Technologies

COP28 Climate Deal Marks ‘Beginning of the End’ for Fossil Fuels

A landmark agreement sees the biggest global push yet away from gas, coal and oil toward a future powered by renewable energy.

This July, as heat waves swept across Europe and the US, NASA and the European Commission’s Copernicus Climate Change Service both made a damning prediction: 2023 was set to be the hottest year on record. Now, with the Northern Hemisphere’s extreme summer heat and wildfires behind us, we’re still on track for that prediction to be correct.

Furthermore, a study led by renowned NASA climate scientist James Hansen and published in November puts us on track to blow past the threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming compared to preindustrial levels this decade, rather than next, as previously thought. This threshold marks a tipping point for our planet, after which, scientists say, Earth will experience devastating and irreversible changes that threaten lives, livelihoods and habitats.

This is the scientific reality that politicians and officials representing countries from across the world grappled with as they assembled this December in Dubai at the UN’s COP28 climate conference. Throughout the confab, they assessed countries’ progress toward meeting the goal laid out in the 2015 Paris Agreement of limiting global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius, while working out how to wean society off fossil fuels.

The result? A landmark deal, agreed to by nearly 200 countries, to «transition away from fossil fuels» for the first time. Getting the explicit language around fossil fuels into the text was a hard-won victory — although not everyone views it that way. Climate activists, scientists and small island nations criticized a draft of the document published earlier in the week for dropping references to «phasing out» fossil fuels.

«Whilst we didn’t turn the page on the fossil fuel era in Dubai, this outcome is the beginning of the end,» UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell said in his closing speech. «Now all governments and businesses need to turn these pledges into real-economy outcomes, without delay.»

Whether climate summits like COP28 are an effective way to tackle the climate crisis is a heavily debated topic in environmental circles. As an attendee at the two previous climate summits (COP27 in Egypt and COP26 in Scotland), I’ve witnessed firsthand the struggle between countries to reach agreements and the frustration of other participants at the lack of ambition. The same was true in Dubai this year — perhaps more so than ever, given the looming presence of fossil fuel companies at the summit.

«The influence of petrostates is still evident in the half measures and loopholes included in the final agreement,»environmentalistand former US Vice President Al Gore said as the summit drew to a close. «Whether this is a turning point that truly marks the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era depends on the actions that come next and the mobilization of finance required to achieve them.»

Even as scientists have been clear with their warnings about human-caused climate change, they’ve also been clear about the solutions: The transition to renewable energy sources, such as solar, hydro and wind, must be prioritized to minimize the amount of greenhouse gasses being pumped into the atmosphere. Plus, if we’re to stand a chance of creating a livable future on our planet, there can be no new development of fossil fuel projects.

This isn’t exactly what politicians want to hear. While they’re onboard with embracing and expanding renewables, many governments, including the UK and the US, continue to greenlight new gas and oil projects. But when they come together at the UN summit, other participants demand they justify their actions on the global stage, as everyone attempts to get on the same page about how to tackle the most pressing problem of our time.

«Countries are far off track in meeting climate promises and commitments,» UN Secretary General António Guterres said in a press conference in June. «I see a lack of ambition. A lack of trust. A lack of support. A lack of cooperation. And an abundance of problems around clarity and credibility.

«It’s time to wake up and step up,» he said.

As anyone will know who’s wrestled with a personal cost/benefit analysis on whether to install solar panels on their house or if it makes sense to buy an EV, trying to make the best decisions for the future of our planet isn’t always straightforward. But gatherings such as COP represent our best chance of getting everyone on the same page.

What is COP28?

COP28 is the most important event on the climate calendar. The annual global meetup this year was in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

The United Nations has been hosting COP (which stands for «conference of the parties») summits since 1995 as a way to gather the countries annually and assess progress in dealing with climate change. It’s at COPs that governments have signed some of the most significant climate agreements, including the 1995 Kyoto Protocol and the 2015 Paris Agreement.

Not everyone was happy that COP28 took in the UAE, a petrostate that’s one of the top five oil-producing countries in the world. This is compounded by the fact that the man the UAE called upon to serve as president for this year’s event is Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, the head of Adnoc, the UAE’s biggest oil company. Climate activist Greta Thunberg called the decision «completely ridiculous.»

