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I want to use "would rather... than" to show a comparison like this:

I'd rather buy Phone-1 than buy Phone-2.

I learned about it from Oxford Dictionary:

would rather… (than) - (usually reduced to ’d rather) would prefer

Example: to She'd rather die than give a speech.

But as you can see, both sides have a different verb (die and give) but in my case it is same, i.e., buy.

Alternatively, I found another definition which seems slightly easy to me:

rather than - ​instead of somebody/something

I think I'll have a cold drink rather than coffee.

So my sentence would become:

I'd buy Phone-1 rather than Phone-2.

Which seems correct to me because in definition, there are different words (cold drink and coffee). And similarly, in my sentence (Phone-1 and Phone-2). But still I want to learn the use of first definition.

So I'm not sure if it's correct or not. So is it okay to use it like this or incorrect?

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  • Note that as well as "deleting" predictably repeated verbs, we can also delete other elements. So with I'd rather have a cold drink than have a hot drink we can discard the repeated verb as I'd rather have a cold drink than a hot drink, but we can also delete the repeated noun I'd rather have a cold drink than hot. But in that context we can't delete only the noun element - I'd rather have a cold drink than have [a] hot is definitely not acceptable to this native speaker.
    – FumbleFingers
    Jul 27, 2021 at 11:59

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Yes, you can say 'I'd buy Phone-1 rather than Phone-2', but it would be more usual to say 'I'd rather buy Phone-1 than Phone-2' without repeating the verb.

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  • So my first example was okay but I just have to remove repeated verb right?
    – Vikas
    Jul 27, 2021 at 9:46
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    Yes, that is what I meant.
    – Kate Bunting
    Jul 27, 2021 at 9:48

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