A friendly reminder that isps do NOT care about you or your digital rights. Always best to buy directly from the OEM rather than from the telecommunications (unless you can’t afford it). Do proper research before buying a phone!
I used to riot every phone I had. I’d install the Cyanogen dailies and loved customizing my phone.
Now I have an $1800 foldable Samsung phone (Fold 3) I bought 3 years ago, and I won’t go back. Yeah, it was super expensive, but why should I spend thousands on my desktop computer I use once or twice a week at most, but then go cheap on the device I keep on hand all day every day?
The biggest reasons to root for years were unlocking things like wifi tethering that are now built into the devices. I haven’t felt the need to root a phone since like 2012. The things I miss about older phones (headphone jack, IR blaster, SD card slot, interchange batteries, etc) are all hardware that can’t be fixed with root, and I wouldn’t trade all those features for the user experience of my Fold.
I can use my outside screen for quick tasks, my inner screen for more intense use, and I can wirelessly connect it into my laptop or desktop and get a full desktop-style interface through Samsung Dex (the least-advertised killer feature of Samsung phones, BTW).
It has enough horsepower to run any app I need. The battery life is mediocre if I use the inside screen a bunch, but that’s to be expected with this size screen.
I’m happy with my Samsung because they make excellent phones. Do I need all these bells and whistles? No. But I like having them and am in a place where I can buy a nice phone every few years.
And, for the first time I’m entirely, 100% satisfied with my phone 3 years into ownership and am not even considering upgrading any time soon. If I make this phone last 5-6 years it’ll average out to being pretty affordable compared to my old phones I’d get for cheap and replace every 2 years.
A phone is just not as good as a computer for anything except taking pictures, sending messages, and being portable. So if I’m at home where my computers are I only use a computer for anything online, except messaging. Having to do everything on a phone sounds horrible to me.
I have a computer (several, in fact) still. I’m just saying that people on Lemmy seem to have no issues with people spending over 2k building themselves a premium desktop PC they use a few times a week, but balk at someone spending over $500 on the device they carry with them all the time.
And unless you’re gaming or using specific PC applications, a phone with an external desktop interface (like a Samsung) hooked up to a monitor with a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard does 99.9% of what you need.
I can browse the web, write emails, use Office, and more just as well with my phone and a monitor as with my laptop o lr desktop computers.
I can’t use photoshop, blender, ArcGIS, etc so I still need computers, but for everything else the phone is great.
