Curious to see what the trends are
I’m the kind of nerd who tracks this kind of thing, so here is a list of the number of months between purchasing each phone I’ve owned, from newest to oldest:
5, 44, 47, 28, 23, 18, 46, 40
The first number is 5 months from my latest phone purchase to the present day. I’m not looking to replace this device any time soon. The previous two phones I owned lasted a decent amount of time, nearly 4 years each. Before that I was buying cheaper second hand phones that didn’t last as long. And if you go way back, the final two devices are pre-smartphone era where phones were simpler with less to go wrong and less need to upgrade.
Do you keep this kind of data on other areas of your life?
I know everything I’ve spent on video games/gaming hardware since 2016, and all the books I’ve read in the last couple of years.
My current (Android, custom ROM that still gets updates) phone is 6 years old. I tend to upgrade when the phone breaks, the battery gives up, I hear of some severe vulnerability, or even these updates stop. As a replacement I get something used in the $100-150 range, so at least a couple years old. Maybe every 5 years or so.
Edit: The power bank is my friend.
When I’m forced to. My most recent phone was free because carries were upgrading to 5g and I was still rocking 3g. Same story with the phone before that but it was some other network thing I can’t remember. I haven’t paid for a phone in almost 10 years.
When it stops receiving security updates.
When it stops receiving OS version updates
Only when forced to by the phone breaking, switching providers, or, as in the case of my last phone, when they shut down a network (2G).
My iPhone 8 from 2017 is still going strong, it replaced an iPhone 4 (2011-ish I think) when WhatsApp, the bank’s app, and other important applications stopped working. I guess I’ll have to switch later this year or maybe next since the battery life is getting too short and summers hit it good. I hope they make the iPhone 16 tough cause it has to last me until the put out the 32 to keep on this neat powers of two progression lol.
3-5 years
I replaced my last phone after a year because my sister’s phone broke. I gave her my s20 and bought a Pixel 7 because I wanted root
I usually keep my phone until it has degraded / become so incredibly slow, that I can’t use it properly anymore.
