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?
Money
We’re sheep baaa baaaa
We do what they tell us. Our lives are all about buying things they tell us we need.
Because you need a justification for the higher price. Without the update cycle, flagship phones would likely need to be cheaper to sell.
Companies like to make money. Cell phone makers do it by selling phones. By always having something newer and better they create more demand than if they only sell the same old thing, even if it was good enough. This way, they encourage people to buy phones before their old one is broken or out of service simply because they believe they are getting something better. If they just let people believe last year’s model is still good enough, fewer people will decide they need to upgrade and they won’t sell as many.
There was a time when I tried cheap China phones, the newest and best, but from the cheap class. Some where good, some were a desaster.
Now I usually buy phones that have been in fashion 2-4 years before. All good.
Budget phones by Chinese companies are really good now, esp. with things like SiC batteries. Very cheap phones now have nice 120hz screens, decent processors for everyday use, very good battery life, nice build quality, and even okayish cameras. It’s really only the software that’s a bit bloated, but it’s (usually) removable (and you could always install a custom ROM)
Budgets phones from non-Chinese companies like Samsung and now Nothing/CMF are quite good too.
edit: when I mean build quality, I don’t mean metal/glass. Budget phones are made of plastic, but nowadays they have nice finishes, are quite durable, and are dust/water resistant.
the software that’s a bit bloated, but it’s (usually) removable (and you could always install a custom ROM)
except if your government and all available banks practically restrict you from replacing the ROM, because then their apps refuse to work. you often can’t replace gov apps with the web browser because of the closed authentication system, and bank apps either because they routinely block mobile browsers, while the desktop view is unusable for most people
Basically when I look for new hardware, I always look at specs. And it’s so easy to get sucked in by “oh this is a little bit more expensive but has 20% more performance!”.
Most OEMs like to say that they have the very best. And unfortunately, software just keeps bloating, making it more useful to have a higher end chip.
However, this dynamic has changed somewhat in recent years as the price of flagship SoCs has skyrocketed by ~4x in 5 years. More high-end phones are releasing with not quite the best chip, like the base iPhone, the Pixel, and the Galaxy S25/S25+ (due to Exynos).