Al Jaber, who also serves as chairman of the UAE state-owned renewables company Masdar, told The Guardian in an interview last month that while he wasn’t the obvious man for the job, he was committed to making the summit a success. «My focus is to phase out emissions from everything,» he said. «Regardless of where it comes from.»

In the week leading up to the climate talks, the BBC and Centre for Climate Reporting revealed they had obtained copies of official briefing documents in which the UAE outlined plans to discuss fossil fuel deals with nations during preliminary COP28 talks.

In the opening days of the summit, the Guardian revealed that Al Jaber had said at an event in November that there was no scientific basis for needing to phase out fossil fuels and that pursuing a full phase-out would «take the world back into caves.» Climate scientists and other critics objected heavily to this statement, arguing that phasing out fossil fuels was the only way the world stands a chance of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees.

«The COP28 agreement, while signalling the need to bring about the end of the fossil fuel era, falls short by failing to commit to a full fossil fuel phase out,» Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland, former UN human rights commissioner and chair of the Elders, said of the outcome of the summit. «If 1.5 degrees Celsius is our ‘North Star,’ and science our compass, we must swiftly phase out all fossil fuels to chart a course towards a liveable future.»

Who did (and didn’t) attend COP28, and what are they saying?

As COP28 kicked off in Dubai, the summit reported 80,000 people were registered to attend, making it the largest COP ever. The attendee list included many of the world’s most powerful and influential figures who are currently assembling under one roof to hammer out deals designed to ensure a livable future.

The White House confirmed just days before the summit started that President Joe Biden would not attend this year’s climate talks. Biden was conspicuous by his absence after previously making high-profile stops at COP27 last year in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, and at 2021’s COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland. He’s also talked many times about putting the climate at the heart of his administration.

In his place, Vice President Kamala Harris and Special Presidential Envoy John Kerry led a US delegation to Dubai, including senators and members of Congress. «The decision embraces transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems so as to achieve net zero by 2050,» said Kerry in a press conference at the close of the summit. «And the first and easiest thing that countries need to do to make this commitment a reality is to stop building new unabated coal.»

Other notable people who attended COP28 include King Charles III, a longtime supporter of environmental causes who made the opening address of the summit. He reminded attendees that «the world does not belong to us,» as he issued a call to arms to leaders attending the summit.

One high-profile, highly anticipated person was forced to bow out of COP at the last moment due to illness: Pope Francis. His visit to the UN climate summit would have been a first for any pontiff. In a papal exhortation in October, he urged governments to make COP28 a turning point. The pope called for decisive action and defended the actions of climate activists fighting for a just transition away from fossil fuels and toward renewables.

Along with the officials from government delegations, climate activists and members of civil society and nongovernmental organizations play an important role at the UN climate summit. Many of them are normal people who have become involved in the climate justice movement through local and national campaigning.

Their presence at COP is considered to be crucial, as they help to hold governments accountable when they don’t fulfill their commitments. It also means that people who are being affected by climate-related issues have their voices heard by those with decision-making power.

It’s up to individual countries as to who they include in their national delegations at COP, and for some, this means including representatives of fossil fuel companies. Last year at COP27, Global Witness counted 636 people with ties to fossil fuel companies – a number that rose to 2,456 this year.

What was on the agenda at COP28?

COP is always a highly political event, but this year the focus was on discussions about making access to renewable power more cheaply and easily available, creating green jobs and ensuring that people around the world have access to fresh air, clean water and a healthy environment to live and work in.

The agenda for COP28 was dictated largely by the president of the event, who is chosen by and from the host nation. This summer, Al Jaber outlined four priorities for the summit:

Fast-tracking the renewable energy transition.
Fixing climate finance by securing funding for the most affected, lower-income countries from wealthier, high-polluting countries.
Focusing on people, livelihoods and nature.
Making this the most inclusive UN climate summit to date.

Preliminary talks ahead of the summit saw an agreement to phase out fossil fuels rise to the top of expected outcomes for COP28. This would be an important step after two years ago in Glasgow, when language in the final agreement around ending reliance on coal was watered down at the last moment to read «phase down» rather than «phase out.»

