Asklemmy

at the moment i use iphones have for several years. I buy a new phone when the old one isn't supported or when it is going so slow that it's borderline painful to use it. it ususally is no longer supported by that time .

I only buy crappy ones, so usually every 2-3 years, but this Samsung a06 is making me think I should buy a new phone after only 1 year because it's pretty bad!

I've had my current phone for about 5 years and am thinking of getting a new one this fall.

Somewhere between 3 & 4 years. Typically something has to go wrong with my current one.

I stopped buying new phones when I started running GrapheneOS on my phone. I bought a used pixel 8 thinking it would be supported by Google for 8 years. Needless to say I greatly underestimated Google doing evil things and not being absolute obstinate weasels on abiding by the GPL. Currently looking for options on running a cheap Linux phone to weigh what to swap to in the future.

5 years the last one.

The hardware, including battery, worked great. But it has been lacking updates for some years and I'm worried about vulnerabilities. LineageOS was also not available for this phone.

I bought a phone with 7 years updates and my initial intention is keeping it for 7 years. More if an stable and secure version of LineageOS is available down the line.

When it dies or becomes obsolete (~5 years)

I think it's a tech fanboys rather than Apple fanboys that change it every year : one can observe the same modus operandi for Samsung.

Most Apple users will keep their device for a while, just as most android users. Those that change tend to value peer recognition above eveything else and having the latest gadget is a way to achieve that goal.

Used to buy one every two years or so, either to upgrade or they had failed in some way. Used to spend $1000+ on them too, which is ridiculous looking back with how often they broke.

Had a $2000 phone stop charging and they refused to service it without a huge fee and shipping it oversees. (Asus for anyone wondering. I've fully gone off the brand since then. Very overpriced with terrible customer service.)

I was waiting for a call back after a job interview so I went and bought whatever cheap phone I could get and ended up with an oppo. That was in 2019 and it's still going perfectly fine. Phones haven't innovated at all since then and with how much they cost I kind of just don't care to upgrade.

I recieved my first phone in 2003 and as far as I can remember, I have owned 8 phones from 2003 to 2026.

I owned 4 phones from the ages of 14 to 19 From 20 to 30 I owned 3 phones. In my 30s I have so far only owned 1 phone. On average that means I have replaced my phones every 2.8 years.

Three of my phones were used phones I either bought from friends or got for cheap at phone stores because they had been display models.

My first phone was a nokia 3510i and I replaced it with a Sony Ericsson phone around 2005 because I wanted a camera phone and it was no longer cool to own one of the old school Nokia phones.

My next one was a bronze colored Sony Ericsson dumbphone and I think I got it in 2007. It fell into a river. We managed to save it, but it was never the same. I forget if I got it new or if this was a display model.

The one I got after that one was a purple phone, similarish to the bronze one. We are still in dumbphone land and I'm pretty sure it was 2008. I think it was one of my friends' old phones and I bought it from her because she felt sorry for me that my "river phone" was acting up.

The one after this one was in 2011 when I got my first smartphone. Xperia Ray, I think it was called. It lasted me 4 years and then fell out of my pocket when I ran across the road and it died a horrific death on asphalt.

I got myself a used dumbphone in order to stay in contact with people, but it genuinely sucked. It had been a display model at a store and it was dirt cheap and barely worked. This phone only lasted me some months before my temper could no longer handle it being so shit at everything. I don't even remember, what it looked like.

I finally bit the bullet and splurged on a smartphone. My first Andriod. I think it was called something-something "Edge". Broke easily. Couldn't handle shit. Definitely the weakest phone I ever had, productionwise. Somehow, it lasted me 7 years. Maybe out of stubbornness because I fucking hate spending money and if something has cost me more than a thousand in my country's currency, it better survive, bitch. One day, it simply just went black after two years of barely working.

The one I have now is also an Andriod. Got in 2022 and it was apparently a dated model when I bought it, but to me it was insanely futuristic compared to my other phones. The best thing about it is that I have dropped this bitch on nearly every type of hard surface you can think of, and it's barely got a scratch. I don't buy phone cases for my phones because I hate phone cases. I think this might be the best phone I have had since my Nokia 3510i. This thing takes every hit life gives it and it doesn't even flinch. The battery is still pretty good as well. I hope it will last me until 2032 at the earliest.

Every phone I buy for the rest of my life will only be replaced when I have no choice. I hate spending money and I increasingly hate modern phones.

My next phone will more than likely be a Fairphone.

Until death does us apart. On avg. that's 4 years and generally the first failure it's their battery life

i haven't bought a new phone for decade+.

daily driver is a 2013 phone. i do have newer phones i got from family members that stopped using them, but to me they're less comfortable than my old phone. gonna keep it till it breaks or Y2038 hits

Currently every 3 years for me. Normally it’s once the new models have enough added hardware features like better cameras, better microphones for video recording etc

It hasn’t been because my phone has been slow for many years because they’re at the point of being powerful even considering years of age.

I’ve only met one person who upgrades each year simply because a new phone is released yet myself and many others have iPhones.

I'm on my 18th phone in 29 years.

I worked in app development for half that time, so there was a strong incentive to be on the latest if there were any new innovations to support.

The thing about rich people is that they don't care about making responsible choices. $1000 is throwaway money to them when they have a $60,000 leased car and go to disney twice a year.

I own my Fairphone 4 for a bit over 4 years already. Bought a new battery once and some screen protectors. It's still doing great and I don't understand why I would need a new one any time soon.

1. When I have to or 2) when I want to, whichever comes first.

5 years before even thinking if I need to change. Mostly longer than that as long as it holds up well. We're well past the point of any meaningful upgrades in hardware. A flagship phone should last anyone a really long time.

