Still contemplating about buying a new phone even if it's in the next 4 months.
Option 1 - Get the most certain future proofing specs that I could possibly afford on the upper limits of my budget, with an enabled possible future modding.
No need for optimization but it is possible. But it could be a bit more fragile than my current phone...
The alternative is risk buying from a dubious online shop for a fraction of a price.
Who knows? I might get lucky and away with it.
Option 2 - Stay within the brand, and just get an upgrade. Forget future modding and possibilities of optimization.
Play it safe. No need on going to a bigger change. Just plain upgrade within the budget.
Another alternative is, well, not buy a new phone. Forget it. I'll just keep all my money.
Not letting go of my current one until it actually gave out on me, which it never did warranted any repairs at all for the past 4 years now.
So -- why not in the next, or 2, another 4, or heck, 8 or so years?
Option 3 - Give up the upgrades and heightened specs, go full on optimization and possible work of modding instead.
And save a lot of money (like spend by half). Also give up on a lot of screen time.
The last alternative is... Keep my money.
And then bug one of my relatives to give away or trade mine for a second hand phone they're trying to sell or replace to toy with.
My mom has one. My grand uncle has one. One of my aunts can. Get a second phone that I will modify into full on optimized; restore to factory settings, rooted, unlocked bootloader, flash a lighter OS, de-bloated as much as possible, and then some.
There.
I have 6 possible choices to mumble about in the next 4 months.