These small differences have caused huge divisions between countries at previous climate conferences, and did so again at COP28, where many countries walked away from the talk frustrated at the vague reference to «transition away» from fossil fuels. «The resolution is marred by loopholes that offer the fossil fuel industry numerous escape routes, relying on unproven, unsafe technologies,» said Harjeet Singh, head of global political strategy at Climate Action Network International.

Still, the inclusion of language around fossil fuels has been hailed as breakthrough. Brokering such an agreement was a tough task for Al Jaber, and until late in the day, it looked like it might not happen.

The deal was far from the only important outcome to emerge from COP27. On the opening day of the summit, the UN announced a partnership with Microsoft that will see it use an AI-powered tool to measure how well countries are following through on their climate pledges, The New York Times reported. COP’s detractors, including climate activist Greta Thunberg, frequently criticize the conference for putting too much emphasis on empty promises (or «blah blah blah,» as Thunberg calls it) that yield little to no action. If it works as promised, the UN and Microsoft’s use of AI could significantly improve accountability and highlight the countries not pulling their weight.

One anticipated source of tension was around financing climate reparations. But the first announcement out of COP28 confirmed that a deal had been struck to establish a loss and damage fund. This was an early win for Al Jaber, but more significantly for the civil society groups and climate justice activists who have been fighting for decades for a breakthrough that will hopefully see compensation reach those who are most impacted by climate change but have done the least to cause it.

For more on the key outcomes of COP28, Carbon Brief has a comprehensive list of announcements and deals. The US made many announcements at the summit, all which can be found here.

Next year’s summit, COP29, is set to be held in Azerbaijan. Between now and then, there is much work for all the countries involved in the UN process to be getting on with — namely, working hard and fast to meet their net zero commitments. «Climate action must not cease because the gavel has come down on COP28,» Robinson said. «World leaders must continue to urgently pull together and find ways forward to tackle this existential threat. Every day of delay condemns millions to an uninhabitable world.»

Technologies

MacOS Now Has a Native Gemini AI App

Get faster access to some of Gemini’s best features without switching tabs.

Gemini is getting a native MacOS app so that you have a faster way to talk to Google’s AI chatbot, bringing access to some of its best features with just a couple of clicks.

Artificial intelligence is becoming more ingrained in everyday life, and companies are trying to make it easier than ever to access. On smartphones, AI is already just a button press away, but for desktops, LLMs like Google’s Gemini have been restricted to web applications.

With the new app, Gemini is available via a simple keyboard shortcut.

If you’ve got a MacBook, you can access Gemini at any time by pressing Option and Space on the keyboard, without having to switch tabs or open another window.

Gemini’s best features, like Nano Banana image generation, video and music generation, are also just a few clicks away.

Much like you can do with the Gemini mobile app, the new MacOS app will let you share context from a window instantly so you can get insight on the content you’re viewing. Google says this will also work with local files on your computer and isn’t limited to web pages.

The free, native app is available now for all users on MacOS 15 and up. Google says this is just the beginning and that it’s building the foundation for a «personal, proactive and powerful desktop assistant.»

The app can be downloaded at gemini.google/mac.

Technologies

I Wore the Whoop Band and the Apple Watch for Months and Found the Best Fit

The Whoop band won’t tell you the time, but it might change the way you work out. Here’s who should wear which.

I put off testing the Whoop band for six years. It’s a screenless fitness tracker built for serious athletes, and the sheer volume of training metrics always felt a little intimidating to me as a mere mortal.

The Apple Watch, on the other hand, is like that approachable friend who speaks to you on your level — much more my speed, six years ago.

But after seeing how many Whoop owners love the band, it was time to confront what intimidated me and see if it could outperform my Apple Watch Series 11. Two months later, the Whoop has transformed the way I work out and surfaced insights about my own body that weren’t on my radar before. Don’t mistake this for a breakup story — I’m not ditching my Apple Watch, yet.

The wearable space is evolving rapidly, with AI opening up the possibility of finally turning years’ worth of raw health and fitness data into actual advice. The standout smartwatches and trackers are now built around AI health coaches, proactive longevity features and metrics that respond visibly when you make the right changes.

