Does this mean that if someone already owns an iPhone 7 and does not want to upgrade to the newest iPhone XS or XR, the most frugal thing to do is keep using it and maybe replace the battery rather than buy a new Android phone?
They already own a device that is just as fast as a new Android device and has at least as many years of support coming to it.
The reasons to upgrade would be increased performance and the battery life improvements you would pick up from moving to an iPhone XR.
>The contrast to the best Android SoCs have to offer is extremely stark – both in terms of performance as well as in power efficiency. Apple’s SoCs have better energy efficiency than all recent Android SoCs while having a nearly 2x performance advantage. I wouldn’t be surprised that if we were to normalise for energy used, Apple would have a 3x performance lead.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/13392/the-iphone-xs-xs-max-re...
Perhaps that is worth the puchase price to you and perhaps it is not.