What helped me come to my conclusion is trying to come up with concrete examples, so like "I need a smartphone cause I need maps going to a place I've never been before" instead of "I need a smartphone for whatever it is I'm doing."

Then I can be like: well, the trip sends me to the boonies, so maybe I'll have a printed/offline map as a backup, just in case.

Yeah, this is the type of stuff I was referring to, not the map stuff, which can obviously be done without a phone.