As wearable sensors become more capable and health information gets more complex, the stakes are higher. It’s more important than ever to understand what each device does and which one will give you the most relevant information. That’s why just comparing specs won’t cut it. To make this personal, I had to literally become a test subject and wear both the Whoop MG band and my Apple Watch Series 11 long enough to unlock every single feature.

Comparing the Whoop band to an Apple Watch is like comparing a motorcycle to a minivan. They’re two different beasts that just happen to drive on the same street (your wrist). Health tracking is the main event for the Whoop, and likely the reason you’re considering it, whereas on the Apple Watch, it’s just one of the items on the menu. In an ideal world, you’d get both, but for this comparison, I’ll focus on the health features.

The price to play

The Whoop has two immediate red flags for me. WTF is this name? I’ve never answered so many «the what?» questions when asked what’s on my wrist. But that’s a superficial me-problem.

On the surface, the Apple Watch Series 11 costs more: $400 for the 42mm Wi-Fi model. The Whoop MG is $360. But that’s not a one-time payment. The Whoop band itself is just a bonus; what you’re really paying for is a subscription model that ranges from $199-359 yearly. The plan’s price determines which band model you get and what metrics you unlock.

Whoop subscription plans

Plan name	Band included	Price per year	Battery life	Key features
One	Whoop 4.0	$199	5 days	Core metrics: vitals and training scores
Peak	Whoop 5.0	$239	14 days	Adds aging insights (Healthspan)
Life	Whoop MG	$359	14 days	Adds ECG and AFib detection

Not everyone’s willing to commit to yet another subscription, and if you’re in it for the long haul, you could end up spending more than the cost of the Apple Watch. But the bigger filter might be compatibility: The Whoop is the only device compatible with both iOS and Android. The Apple Watch is locked to the iPhone only.

First impressions and a Whoop THONG?!

The fact that I’d never worn a Whoop band before gives the Apple Watch an unfair advantage, especially since it has a screen; the Whoop doesn’t. I’m used to glancing down at my wrist for a time check, so seeing something occupy space on my wrist that didn’t tell time was genuinely infuriating.

Whereas the Whoop doesn’t present any data on the actual band, the Apple Watch shows you the time, weather forecast, tides, stock price and more. You control which notifications you receive, but it demands your attention throughout the day, from stand reminders to Slack alerts. You can also use it as a wallet or a camera remote, making it more like a mini version of your iPhone that just happens to be watching out for your health.

I can see the Whoop’s lack of screen as an asset for minimalists who don’t want the noise. While it was easy to forget I was wearing it, the band doesn’t exactly fade into the background like a smart ring does. The Whoop’s sensor alone is almost the size of the Apple Watch’s screen, but has a thicker profile, which makes it bulkier when wearing to bed.

You can also camouflage the device more easily since the band sits over the sensor. Whoop offers a range of clasp and band materials, and even a $20 third-party starlight gray band made it feel more subtle on my wrist than the original black. The Apple Watch also has a wide selection of bands, but the screen is always front and center.

The Apple Watch is also mostly relegated to the wrist. The Whoop is more versatile in that it can take readings from different parts of your body, including your chest and lower back. That can be useful for athletes who can’t wear anything on their limbs or for amputees. Whoop even sells garments to hold the sensor in place, including a thong, though I still can’t wrap my mind around wearing any device below the belt; I’m clearly not the target audience. The only alternative I’d realistically use is the arm or bicep band for sleep.

Suffice to say, you won’t get that range of wear with the Apple Watch.

Similar metrics, different execution

The Whoop is built for long-term data analysis, so saying the band’s tracking strategy was a slow burn is an understatement. It takes at least a week to unlock most metrics, and two weeks of 24/7 wear to see the rest. The Apple Watch has real-time metrics that you can start using as soon as you strap it on.

Even once you unlock the data, the Whoop always uses your phone as the middleman to deliver it. But the app earns its keep by nudging you (via notifications) whenever a new metric is unlocked, or if something needs your attention. The Apple Watch also notifies you of trends in the iPhone’s Health app, but those nudges are less frequent, so I end up forgetting to look.

