Every year, tech reviewers position the latest chip as much better than the old one, and the same thing happens next year, and the next. The Snapdragon 8 Elite was better than the Gen 3, which was better than the Gen 2, and so on.
If the “flagship” chips are so good, why not just stop to save cost? Why upgrade the chipset every year with minimal gains?
If everyone stuck with the same generation of chip, smartphones could be cheaper (good for consumers) OR profit margins could be increased (good for companies). Or maybe a mix of both.
What drives the yearly update in chips? AI maybe?
Yeah, budget phones have gotten really good. That makes sense, the companies have a financial incentive to make the better phone than everyone else.
Kind of crazy that we mere humans have developed these super-advanced silicon wafers that can do millions of operations every second and we develop new, better ones every year.