I'm going to share my rather unpopular philosophy regarding the phone market.
...I don't care what's new anymore. These phones all more-or-less do the same thing these days.
Some of you who remember me from the early days of this forum know that I used to be a bonified phone nut (even before the forum - Dan, remember our talks regarding WinMo vs Palm? LOL). I was a regular contributor to XDA-Developers, wrote guides and FAQs and Tutorials, Custom Roms, heck I even turned it into a business at some point, desigining custom mobile solutions for fleet businesses. Co-founded Techcitement.com, offered a position blogging for BGR... you get the picture. Nothing came out in the cellular world that I wasn't aware of.
I'm not sure if I just got older or shifted hobbies, but one day I just sort of stopped caring what came out. I think it was while writing reviews for Techcitement, and I realized that the "low end" Android handsets were able to compete with the performance of the flagship ones. I started wondering why I was so obscessed with $500+ handsets (like the HTC EVO, flagship at the time), when the $99 no-contract Optimus S actually outperformed it in battery life, openGL frames per second, and just fit nicer in the hand and pocket. I mean, the phone cost less than an insruance deductible on my flagship, so it was somewhat disposable, yet a force to be reckoned with.
Fast-forward a few years to the modern phone era. I find expensive big phones a waste. I need two hands to use it, they don't fit nicely in a small pocket, and are very expensive to replace (and I got kids, so its not a matter of
if but
when something needs to be replaced). Now that I'm on a plan that doesn't offer subsidies (Sprint Framily), I buy all my phones on ebay. The unpopular year-old handsets are often less than $50 in perfect condition. My current handset is an LG F3, which I really love. Yes, the camera is just meh and it only has 4GB of memory, but rooting it lets me swap internal for external storage, and now I have 16gb internal. But more importantly, the thing is TINY, completely hidden in a shirt pocket yet still big enought to use comfortably, and CHEAP. I bought this one for less than $50 with the plastic still on it! It replaced my previous phone, the Galaxy Victory, which was the Sprint version of a Galaxy S3 mini. I loved that phone too, but it got run over by a car.
Want to know how much I paid for the Victory? A whopping $40. And it was practically brand new, looks like someone took it out the box and then sold it.
I'm not telling you this to brag. I know some people are really into the latest-and-greatest, and can't understand the appeal of a cheap phone that is more or less disposable. But if you don't, I want you to know that you aren't alone. You're not crazy for finding it silly, there are others like us out there!