After two weeks of wear, the Whoop finally paid off

On the surface, the Apple Watch and Whoop measure similar biomarkers: heart rate, VO2 max, temperature, sleep and menstrual cycle. The difference is in what they do with that data. Apple gives you the numbers and some light guidance, but mostly leaves the interpretation up to you. Whoop collects the data and runs it through a single lens: How does this affect your training?

Sleep, heart rate and even your menstrual cycle phase get translated into a daily recovery score (how ready your body is to perform). Paired with a strain meter that tracks how hard you’ve pushed yourself, Whoop turns abstract data into a directive. On high-recovery, low-strain days, it pushes me to go harder. But the realities of parenting and work schedules don’t always align with my recovery score, and no amount of nudges can help me with that. There were times when a low recovery score convinced me I was too depleted for a hard workout (even though I could probably have pushed through). On other days, the score looked good, but my body was screaming the opposite.

The Apple Watch’s training load score measures workout effort, but it doesn’t tell you what to do with that info. It’s largely self-reported. Unlike the Whoop, which puts the strain score front and center in the app, Apple Watch training load trends are somewhat hidden in workout pages, so I don’t often remember to use it as guidance.

Both devices also track long-term trends such as VO2 max, or the measure of how efficient your body is at delivering oxygen to your muscles (a good indicator of cardiovascular health). Apple calls it Cardio Fitness score and surfaces it in the Health app. Whoop uses this metric (and other biomarkers) to calculate your «Whoop age,» how old your heart appears to be relative to your actual age, as well as your rate of aging. Not exactly a scientific term, but the effect is genius. Vanity and pride will get you invested in this number fast (at least it did for me).

Whoop’s health coach actually gets it

The shining star, though, is the Whoop AI coach. As a certified AI health coach skeptic, I never thought I’d be praising one, but here we are. The key is that it doesn’t require you to interact with it; Whoop AI just pops up on its own when it has something important to flag in the app or when you summon it. Two days before my period, it warned me that workouts might feel harder because of hormonal changes (spot on) and gave me concrete workout alternatives for those days when my recovery was low.

After an all-out 5K run, Whoop’s AI coach told me to take it easy for the next few days and not to push myself that hard more than once a week. In my black-and-white brain (before using the Whoop), every workout had to be all-out or it was simply not worth it. The coach pointed out that repeatedly spiking at peak heart rate might be working against my training. I did some non-AI-aided research myself and confirmed the AI coach was right. While raising your heart rate to peak occasionally can train your heart, sustained effort at this level increases your risk of injury.

The AI coach also adjusted my recommended bedtime based on strain, prior sleep debt (accumulation of sleep deprivation) and nightly patterns to optimize recovery. I don’t follow it most days, but the fact that it’s personalized and dynamic makes me less likely to ignore it than just the Apple Watch’s static bedtime reminder.

The closest Apple equivalent to Whoop’s AI coach is Workout Buddy, an in-ear trainer that motivates you in real time and contextualizes your effort against your data history. For runners like me, that kind of screen-free guidance is essential and it’s where the Apple Watch pulls ahead. I rely on heart rate zones, pace and distance cues in real time, and without a screen or in-ear guidance, there’s no way to do the same on the Whoop. I can surface live stats and strain in the Whoop app, but that still means staring at my phone when I should be watching the trail in front of me. Even Whoop’s workout summaries don’t include variables such as distance or pace.

Where Whoop holds its own is workout detection. Other screen-free wearables tend to miss lower-intensity sessions, but Whoop’s auto-detection has been spot on. The Apple Watch can detect some workouts automatically, but it’s less consistent and I usually end up starting them myself.

The CNET accuracy test

It’s one thing for these wearables to nail translating workouts into data, but now I had to make sure that data was accurate. I’ve run multiple accuracy tests on the Apple Watch, including a recent 30-mile cross-device testing blitz where it scored highest in heart rate tracking against five other smartwatches, outpacing even a Garmin watch.

I ran (literally) the same test on the Whoop using the Polar H10 chest strap for heart rate control.

