Don't Be Afraid of Buying Budget Phones Anymore
For the past few years, the smartphone flagship wars have pushed phone technology to new highs. And what goes up, must come down, which means that technology for less-expensive phones gets better. In fact, the processor chipset used in Google's Pixel 1 is no longer available, even though the phone is only 3 years old. A 3-year-old flagship phone is now surpassed by most affordable phones on the market.
What this means is that a budget-minded consumer now can buy a phone for $300 that outperforms a phone that once sold for $650 at release. There's no more "settling" for a budget phone because they outperform phones of recent vintage.
Once upon a time, smartphones were slow and reluctant to respond to more than a single press of the finger on an app. Trying to switch apps quickly or process a command ate up precious time.
The solution was to spend a lot of money on a high-end smartphone and deal with the fallout. That included watching as the technology becomes dated, the phone battery wears out, and the phone slows down as it gets older. Add the fast depreciation of the value of the phone, and it soured a lot of people on the idea of buying a flagship phone. But low-end phones weren't much better.
It's true that budget smartphones weren't the best in terms of performance. Everything about a budget phone felt cheap, along with its slow performance due to a low-end chipset. All of that has changed as smartphone technology has advanced and made low-end chipsets cheaper to produce. Budget phone manufacturers took advantage of this and started to design phones that run as well as flagship phones of recent vintage. A budget-minded buyer now has the opportunity to buy a phone that is fast, has a battery with staying power, a high-quality display, and durability at a price that's nice instead of outrageous.
Source: Digital Trends
