Every year, tech reviewers position the latest chip as much better than the old one, and the same thing happens next year, and the next. The Snapdragon 8 Elite was better than the Gen 3, which was better than the Gen 2, and so on.
If the “flagship” chips are so good, why not just stop to save cost? Why upgrade the chipset every year with minimal gains?
If everyone stuck with the same generation of chip, smartphones could be cheaper (good for consumers) OR profit margins could be increased (good for companies). Or maybe a mix of both.
What drives the yearly update in chips? AI maybe?
Buffalox@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Because the development of new Smartphone SOC has been very strong, and the new ones really are better in multiple ways. The gains are far from minimal.
Also you can get usable smartphones dirt cheap now, that are both way better and way cheaper than just a few years ago.
The reason they all make better phones is due to this thing we call competition. If all brands except one stopped making better phones, the one that continues will take marketshare from everybody else, and have by far the best profits, because the highest profits are with the high end phones.
lurch@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
I disagree. New smartphones may have a few bettee specs, but are overall worse than older models.
For example, they are getting bigger and bigger and can’t be operated one handed any more, even with Androids one-handed mode, because the zoom makes everything tiny.
Newer phones become hotter, batteries more likely to turn into spicy pillows.
More bloatware preinstalled, like AI stuff or “AR Emoji” etc.
The camera notches are growing too, even though most people would be fine with notchless cameras.
They are getting heavier and thicker too. In 2015 we had 5.1mm 98g phones. Not even a notch. It all went downhill from there.
And don’t even get me started on the prices.
Buffalox@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Well it’s not ALL progress, personally I’d like the notification LED and the mini jack back.
But overall, I think modern smartphones are amazing.
sbeak@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
Yeah, budget phones have gotten really good. That makes sense, the companies have a financial incentive to make the better phone than everyone else.
Kind of crazy that we mere humans have developed these super-advanced silicon wafers that can do millions of operations every second and we develop new, better ones every year.
WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
its like you are responding to a different question. you are speaking about cheap phones, while the question was about recent years flagship phones chipsets.
what is that so large difference between this years flagship chip, and yesteryears flagship chip? and the difference between yezteryears and the one before that?
is it really a large difference, like reviewers tell? it feels like comparing intel 12th gen and 13th gen CPUs and telling there is a large difference, the newer ones are so much better you need to get them IMMEDIATELY.
again, the question is not about developments over a decade. bluetooth and gyroscope has been common for a decade now even in cheap phones.
and I find it amazing how hard they are locking down our phones, like as if it was still owned by the manufacturer, rented by the user. google is doing the most of the work to enable countries to forcibly lock in citizens to malware infested systems of the factory. it couldn’t have happened without something like play “protect”
Buffalox@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
OP wanted cheaper phones, but phones ARE getting cheaper with better features too.