While I’m a huge fan of René Ritchie’s “Always Advice (see attachment below),” here’s how it went for me this most recent time.
I was super happy with my 13PM with its silver trim and white glass loving everything about it, especially its battery life. While I found the 14PM’s AOD and 2K nits capability very alluring, those things alone weren’t enough to push me to upgrade to the 14PM at release.
Well into the cycle, I began to fixate on the micro scratches all over my 13PM’s display (from not having used a tempered glass screen protector). The scratches weren’t even noticeable with the display in use, but I simply started jonesing for clean and shiny and the AOD. Also, while my battery didn’t seem to be suffering insofar as getting through the day was concerned, battery health was down to 91%.
🤣
These were the factors that prompted me to pull the trigger and upgrade to my awesome 14PM in Space Black:
1. Always-On Display 🏆
2. Display and trim cosmetically perfect, shiny and new again. I wasn’t even going to put a screen protector on the 14PM, but I did. So far, so good. And while I’d rather not use a screen protector, I’m not entirely unhappy with it, considering that all it takes is one grain of sand to turn a display into what it was on my 13PM.
3. A brand new battery. Even though any potential, minor battery-power hit from the AOD was a non-issue as far as my decision to upgrade was concerned, I still wanted to go back to 100% battery health. There’s even the option to turn off the AOD, although I have no intention of doing that. I could really keep this phone until the 16 and even refresh it with a new battery installed for short money if I were to deem it necessary down the line.
Other small peculiar-to-me factors that played into my decision to upgrade this time around:
I’m no financial genius, and these phones aren’t something I sweat as far as resale value and all that goes. I don’t even pay for them outright. My carrier finances them interest-free in my bill. I payed off my 11 when I owed like $150 on it and gave it someone. With my 13PM, I was almost halfway done with paying for it, so I paid ~$150 to get me to that half-way point and traded it in for the 14PM…and the payments just continue. I don’t know what kind of financial sense that makes (if any at all), but I couldn’t care less.
My best advice: it sounds like you really want it. Just get what you want.
If I got the 15PM, I would definitely go caseless (as I did with my 13PM before and do now with my 14PM) to show off the titanium. I have AC+ these days for catastrophes, and again, have no idea or concern over the big-picture financial ramifications—I can’t be bothered to burden my brain about them when I don’t even feel them on something like this which is so useful to me and that I enjoy so much. In the grand scheme of things it’s such a small thing that’s not gonna solve (or increase) my everyday problems in any noticeable way.
