As you scroll through this on your Samsung S10 or iPhone XR, XS, or 11, I’m here to tell you why to don’t need it. If you were to ask me five years ago which phone to get, I would have probably prescribed a “flagship” phone of some kind. A “flagship” phone is a phone from a given manufacturer with the latest and greatest features, best performance, and flashiest style. For these reasons, these are the most expensive phones in that manufacturer’s line up. For my first three smartphones, I used flagship phones, namely an iPhone 3GS, a Google Nexus 4, and then a Google Nexus 6. And to my liking, they were indeed excellent phones. But for my latest phone, I opted to change course and try something new – a midrange phone, namely a Moto G6+ There a lot of reasons that motivated me to opt for one of these over a flagship. Here are a few:

Phones have commoditized. Over the last few years, the phone market has been saturated, and this has caused some pretty dramatic shifts in the distribution and sales of smartphones. When Apple brought the smartphone to the masses with the debut of the iPhone, it revolutionized how we consume the internet and interact with society at large. But thirteen years removed, the smartphone has gone from a cutting-edge technology to a commodity. It’s almost an expectation that one has a smartphone and you’re viewed as odd or countercultural if you don’t. The ubiquity of the smartphone has made them like shoes or toilet paper. You buy it, use it, and when its utility is done, you get rid of it. Functionally, a cheaper phone and a more expensive phone will get me the same end results just like cheaper toilet paper or shoes do to their more expensive counterparts.

Most new midrange phones will do everything you need then some. In recent years, many device manufacturers release multiple tiers of phones ranging from entry level devices to flagship phones with a few options in between. Within the context of these devices, the midrange devices are decent phones in almost all categories. Midrange phones compromise on cutting edge features and high-end performance and will use cheaper materials to cut costs when building a phone. The resulting phone though is a solid device that offers everything you need.

Features have plateaued. In the early days of smartphones, features that differentiated one generation of phones from the next were usually pretty substantial. It was a big deal to be able to shoot video on a phone rather than just take photos. 3G vs 4G technology for cellular carriers meant faster internet speeds while on the go. Better performance between CPU’s and GPU’s in these phones was significant such that apps performed noticeably better from one generation to the next. But in recent years, the selling points of newer phones have been things like one or two millimeter thickness differences and devices with less bezel and higher screen to body ratios. And now it seems the latest gimmick would be folding phones. We’ll see how that plays out, but as a feature that really adds value to a phone, it and others like it don’t say “buy me”. I could save a buck and get a phone a cheaper phone to serve my needs.

Phone features have a trickle-down effect. No, I’m not talking about economics, rather the phenomenon in technology that the latest and greatest features of today will be commonplace in a device sooner or later. With smartphones, this is usually sooner. Midrange phones will often incorporate last year’s flagship phone features but do it in a way that takes advantage of the latest manufacturing techniques. This is one reason I prefer the midrange phones now instead of being tempted to by last year’s flagships. So if you can wait a year for new features, then odds are you will be able to get those on the next year’s midrange and even entry level devices.

Most apps target low-end phones and older OS’s. Application developers by and large attempt to write applications that will be supported by the most devices possible to ensure that the application will be available to the most people possible. For applications that are monetized, this is important because it translates into more potential customers. For this reason, Applications developers will target older devices and operating systems as a minimal requirement to capture both older more modest devices and newer, more performant devices as well.

Flagship phones are expensive. The latest flagship phones nowadays cost well north of $1000 USD’s and they aren’t showing any signs of getting cheaper. The premium cost stems from the premium features offered by the phones and larger profit margins for the manufacturer. The total package then is usually an expensive phone that may be double or even triple a decent midrange phone, and odds are there is nothing that the flagship phone can do that the cheaper alternatives can’t do.

If all this technobabble doesn’t make sense to you, then think of it like this: if you were buying a car in the early days of cars, you didn’t have many options out there, so the most basic car was also likely the most advanced car you could get, unless you were buying a used one. But after the car market diversified, you can now get a car for basic transportation, for work, for comfort, for utility, for style, for speed, and many other things. And even so, you have a lot of options within these categories. Odds are, you’re not going to go out and buy the most expensive one on the market, rather you’re going to get something that will suit your needs. The same holds true for phones nowadays, and is probably the reason why you don’t need a flagship phone anymore.

Editor: I saw Blaize had posted this on Facebook and thought he made some great points, so I asked for permission to re-post here. I also think it’s relevant to Christians as we consider stewardship of our financial resources, which really belong to God. - DLM

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