While mid-range smartphones are now so good, they can do most of what flagship phones do well enough for most people, there are still many solid reasons why you'd want a flagship model.
While my colleague Ismar Hrnjicevic argued convincingly that you should skip flagship phones, as a stalwart flagship phone fanatic myself, I think it's too soon to completely discount these mobile titans. Here's why.
Flagships Are the Best Choice for Infrequent Upgraders
If you buy a flagship phone today, you will have no reason to buy a new flagship phone for half a decade or more. As long as the software support commitment from your phone maker is long enough, your phone will be usable and relevant likely until its last security update ships.
This means you can buy a phone cash or pay it off over a two-year contract, and then switch to a SIM-only plan or stick with prepaid for years more after that. You can put a small fraction of what would have been your handset installment towards insuring your flagship phone instead, in case you drop it or it's stolen.
Camera Quality Matters More Than Ever
While the cameras you'll find on mid-range and even budget phones are certainly good enough for most people, there's still an obvious and meaningful gap in photo and video quality compared to flagship phones. If you don't really care about photos or video, then perhaps flagship phones won't make much sense from this point of view, but we live in a growing visual content world.
Whether you're making memories, taking photos for work, creating content for social media, or anything else that requires a camera, you'll be glad to have the best shooter of the day in your pocket. It's not just about hardware either, manufacturers tend to put their best software tricks into their flagship phones first, and then let it trickle down to cheaper handsets. In some cases, lower-end phones won't have the processing power to pull some of these features off for years, and you'll get to have them now.
It's not just about the rear cameras either. You'll appreciate a high-resolution, wide-angle front-facing camera if you do video calls for any reason, or enjoy vlog-style recording. Once you have cameras you can trust to deliver good results every time, you'll find many excuses to use them.
Apps Are Getting Heavier
If you look back at the apps that appeared on early smartphones, even after filtering out all the flatulance-generators, they were pretty simplistic. As processing power increased, so did the complexity and size of applications. Today there's little difference between a mobile and desktop web browser, word processor, video editor, music player, and even video games are approaching console-level features and scope.
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A new leak about Genshin Impact's rumored Imaginarium Theater game mode is teasing even more rewards players can pick up by completing its challenges, with plenty of Primogems available. The popular RPG from HoYoverse offers players a variety of ways to earn its most coveted currency, rewarding players with Primogems for completing quests, opening chests, and unlocking waypoints. HoYoverse also often distributes special codes Genshin Impact players can redeem for a few free Primogems. The newest leaks from a rumored game mode are now hinting at even more Primogem rewards.
Depending on when you read this, Steam Family sharing is either in beta or finally released to the public. Either way, if you're going to share your Steam library with family members after years of building your library, you might want to limit which games they can actually see!
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One enterprising Stardew Valley player may have found the most profitable method of gathering flower honey that the game allows. While Stardew Valley offers players a lot of different ways to build their fortunes, this particular layout for placing flowers and bee houses can produce a lot of flower honey, a valuable artisan good, on a relatively small patch of land.
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Pokemon GO has pulled the curtain back on its «Rediscover» campaign, which aims to bring lapsed players back to the augmented reality mobile game by tempting them with major updates. Pokemon GO has been one of the world's most popular mobile games since it was first released in the summer of 2016. A huge part of this success is thanks to Niantic regularly releasing new updates to keep fans engaged.
Fallout TV series fans are trying to estimate the in-game character level its protagonist Lucy might have reached by the end of the show's first season.
Pokemon GO players are sharing an unusual quirk with the popular mobile game's in-game inventory, with one player having 37,000 items over the max capacity. The massively popular monster-catching mobile game from Niantic features more for players to collect than just its lineup of in-game creatures, with multiple useful items available. Items like Berries and stronger Poke Balls can help players to capture new Pokemon, while Potions and Revives keep a player's Pokemon healthy for Pokemon GO's in-game battles. Now, one fan's inventory is way over the game's normal max capacity.