Technology

Sorry, I was unclear. I've got a pair of workshoes that fit me perfectly - so I bought 5 pairs exactly the same. When my current pair wears out in a year, I'll replace it with an identical pair.

It would be tempting to buy 5 copies of my current phone - except by the time this one breaks in 3-4 years, the innards (processor/ram/storage) will be poor in comparison to newer versions, and it may not be able to run newer versions of software.

It is a shame that no company is saying "lets keep it basically the same on the outside, but improve the internal specs" - they tend to do things like making it bigger, removing headphone ports, removing other physical buttons, or making it thinner but giving it a rubbish battery that's nonreplaceable.

I used Thinkpad as a comparison, as you can still buy an older model of Thinkpad and pack it with newer innards - so buy the older model with the case you like, but refurbished with more ram, a better processor etc.

If you put my 2 year old Thinkpad laptop next to my old one, they look pretty much the same, except the new one is thinner and much lighter - they still both have physical touchpad buttons, the trackpoint, lots of ports down both sides. I can still use my older laptop bag, because they're nominally the same size and shape.

I wish some phone models followed a similar process - "here's the same thing you already have, but better".

I would absolutely love a barebones, tiny, configurable Raspberry Pi of phones.