When I was young I didn't care much for phone, I got my first in 2010 after a mishap where my parents didn't pick me up for 5 hours after my finals. I don't even remember the model or brand, that's how much I cared. I used my phone for phoning and that's it. Initially the rise of touch phones seemed quaint to me, I had a computer at home why would I need this?
But there came a time when touch phones weren't as expensive and in the end after my second phone died I got a middle-end samsung. Ironic as a few years prior, Samsung was ubiquitous with "no signal" in my mind. But then I discovered the power of actually having a minicomp with internet anywhere. It became even more obvious when my phone fukken died in a middle of a three months trip to Japan, boy I tell you I realized how easier everything is when you have one of those. Sinc I was in Japan I then bought... another middle-end Samsung Galaxy J13 cuz it was around 150 euros and I had no imagination (or money). This one became very unreliable during Covid and I changed it for ANOTHER middle-end Samsung Galaxy M12 which serves me well with its 4Go of memory, enough to run 50 tabs on chrome bromite cromite.
All my previous phones died after 4 years, the current one I bought three years ago and show no sign of age, I'm crossing my fingers hoping it will last longer than the others.
I used my phone for almost everything, mail, messaging, web browsing, navigation, calendar, photos, music, file transfers, translation, youtube NewPipe, calculator, choosing who goes first in board games... It's way too useful for me to even think getting rid of it.