After three miles, the workout summary showed accurate results. It was only two beats below my peak heart rate (179 Whoop vs. 181 Polar), and two beats below my average HR. Workout summaries only tell part of the story, missing all the peaks and valleys that happen in between. That’s why I prefer to dig into the raw data. Polar makes it easy to export the second-by-second HR data into a spreadsheet, but getting that data off the Whoop app proved impossible. Even if there happens to be a workaround, it will likely require sleuth-level digging. For an athlete-focused wearable, that was extremely disappointing. Getting your heart rate data off the Apple Watch isn’t easy, but it is possible either by downloading your entire history or (as I’d recommend) downloading this third-party app.

Health and safety features

For all the fancy metrics and AI coaching, the Apple Watch still pulls ahead on raw health and safety features. Both devices have an ECG feature and AFib detection, though on the Whoop, you’re paying for the top-tier Life membership to get them. The Apple Watch has FDA-cleared hypertension alerts that flag signs of high blood pressure, sleep apnea detection and high and low heart-rate alerts. The Whoop can also give blood pressure estimates, but that first has to be calibrated with a traditional cuff and is intended only as a wellness feature (it’s not clinically validated).

Where there’s no comparison at all is with emergency features. The Apple Watch has emergency SOS, fall detection, satellite connectivity (on 5G models) and crash detection that automatically contacts emergency services and your chosen contacts if something goes wrong.

It can also ping your phone, which may not seem like it’s health-related, but is certainly a mental health boon for me in the sense that it prevents me from losing my mind when I can’t find it.

Battery life is a no-brainer

Battery life isn’t even a competition. While the Apple Watch struggled to make it a day and a half on a charge, the Whoop powered through the two-week mark as promised without breaking a sweat. That means I’m far more likely to wear it around the clock. My patchwork charging strategy with the Apple Watch regularly leaves me with a dead battery before bed — or worse, before a workout. Does exercise even count if it wasn’t tracked?

The Whoop doesn’t even have to be taken off to juice back up, since the puck holds its own charge and snaps on for wireless top-ups. Unless you’re wearing it in your thong, of course, in which case I truly hope it’s coming off between washes.

The fact that it doesn’t have to come off my wrist means I’m more consistent at tracking my sleep. Since there are no gaps in my sleep data, all other data tied to it is more reliable, including menstrual tracking (which uses basal body temperature during sleep to detect ovulation). I’ve been tracking my cycle for 10 years and know it well enough to say the Whoop has been spot-on with its estimates. The Apple Watch also tracks my menstrual cycle, but calculates ovulation retroactively if you’ve been consistent with sleep tracking (which is when it measures temperature changes). That consistency has been harder for me on the Apple Watch, so my ovulation estimates aren’t as accurate on the Apple watch. If you want a tracker you can truly set and forget about on both the notification and charging front, Whoop is your pick.

Apple Watch vs. Whoop: Bottom line

Despite being a longtime Apple Watch wearer, I’m not itching to take the Whoop off my wrist. It’s one of the few wearables I’ve worn for 14 consecutive days that hasn’t irritated my skin. I’d consider keeping both if it weren’t for Whoop’s subscription cost and my fear of financial commitment. Currently, you can get the One membership for $149 ($50 off).

The Whoop band has given me valuable insights about my training habits and flagged trends about my own body I hadn’t even put together myself — hey there, hormonal fatigue. The AI coach gets sharper the longer it knows you, which means I’m actually invested in sticking with it and following its advice.

But realistically, I’m still in the thick of raising young kids while holding down a demanding job, and fitness has to take a back seat. Sticking with the Whoop would be like paying for a fancy gym membership and only using it twice a month. For anyone in a different stage of life looking to level up their fitness and optimize for peak performance (without real-time guidance), the Whoop is likely a worthy investment. I’ll join your ranks soon enough.

Maybe the fact that I’m paying for it would hold me accountable, and I’d find a way to prioritize the guidance more often? Or maybe our timing’s just off? For now, I’ll stick with the dependable friend, the Apple Watch, who doesn’t drop knowledge at every turn, but speaks my language and shows up when I need it — whether it’s pointing out I’m running late, or letting me dictate a text while wrangling a toddler.

Technologies

Smartphone Prices Are Still Climbing. Here Are 3 Ways to Get Around That

Commentary: Tech prices won’t come down in the near future, but you can still come out ahead when shopping for a new phone.

