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In terms of future proofing, is it better to have greater software support or better hardware?

LBO6051

Lurker
Sep 2, 2021
5
1
I'm planning on buying a new phone and the most important thing that I'm looking for is longevity, that is, to get a phone that will last as much as possible before I need to replace it, something like 4+ years.

The two phones that are within my price range and that I think will fulfil this criteria are: Poco F3 and Samsung Galaxy A52s

Now, I'm in a bit of a dilemma of deciding which of these two phones I should take, and the only thing that remains is to decide which of the features of these phones provide better future-proofing.

Poco F3 for example, comes with amazing specs for it's price range (SD870 CPU, Adreno 650 GPU, 8GB (DDR5) RAM, UFS 3.1 Storage speed) which seem to be flagship grade, and it does have IP53 rating. However, from what I've read, it does come with a weaker / sluggish software, that is, it's operating system MIUI, and less update support.

A52s on the other hand comes with weaker specs that are mostly aimed towards midrange phones (SD778 CPU, Adreno 642L GPU, 6GB (DDR4) RAM, UFS 2.1 Storage speed), but it does come with a bit more stable OS, more software support, and IP67 rating.

Both phones have specs that are overkill for my minimal use cases. I don't do a lot on my phone other than browse the net and watch YouTube videos, and I try to avoid dropping my phone on the ground and water so I'm not sure how much the IP ratings are relevant here. The only remaining factor in deciding which of these two phones I should get is whether or not taking a phone with better hardware (F3) has an advantage of taking a phone with better software support (A52s)?

On the one hand, if I take F3, I'll have better hardware, but less updates to push that hardware to it's maximum efficiency, and due to my use cases, I wonder if I should even bother with stronger specs, whereas if I take the A52s, I'm worried about the opposite, if it's midrange CPU (SD778) will be enough for those years ahead to push things through smoothly and without stutter, and if all these software updates will eat up more and more (of it's limited 6GB) memory.

I know that I'm probably overthinking this, but seeing how the prices are quite similar (with A52s being around ~30$ cheaper), in your opinion, which of these two would you take if you wish for a that will last you as long as possible?
 
I wouldn't worry about the "limited" 6GB RAM myself. Android updates do not necessarily mean that you need larger and larger amounts of RAM: my Pixel 2 has gone from Android 8 to Android 11 with no noticeable impact on performance, and it has 4GB of RAM. My daughter says that her Galaxy S8 (2017, originally Android 7, now Android 9) still runs fine and it too has 4GB. I do personally feel that part of the drive towards ever larger amounts of RAM is marketing: sticking a bit more RAM in may make more difference to sales than it does to usability. The biggest impact is likely to be on how many apps can stay in storage without having to reload when you switch back to them, but if you are a light user how important will that be?

Now that's not to say that a manufacturer can't release a badly-optimised update which slows things down, but it's rarely the lack of RAM that is responsible for that, just poor coding.

So sorry, that doesn't answer your question, just to say that if it were me making the decision I'd not worry about the difference between 6GB and 8GB of RAM.
 
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