was back in they day of re-upping your cheap contract for another 2 years.
Today’s flagship phones in fact, have even fewer features than the relatively featureless average phones on the market. It’s a total mess.
chriscox,
I agree.
It used to be extremely handy to be able to project your display onto a bigger screen, but most new phones no longer have HDMI because google disables it in firmware. My car doesn’t have bluetooth, but few phones have audio jacks anymore, Expandable storage is nice if you take tons of photos and want to move them to a computer,, but this too has gone away.
Not everyone wants/needs all these features, but the big problem is when all manufacturers follow the market leaders in removing features. Those who still want hardware connectivity aren’t really being catered to. On top of this, google were officially planning to curtail android app sideloading in 2026… Given the loss of freedom at stake, I’d never want to upgrade a phone again. Of course we don’t always have a choice, like when I was forced to get a non-modded phone for work…grr.
I thought google had backed down from their sideloading restrictions planned for 2026, but today I saw some alarming news from sources including fdroid that google is not backing down. Certified android devices in September are going to block sideloading. Developer will need google’s approval otherwise it will not run even when installed by the owner or from 3rd party sources…
https://f-droid.org/en/2026/02/24/open-letter-opposing-developer-verification.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MZfGq5F1NU
“Google Is Closing Android. Here’s How We Fight Back.”
I thought this was over last year when news outlets announced google were letting owners choose for themselves.
https://www.osnews.com/story/143786/google-cancels-plans-to-require-android-application-certification-outside-of-the-play-store/
But it sounds like google might have lied about that. Google’s official blog still lists the same timeline and registration requirements with no updates about owner choice.
developer.android.com/developer-verification#timeline
It was already bad enough that IOS was closed, but for android to be closed too leaves us with no mainstream options for sideloading on mobile. This is a devastating blow to our rights, violates FOSS freedoms, kills competition & alternative app marketplaces. Moreover it will amplify government censorship controls since google rather than owners will get to choose what their devices are allowed to run.
Nothing good comes from this. What a nightmare for the future of tech.
I absolutely despise the march towards full & total control and censorship by the government and big corporations. I’m a firm believer in if I buy a phone, I’ll install or uninstall whatever the fuck I want on it. Some things are worth fighting for, even if it’s a losing battle. I happen to think privacy and ownership rights are a couple of them.
friedchicken,
Yeah, they’ll get a lot of backlash from the tech community if they do this, but perhaps they feel they can get away with it anyway and “normal customers” won’t push back. Some owners may threaten to go with apple as protest, but I see that as a loose/loose battle for owner rights. Ideally an android fork would be able to gain momentum and replace google for betraying the community.. However the market has been notoriously unfavorable for challengers to the apple and google app stores. Unless something drastically changes, alternatives may not be viable for normal users because of things like not being able to run mobile banking/etc.
Come September, tech enthusiasts on mobile computing may be in for a bad time. I don’t trust governments to take any protective steps in defending owner control either.
He is right. My answer to this question was Google Pixel. But since I needed VoLTE too and Google doesn’t allow it on Pixels in unsupported countries, I had to switch to Apple and my wife chose Samsung.
Then I found that my old Pixel 6 had VoLTE under Graphene OS, but I already liked my iPhone! Now I have two good phones.