In today’s market, your smartphone might be the only thing in your pocket that’s gaining value. While we’re used to electronics getting cheaper as they age, a combination of RAM shortages, shifting tariffs and inflation is forcing months-old smartphones to get unprecedented mid-life price hikes of up to $200.

Meanwhile, new phones that usually get major upgrades each year aren’t seeing meaningful quality-of-life improvements, yet we’re still paying a premium. The new 256GB Samsung Galaxy S26 starts at $900, raising the entry point for the company’s flagship phone line. The 256GB model of last year’s Galaxy S25 also got a price bump, as Samsung quietly increases the online cost of its foldables and other devices.

It’s not just Samsung. Motorola inflated the price of several of its Moto G models only a few months after launch, even though its devices are geared toward cost-conscious consumers.

The sticker shock in the mobile world is part of a wider contagion affecting the entire electronics market, including the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S consoles. But while pricey is the new industry standard, you don’t have to accept it. By getting a little creative and broadening your criteria, you can still secure a great phone without cramping your budget.

1. Avoid buying the newest phone

Most of us buy a new device to extend our phone’s battery life, get more storage or upgrade our camera. But over the past two years, many phones have only seen small improvements in these areas. Phones from one or two years ago have comparable cameras and batteries, and offer increased storage options, all while getting new features through software updates.

Samsung’s Galaxy S26 seems particularly stagnant this year. In his Galaxy S26 review, CNET Managing Editor David Lumb didn’t find any particular upgrades that would justify the phone’s higher starting price, aside from a storage bump and marginally improved battery capacity. While the phone’s cameras likely benefit from its newer, faster processor, Samsung’s still using the same camera suite dating back to the Galaxy S23: a 50-megapixel wide, 12-megapixel ultrawide, and 10-megapixel telephoto with 3x optical zoom.

If you’re coming from a much older phone like Samsung’s Galaxy S21 (or earlier), you might benefit from upgrading to a less recent model, like the Samsung Galaxy S24 or S25. You can also save money by shopping with retailers rather than buying directly from Samsung.

You could also try to simply extend the life of your current phone. It might be more cost-effective to replace your phone’s battery, backup older photos and videos to free up storage and try out new ways of taking photos rather than relying on buying a whole new device.

2. Make sure a cheaper phone gets software updates

I review a lot of lower-cost phones, and a major way many of them skimp is by offering only two or three years of software and security updates.

As prices rise, especially for devices costing $500 or less, you might end up purchasing a moderately priced phone that shouldn’t be used past its third year, which doesn’t give you much longevity. When a manufacturer isn’t actively providing security updates, that phone becomes more vulnerable to data exploits.

For instance, while I quite like the new $500 Moto G Stylus, I knocked it for only having a three-year commitment for security updates when other companies are providing at least double that. I have similar issues with RedMagic, which makes gaming-focused phones at a value price, but the company’s software and security support is also limited to three years. Likewise, TCL’s phones have rock-bottom prices, but the company only pledges two years of support.

If hardware prices are ticking up, I’d like to see phone-makers focus on improving device lifespan, especially since they know customers are less likely to spend $500 on a new phone every two to three years.

Samsung and Google’s under-$500 phones often offer superior software and security support. Samsung, for one, guarantees its Galaxy A phones six years of software updates, and the $499 Pixel 10A gets seven years. While I had issues with the Pixel 10A’s strong similarity to the Pixel 9A (it retained the same processor, camera and battery), when the Pixel 9A is discounted to $399, you’ll get a quality, more affordable phone with six years of software updates.

3. Hit the refurbished market

Apart from eyeing sales for older devices, you can check out refurbished phones offered directly by Apple, Google and Samsung. While these phones are technically used, they’re fixed up by their manufacturer and sold like new. When I browse these stores, I don’t usually see dramatic discounts, but the devices are always marked below their original price.

If you’re particularly cost-conscious, the used phone market is worth considering. When I tried out a used iPhone 13 Mini, I discovered that it’s critical to have a generous return policy so the phone’s battery life and condition work for you. These phones will show visible wear, and their batteries may be degraded from use by their prior owner.

However, used devices are often much cheaper than a comparably priced new phone and could even be worth the extra expense of replacing the battery and getting a case.