It frustrates me as well, especially when people brag about how “green” their devices are, despite the fact that they’ve went through 3 phones in almost as many years. If we wanted truly green devices we would create standardized parts that can easily be swapped out like we did for computers. The Fairphone is an excellent example of this, actually.
I'd wager out of all the phones in each category sold more Pinephones as a percentage of total sold have become e-waste faster than any model iPhone. Maybe the first couple generation iPhones might have had a faster turn around just on sheer YoY model improvements.
Why is that? Unlike all iPhones, Pinephone will never stop receiving updates and can be used as a full desktop with mainline Linux, even if the cellular network has problems.
Because I'd also bet the vast majority of Pinephones sold have been sold as secondary phones to hobbyists and tinkers. And I suspect a good chunk of those have gone into drawer or are otherwise collecting dust unused after the initial cool factor wore off. Don't get me wrong, I like what pine64 does, and they're great to have around overall, but I also strongly doubt the long term viability of their phones both as a primary phone for daily use and in terms of a secondary market.
I daily drive a Pinephone Pro as my only smartphone. I adore it, but I think you're right about the precentage that ended up in a drawer.
I'd still say it's worth it overall though: the low price pushed it into many more developers hands than could afford the Librem 5. More developers (and users for bug reports or community support) means more viable software for all Linux-mobile devices - which has resulted in people being able to hang on to other devices for longer! Notably, the Pixel 3a is currently making headway to be useable under Mobian, but this also applies to other devices that I haven't followed as closely, such as the Pixel 4a, the Oneplus 6, and so on.
Their most recent phone (made in 2022) uses an SoC introduced in 2016.
By any reasonable comparison it was an outdated phone when it was released. 2 years of age haven’t done it well. At some point, no matter how repairable/replaceable the other components are, the computer is just not powerful enough to be useful.
I reject this characterization from a quite frankly biased party. They’re selling hardware here themselves, and attempting to justify selling old hardware.
Modern hardware is quite good, but it inevitably succumbs to compute creep needs over time.
