I've stuck with my iPhone SE due to it being smaller. I hate these bigger phones, as they don't fit well in my pockets. I keep hoping that apple will release another smaller model, otherwise i'm gonna keep this one until it just dies.

Name one industry that isn't. But to make it easy for you. The gaming industry does all of those 4 things and people in this forum can't stop praising them for it.

I just bought a Galaxy S9 and for some reason I feel less scammed than when I bought my PS4 or Switch. Probably because the smartphone is actually useful and enriches my life every single day.

https://www.cnet.com/news/smartphone-sales-fell-for-the-first-time-ever-in-q4-apple-samsung-gartner/

https://youtu.be/1kllbOrLfoo

Get yourself an old blackberry. I have a Blackberry Classic since 6 months or so and I'm loving it. It bugs you with some stupid amazon updates at the start, but after that you won't hear from it again. There simply are no more updates besides the initial stuff. Nobody cares about Blackberry OS anymore and that's a good thing. You also don't have to worry about hacks too much, because hackers also don't care about BB OS!

Other than that, the device does everything I need. Sure, it's a little slow and it doesn't have flashy animations. But it gets jobs like SMS, phone calls, some internet browsing and all that shit perfectly done. Most apps you know from android are missing, but in most cases you will get the same funcitonality with the browser. I'm doing online banking with the browser and I check the times for the train with the browser. Works perfectly ok.

The device is also built rock-solid and the battery lasts me 2-3 days without a recharge. Plus, because nobody wants it, it's cheap as fuck. I got mine brand-new for 50 €. If you are disgusted with the modern day android and iOS stuff, I would very much recommend you trying it out.

I was just talking with my father about this yesterday. It’s funny how you percieve value of different things. I needed a new phone this weekend. So I literally decided last saturday to go out and get one and bought a new iPhone for €800 without blinking once, yet I’m still contemplating whether or not to get a Switch and if it is worth the €299 price since before the launch of the thing. Also, it seems OP just needs to actually get a good one.

My first “smartphone” was the blackberry curve. I loved that phone and feel of it. But soon after I got it, it started getting very slow. The new blackberry looks pretty cool I gotta say. Always liked how they have an actual physical keypad opposed to touchscreen. 

I switched to a smartphone only at the end of last year, I was skeptical for many years cos all I need from a phone is calling and messaging, I switched mostly cos of inbuilt camera convenience, but the updating doesn't bother me, I guess it has enough RAM to handle that shiz

It really is funny. I have no problem plopping down 800€ for a phone a or 50€ for digital card packs and crates but I will hesitate when buying an indie game that costs more than 10€^^ Just shows how heavily weighted "worth" is. Which is why I find it stupid to ask or tell other people what things are worth.

To me it seems OP already had negative preconceptions that were heavily weighted against smartphones. It's easy to see because the things he lamented are absolutely not unique to smartphones. That's not saying that the complaints are not valid, but they don't hold much weight when they're specifically attached to smartphones because those things are not what make smartphones bad, they're what make modern technology in general worse.

My mom was anti smartphone once until I bought her a good one for her birthday. Now she embraces it because the good things massively outweigh the negative things.

A smartphone is really not much more than a slow PC with bad controls.

Whenever I can I throw that piece of shit in a corner and use a proper machine to get things done. And whenever I want to get things done on the go (travelling for example), I'll use a laptop.

Smartphones are many things to many people. We must all decide how "useful" they are. I am delighted at just how much one can do with one. But being quite frugal I'm very content on how much I get done without owning one.

Long live generation X