A new survey reveals users are waiting longer to upgrade. Over 49% of readers now wait three years for a new smartphone.
Bought realme 8 4G 8gb ram 128 gb storage phone in 15k inr in 2021 (167 dollars) using it still… Thinking of upgrading before 2026 bcuz phone prices will surge after 2026 bcuz of ram and all…
I just upgraded my phone from my previous 2019 device
I didn’t even bother with new. I just bought a used high end phone.
I have a five year old Pixel 4A running LineageOS. I limit battery charge with AccA to ensure it doesn’t wear out.
The phone reports its battery capacity at 93%. I have no plans to replace it unless I break it,
Haha, basically the same. I actually bought another 4a 5G a year or two ago to replace my old one that died because I want to run GrapheneOS and it was the last model with a headphone jack.
Indeed. My Sony Xperia 5 II is 5 years old, still works fine and has the latest updates thanks to LineageOS. And completely devoid of any Google apps.
The battery life is pretty terrible though, I should replace it.
My phone is close to 5 years old. I’m honestly quite happy with it still.
I’ve always pushed my devices to the point of them becoming so slow an broken that they’re basically unusable. My current one is from 2022 and I consider it practically new. Haven’t even needed to replace the battery yet which is removable as were the ones on my previous devices as well. Modern phones are so uninteresting anyway that I don’t really even have a desire to upgrade. I’d just be losing features - not gaining new ones.
I’m part of the proud “when your current phone breaks” 30%: my current phone is 4~5 years old, and I’m really not planning to replace it.
Yep, me too, but my Sony xperia 5ii has a few issues like no fingerprint reader and a battery that only lasts 3/4 of a day with light use, plus no updates for the past 3 years…
Might have to go fairphone soon
Only really use my phone to call family on Christmas and to receive SMS verification codes. Got a brick phone currently but thinking when I replace it I might go for a cheap second hand Android as it’s cheaper than a new nokia.
Could stick comaps on it and a few other APKs then never connect it to the internet again. Also CEX kinda give a better guarantee on second hand goods than most manufacturers do on new, pretty sure its only in store credit but it’s 5 years, just get another phone in a similar price range. Plus the store credit lasts forever. As you get it in a voucher, your replacement phones 5 years would start from when you buy it.
A modern cell phone at this point has no reason not to work for decades.
Decades is a stretch
However it should work for 4-7 years
It doesn’t because you run out of security updates after 5 to 6 years. Which I hate. But nowadays switching to android alternatives is an option once a phone is no longer supported.
Or Apple which is surprisingly good in that department, my sister’s iphone 11 is still receiving updates.
I would install Lineage on day 1
It didn’t have to be this way. I can run modern Linux on 20+ year old PCs.
As much as I detest Apple, they do work really well as work phones. My work phone is an iPhone 12. Outside of the somewhat degraded battery life because it’s 5 years old, it still works flawlessly.
That said, I haven’t updated it to iOS 26 yet, even though it’s available. My wife’s 16PM is running iOS 26 and she is not happy with the “upgrade”.
My last phone upgrade was in part because my previous phone didn’t have NFC, which is a significant technology nowadays. I wonder what’s going to motivate my next one, if it’s gonna be general performance, software support, or some hardware feature (like wifi… was it 7? That allocates a separate band for each device, so it doesn’t shit itself when you use more than 1 device in a large area).
They need to have a working spare parts program first. If your phone is busted you should have an option other than “overpay and wait a week for it to be shipped to the repair factory where it might be data wiped” or “hope the repair shop guy isn’t lying about original parts and is competent enough to install them/know if they are original”
I upgrade every 4 years or so, and that’s really only because it’s also when battery life usually declines.
These days the only improvement seems to be memory, storage and camera. Somehow I feel some of those will stagnate.
But the new Samsung s28, it’s totally a bigger number than what you have now.
I’m really surprised that 256 GB is still the maximum many today’s phones offer. My phone from 2018 has that amount of storage. I know there are a few that offer 512 but after 8 years I would expect the baseline to be higher and terabyte area to be the norm in the higher end phones.
Compare that to 2010 vs 2018.
512GB variant is going to be rare. There was a time in 2023 when you could get a midrange phone with 1TB of storage.
Now, all they talk about are downgrades. Greed has been affecting us all this time.