I will use it until it stops being viable. This used to mean "until the battery dies", but I've also swapped batteries in phones not designed for it, and still had to get a new one as the batteries available weren't OEM and so bad they basically didn't work despite being new. Like phone always just turns off at like 40% charge. That isn't "viable" in my eyes.

Now I've got a Fairphone 5. It's only been a few years, but I'm planning on 10+ years if I can make it happen. In theory some new feature could get me to buy one sooner, but I highly doubt it. Hasn't happened in the past either.

My smartphone progression was as follows

• Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini (Don't remember when I got this one. I wish companies still made phones this small...)
• Huawei P9 Lite (Bought in 2016 I think)
• Xiaomi Mi 9T (Bought in 2019)
• Google Pixel 7 (Bought in 2023)

So far, none of my phones had to be replaced due to hardware failure or damage luckily. The S3 Mini simply got too old. When I upgraded, it could not even play a Youtube video in the app without lagging due to severe RAM limitations. I remember having a screenshot of the RAM usage that said I had less than a MiB of RAM remaining at some point.

My P9 lite was fine. At some point my grandmother decided she wanted a smartphone though and instead of buying a new one for herself she told me to upgrade and give her the old one. When that one got to slow for her, the cycle repeated with me giving her my Xiaomi Mi 9T and upgrading to the Pixel 7 which I use to this day.

I buy a phone when it runs into a problem I'm not easily able to deal with. Last upgrade was 5 years ago when the battery of my last phone was puffed up. IIRC getting a spare + tools to install it were going to cost about 2/3 as much as a new phone. Ideally it would last longer but it is what it is.

whenever my phone is so broken i cant fix it, i think i have had my current phone for 5 years and i am thinking about getting a pixel with graphene os for security and using my current phone as a mini vm box and practice htb machine

Normally I keep a phone until severe hardware failure (spicy pillow, broken digitizer, not charging...)

The only thing that has gotten me to upgrade was the Boox Palma 2 Pro for it's e-ink display specifically, due to eyestrain from reading on LCD, and my Galaxy A23 5G i received as a gift having its display start falling out (and fear of future storage/ram prices)

(technically almost a phone due SIMs only being supported for mobile data, but i use a flip phone for SIM-based calls/sms anyway)

When I developed for Android: every two or three years or so:

• HTC Magic
• Nexus One (one year later, but was gifted it by Google)
• Nexus 4
• Nexus 6 pro

At that point I changed jobs and had to pay for my own phone. Also, became a parent.

• Samsung Galaxy s8 - cracked the screen after half a year in a child-related incident. Kept going for a while.
• Samsung galaxy s10 - cracked the screen quite fast in a sleep deprivation related incident.
• Google Pixel Pro 7 (At this point I started wrapping my phone in mous.
• Samsung Galaxy S26 ultra (I won this in a competition, but didn't need to replace my old phone)

So... I never felt like I needed to chase new features after I stopped working with android development, and really, the wild development rush pretty much stopped, but I kept changing phones because I kept breaking them all of a sudden.

When the old one is no longer suitable for use as a primary phone:

• Nexus 5 - broke the screen. Actually still mostly works to this day, and I have Android 9 on it.
• Sony X Compact - small onboard storage, Android's crappy SD card support, and a lack of quality third-party ROMs after official support ended shortened this one's service life.
• Pixel 4a - current phone, don't want to "upgrade" to something that's bigger and doesn't have a headphone jack, mildly annoyed the fingerprint sensor broke.

I used to upgrade every 2 years until I got an iPhone 15 Pro. I was going to ride or die with my 13 mini but I really wanted to get all my devices on usb-c. I splurged on my current phone with the intention to keep it for a long time. Going on 3 years now.

I used to go hard on the androids with rooting and customizing. I’ve since resigned myself to wanting a phone that “just works.”

About every 4 years.

i strategically bought a cheap s20 for ~80$ to wait some time for the market to be better. ~6 months later i bought a waay better phone, for a good price&quality.
the s20 had a huge black spot of broken pixels.
i still use it (its in my packpack RN). decent for extra storage or even LLM(slm). but the screen is flickering so i need to get the screen replaced ..etc

i swear the apple v android articles are fodder pumped out by media companies because it’s easy ad money.

don’t get me wrong, conspicuous consumption has ruined some people’s ability to own their identity but outside of brand fanaticism surely “normal” customers purchase phones based on when they need it. When do you buy bread? Typically when you want to eat something which has bread.

perhaps not the point of the original question but surely we’re getting beyond the point of being baited by low-quality online content.

Usually it's about 5-7 years for me, depends on when the battery starts being too annoying to keep charged

Finally smashed the screen on my ~4 year old Sony Xperia 1 IV recently. I got a used screen (and a new battery while I was at it) off AliExpress. Cost about $400 but it feels brand new, so hopefully i'll get a good few more years out of it.

Just smashed my iphone 11 in a derailer, which is a railroad related accident.

I had bought it used about 8 years ago, the iPhone 11, and took the opportunity to spend 500$ on a pixel 10a and put graphene OS on it.

Funny story: I set up the duress password, and afterwards, was setting up new users. Well one of the new users I setup us3d the same pin as as the duress password! D'Oh! Anyways... The duress pin works! Had to go to cricket to implement a new esim! Lol.

Love the phone tho!

I got my first smartphone in 2014, and I'm on my third now, so once every 4 years on average. Hoping the graphene motorola will be out when my current pixel goes EoL in 2027.

I'm still using my Galaxy Note 9 from 2018