cheesemp
Recently due to high costs of child care had to downgrade from my usual mid-high (~£300) end phone to a £94 open box deal Wileyfox swift 2x. In theory its got a lot less tech than my old phone (moto z) and should be a lot slower (Snapdragon 820 > 420). In practice it feels about the same except for the odd website. I'm also not noticing the lack of mechanical optical stabilisation on the camera - the pictures look equally good. It really has got to the point where a £100 device is no longer just ‘ok’ but very good. Manufactures are really get desperate to find the next best thing to help them stand out but lets be honest all this is, well rather pointless unless you want to show off to your mates…
For me OIS is essential for a camera (my DSLR has it built into the sensor) as I shake like the proverbial dog and as I want to use my phone as a primary camera (for better or worse) that limits my choice. Add in the joys of demanding a 3.5mm jack and choice kinda goes out of the window. I think people forget that the well received HTC One M7 didn't have a high end SoC, but a mid range one which was well optimised. As ‘revolutionary’ developments stagnate, they're gradually refining the software as the engineers need to justify their jobs so their focus changes. Also there's only so much software can do on a phone and so as the lower end SoCs develop more sssspppppeeed it's just going to get better.
I think you're right, the high end phones are all frantically looking for something new. Bixby was just a pain and was disabled almost immediately. I did used to use Google Assistant quite a lot as there were times when I was crippled, laid on the bed in a position that wasn't quite agony and didn't want to even move my arm to change my distraction of choice. I have never missed the featuires of Bixby and I kind of resent the sheer amount of R&D money that I have paid towards for a feature that isn't just not used, but actively got in the way.