As I see it, many of the technologies mentioned in the article are still very much in a frantic phase of development. The technologies are far from mature but once the technology reaches a maturing level, most of the problems will go away. Once your phone has better than eye resolution, battery power to last a full day without charging, sufficient computer power to run any realistic phone app, then attention will turn far more to durability and quality, at least that is my hope.
There are at least a couple of excellent science fiction short stories (whose names escape me now) that address this very issue of the disposable society and quite frankly the downside is quite frightening.
More likely is that it'll do both-- there'll be cheap Chinese smartphones that compete feature-for-feature with much higher-quality products, some of which might be heirloom quality.
There are at least a couple of excellent science fiction short stories (whose names escape me now) that address this very issue of the disposable society and quite frankly the downside is quite frightening.