Android phones have been forced into forgetting what ‘upgrade’ means, so just buy last year’s best instead

Rising memory and storage costs are pushing Android phone prices higher across the board.

Recent Samsung and Motorola launches have offered only modest hardware changes, despite higher launch prices.

The result is a weak value proposition: consumers often get little more for paying more.

In many cases, last year’s discounted flagship is the smarter buy than a new release, especially in North America.