Does it make sense to buy the latest smartphone model?

With the season of new smartphones to all who celebrate! It's that time of the year again when tech giants do their best to convince us to upgrade their gadgets.

Recently, Google launched the latest Pixel 9 phones , and then Apple presented its iPhone 16.

In July, Samsung released the latest versions of the Z Flip6 and Z Fold6 foldable phones, and Huawei just introduced a phone in China called the Mate XT, which folds twice, meaning the screen is three parts.

As smartphone sales around the world slow, the marketing messages from their manufacturers are becoming increasingly overwhelming.

Apple CEO Tim Cook promised that the iPhone16 “will redefine what a smartphone will do.” What would that mean?

Google Vice President of Product Management Brian Rakowski called the design of the “luxurious” Pixel 9 “stunning”.

Huawei now has its own brand song, according to the company's press release, which “powerfully expresses the desire for a dream, emphasizing that every breakthrough and success the company has achieved comes from believing in dreams”.

Yes, we are still talking about phones.

Both Apple and Google have made big bets on built-in AI features. Google's new Magic Editor can add AI-generated content to photos as well as remove unwanted bits (with varying degrees of success, in my experience).

Apple Intelligence on iPhone16 includes OpenAI technology from ChatGPT, built into the digital assistant Siri, which many say is long overdue.

But does anyone really need all this?

Mobile phone expert Ben Wood from research firm CCS Insight says that while AI features aim to make digital life easier, that doesn't mean they're the deciding factor when choosing a smartphone.

“I think most people now know what they want from a phone, and one of the most important things is the camera,” he says.

Phone developers they also know it. The specifications of each new cell phone camera are usually an improvement over the previous generation. But even this is no longer a guaranteed sales generator.

“It is clear that people are using one phone for longer and longer. In 2013, 30 million phones were sold annually, – adds Wood. “This year it will be about 13.5 million.”

Of course, there is an ongoing cost-of-living crisis affecting people's spending decisions. In addition, every phone has an “environmental price tag” because it contains rare elements and precious metals.

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There is also a growing trend, especially among parents and young people, to try give up smartphones.

A number of UK schools are reviewing their smartphone policies and some have already opted to ban them.

Mobile phone network EE recommends that children under 11 should not didn't have smartphones.

Nova East heads the North West London branch of the Smartphone Free Childhood campaign, which is calling on parents and schools to raise the age at which children are given gadgets .

“We're not against technology, we're just pro-kids,” she says. additional features”.

Dr. Sascha Luciani, a research associate at artificial intelligence firm Hugging Face, says the appeal doesn't seem to be working so far .

“There's more and more talk of 'digital sobriety' in the way we build and use technology, but smartphone makers seem to be going in the exact opposite direction,” she says.

We contacted Apple, Google and Samsung.

The latter replied: “Samsung users can choose the way to use their Galaxy phones that best suits their needs. For example, digital well-being features allow users to choose which features they use, when they use them and for how long, such as setting time limits for certain apps “.

One ​​company heeding the increasingly vocal calls to limit the phone's functionality is Finnish firm HMD, which still makes Nokia's basic phones. Last month they released a Barbie themed phone in collaboration with toy maker Mattel and I put it to the test. I would describe it in two words – functional and pink.

Like most “traditional” cell phones, it has no apps, no app store, no selfie camera, and only one game. If you want to listen to music, there is an FM radio.

CCS Insight predicts that around 400,000 traditional mobile phones will be sold in the UK this year – by no means enough to knock the iPhone off the top of the world's best-selling phones anytime soon, but it's a decent chunk of the market.

I just checked my own screen time over the past seven days, averaging about five hours a day. These statistics are certainly sobering – but all this time I wasn't just mindlessly scrolling through the feed (honest).

My phone is a work tool, I also use it for banking, shopping, routing, tracking health and family plans – but also, of course, for gaming and social media.

“I think we often forget about the huge benefits of using smartphones,” says Pete Etchells, professor of psychology and science communication at Bath Spa University.

“We tend to focus more on negatives. It's always worth remembering that these technologies help us,” he says