The first "smartphone" I ever owned was the Nokia N8. It had a 12 MP camera - in 2010, that was groundbreaking at the time. This was my real introduction to digital photography. Since then, I have owned phones with progressively more powerful chip sets, and then more capable cameras. The Lumia 1020 blew me away with its 41 MP main camera in 2013. Those were some large strides and my interest was piqued.
A disturbing trend began when Apple decided to charge $1000 for their iPhone X. In my mind, that's when the glass ceiling broke (see what I did, there?) and Samsung & others jumped on the bandwagon marketing "premium" phones. They've now become so commoditized, if you don't have a smartphone, there must be something wrong with you. No, there's something wrong with a mindset of changing something like a phone every couple of years. Perhaps it's FOMO - fear of missing out, status symbol, whatever.
I began thinking about this much more seriously 4 years ago when it came time to purchase a new phone. I ended up choosing a Pixel 5 because I wanted to experience their camera system & software. Likewise, I was impressed, and I've learned more about computational photography since I started with the N8. The time has come again for me to "upgrade" to another phone because of software obsolescence - the Pixel's support was only 3 years. I loved everything about that model - it's pocket-able size, great camera and software experience. The most recent Pixel 9 launch in Canada has every model priced above $1000.00 CAD - these are not cheap phones. Neither are most models from Samsung or Apple. Today’s smartphones are fully capable computers – some are as powerful as laptops and can replace those items for some people. I already have a desktop PC and a tablet – there may be some unnecessary duplication going on here.
I get it! It's convenient, but more than that it's convergence, and Nokia was one of the first to do that with its N75. It was a phone, camera, media player all in one. However, it was a niche device and most folks still got by with point and shoot cameras and dumb phones. I'm thinking of going back to that.
Recently, I switched my SIM into a spare dumb phone to check that it still works. It's got 4G/LTE connectivity, Bluetooth and works with my hearing aids. It cost about $100.00 when new and its small. I'm realizing now that what I was looking for in an upgrade was a better camera - so I think perhaps I'm going to do more research on an excellent camera instead. I enjoy taking pictures more than taking phone calls, anyway.
