Are budget smartphones a curse?
Recently, I came across a poll on GSMArena.com titled “How long do you keep your phone?”. It was a weekly poll and it showed that 32.34% of the 13,000 participants kept their phones for 3 years. The second highest was 30.89%, for those who kept their phone for 2 years.
In an age where new flagship phones are released every six months, this is not a surprising result. And with companies like Xiaomi, Huawei, Oppo and others introducing budget phones, the choices are plenty. Not only do they look premium, but some give the high-end smartphones a run for their money. So much so, that premium brands like Samsung and Apple have also started releasing their own version of lower priced phones.
But are these smartphones a good thing?
Cheap but a price to pay
Make no mistake, I have nothing against these budget phones. In fact, I own one them. I bought mine for $200 last November and with the one-year anniversary fast approaching, I can report that I have no complaints whatsoever and do not plan to change my mobile anytime soon.
I mainly use my phone for surfing the Internet, watching YouTube and to take photos and videos. As a father of a young child, I needed a phone with which I could take good quality photos and videos and have plenty of room to store them. And my $200 phone ticks all those boxes quite well.
But there have been days where I wonder if I should have paid more for a faster CPU. There were situations where I pressed the button to take a picture or video and it took a few seconds for the phone to actually start capturing. And when you have an overactive toddler, these few seconds are the difference between a cute picture or a blurry apparition.
I saved a lot of money, but I still paid a price in terms of missing out some priceless moments with the inconsistent camera.
There were also times where my GPS acted out while I was trying to make an appointment, or my Wi-Fi simply refusing to connect despite multiple restarts and standing close to the router. Having a better GPS and Wi-Fi chipsets could have prevented this from occurring.
Now, the issues caused by these chipsets are of the first-world kind. But that did not stop me from thinking, what if I had a better phone?
I may not throw my nearly one-year smartphone in the thrash, but some people may do just that. Even if the phone has no other problems.
Why? Firstly, it did not cost a fortune. Secondly, there are many options out there.
At $200, my phone is not the cheapest, nor did it cost me an arm and leg. So why shouldn’t I ditch this phone and get a better one by paying an extra $50 or $100?
The problem
The trouble I have with budget phones is the ditching part. More precisely, where we ditch it. We all have that drawer filled with old phones starting from our teenage years till the last one we owned. Some of them could be broken, but others could be fine. We think about throwing it away or selling it but due to some misplaced nostalgia, we shut the drawer telling ourselves that they may come in handy in the future. But in reality, we forget about them as soon as that drawer is shut.
But when we decide to throw it away, where does it go? What happens after we dispose our phones in the recycling center?
The smartphones we throw away each year may get shipped to other countries to be taken apart. But these mobile phones along with other e-waste contain chemicals harmful to the people working there. They may not be following the safety protocols set by the country where the waste was shipped from.
The bigger problem though is the amount of e-waste. There is so much piled up that most go to landfills. I do not have to explain how harmful this can be to the environment.
We can argue that it is not our fault that the companies or government agency responsible for waste management are not doing their job properly.
But there is no denying that we are the cause behind all this waste.
If we do not dispose our phone every two to three years, we can stem the flow. Low amount of e-waste means there is a better chance of it getting dismantled properly and safely. With the current amount, the workers have to do their job quickly and can end up skipping safety protocols.
So what should we do?
We should control our urge to change our phone often. A phone, if properly used should last us more than five years. I know it is easier said than done, considering the quality of the phones we get from the manufacturers these days.
Change your phone only if it is utterly and completely broken.
Take it to the local repair shop to see if there is a chance for it to be revived; you will not only save money but help a struggling business.
If your phone is not broken but you still want a new one, put it up for sale in second hand websites.
Do not throw your phone into that drawer.
If you do put it away thinking that you will deal with it later, it will end up in a landfill. No doubt in that.
Lastly, for those who have subscription phones with the option to “upgrade” or “exchange” anytime. This is a new practice that is gaining popularity, where you lease a smartphone instead of buying it outright. But have you thought about where your “old” phone will end up? I have not used such a plan so I do not know. If you do, comment below and let me and others know.
So is this bad spending habit the fault of budget phones?
No. There are many people who throw away expensive phones for new ones too. But not all of us can afford to do that. With a $200 phone though, the temptation to upgrade is very much a possibility.
Do not give in. Let that temptation fade away. Think about the environment and people who work to recycle these phones. A kind act goes a long way these days.