If you sell people a phone with enough storage in it you can’t sell them subscription-based cloud storage
I understand that with Pixels and iPhones, as they’re made by the same companies that sell cloud space. Is there a Samsung cloud?
Samsung did make 1tb phone models. Not sure if they still do. When I got my s24, 1tb was an option.
I got the S24+, and my wife got the S25+, and I swear they are the exact same phone.
The changes we are seeing year over year are minute and iterative - gone are the days of anything “revolutionary” driving you to get the latest model every year.
I literally have a laptop in my pocket, and until we can make huge leaps in battery technology (i.e. good, fast, and cheap), I don’t think we’ll be seeing a need to update our phones for 2-5 years easy.
The bitter truth about electronics:
I think things are reaching a plateau for technical and economic reasons.
They can always release updates to make the apps you use obsolete forcing hardware upgrade quoting security reasons
Not when you don’t use Google Play services, they can’t.
I bought a Poco X3 NFC for £200ish in Dec 2020. I’ve been bored of the phone for a few months and started looking around for a new one, but there’s nothing out there that seems worth the “upgrade”, certainly in a similar price bracket. I’d generally lose a headphone jack and/or an SD card slot and gain erm… a more up to date Android version, I guess. I’d maybe get a better camera, but given my aging eyes and lack of skill are probably the limiting factors in my photography, I don’t realy see the benefit. I only play puzzle-type games and don’t do anything particularly graphic intensive, so where’s the incentive to subject myself to even more intrusive AI nonsense and built in adverts that seem to be unavoidable in budget phones.
You could consider older flagship phones if you can get one at a reasonable price.
I really feel the pressure to upgrade from my S9 but, with ability to install a decent OS on it, I have a choice between a Motorola with the same specs as my current phone, so not much of an upgrade, or a Pixel/Fairphone without 3.5mm or even SD slot.
Yeah, having an audio jack and filled SD slot really discourages “upgrading”.
Fyi: The Fairphone has an SD-slot. No 3.5mm though
No 3.5mm though
They really shot themselves in the foot with this one. The kind of people on the market for a device like Fairphone tend to appreciate features like this. There’s no downside to including a headphone jack even if you don’t need it.
I was a batch 2 owner of the FairPhone 1, the FairPhone 2, the FairPhone 3+ . . . and just a month ago upgraded to the new FairPhone 6. And a guy who absolutely loathes Bluetooth earbuds. Yet I don’t miss the 3.5mm jack for a simple reason . . . wired USB-C earbuds are a thing. I picked up a cheap set from JBL and never thought about the 3.5mm jack again.
Yes, I agree . . . they could have/should have stuck with it. But honestly . . it’s no huge loss.
It’s hard to make water/dust resistant devices with the 3.5mm jack. It was designed to be simple not water resistant. Contacts are close, it’s an hole so water and dust hang out there. Some problems are shared by more modern ports (e.g., iPhone not charging because dust in the lightning jack) but to less extent. This is why they disappeared. Before it was a “must have” and producers had to either put more/better material or have a lower IP rations. After Apple showed that 90% of the people didn’t care, the others followed suits.
No one is looking at the fucking water proof ratings. My phone is 9 years old and has had no problem with either water or dust. I dgaf about how difficult it is to have the port. Phones these days are 2x (or more) as expensive as mine was and we gained nothing by removing them. It wasn’t about afforability. It was about cutting costs and selling earbuds to mindless consumers who only care about watching slop on tiktok.
I don’t buy that. Samsung XCover 6 Pro has a headphone jack and a removable battery and it’s IP68 rated.
I am not saying it cannot be done, I am saying that it’s hard… that means more expensive… that means that either the final price is higher or the specs are lower or there are other compromises for reducing the cost (e.g., not updating the operating system)
Oh, yeah that’s why all the modern phones that don’t have ports are so cheap…
I know, still a downgrade though.
Dont love that they lumped basically everything over 3 together. Its likely in large part because a lot of phone contracts have you paying off your phone in 3 years so that’s when the carrier starts bombarding you with deals for trading in your phone.
Three years… amateurs. If my Note10+ still had software support I probably could go another couple of years.
…And given they’ve taken some features away on the S25 Ultra and S26 Ultra, I’m not actually sure I want to pay such a premium price to stay with Samsung (as much as I do like this device).
You could consider the Fairphone 6 with its 8yrs of security updates and 5yrs of warranty.
