How long do you keep your phone?

[Founders]

I tend to keep my phone for 3 years. I keep it long enough to get my money's worth but not so long that it slows down to a crawl coping with more demanding tasks. The phone usually has enough residual value to trade in towards a new phone to help offset some of the cost of the upgrade. The new phone always brings significant gains in performance and features, something those that upgrade more frequently may not appreciate as much. So, how often do you go for an upgrade?

[MartinKweh]

2 years. i always buy mid/low range phones so they tend to slow down a lot faster. my current phone costs like $120

[Drak3]

Until I can't tolerate it.

 

Which, for Android phones, is a year at most.

[amdorintel]

until my phone breaks or is too slow or the battery is buggered

5 years sometimes 8 years

i buy cheap phones, my last phone was a $150 brand new phone, prepaid from Telus, but I put it on Rogers instead.

 

 

previous phones were used iphones 4 and one was suppose to be a 4 but the guy sent out a 5 instead, batteries are toast.

 

 

 

 

[RonnieOP]

Depends on what deal are available.

 

Im really tempted to go from a note 9 to a iphone 11. i only owe $300 on the note 9 in monthly payments and my carrier is willing to give $500in trade in credits. My phone is fine but im still tempted.

[Xiee]

I only change my phone when I have money to buy a new one. My current one is a Pocophone F1 which I got last September 2018. Before that I had a Lenovo (forgot the model) phone that I kept for 3 years. The only reason why I bought the Pocophone was because my Lenovo got stolen. 

Right now, I'm in no rush to buy a new phone since my Pocophone is quite adequate for daily use.

[SenKa]

Depends on the circumstances. I had my XS Max for a year and a half because I got a killer deal on my 11 Pro Max I have now. (Paid $183 for it out the door)

 

Prior to that I had a Note 8, which I got rid of on the exact day my 2y contract ran out, I began to hate that thing as the software experience was so bad by the time I got rid of it. Prior to that I had a slide phone which I kept for 3 years because I couldn't afford a new phone sooner

[Founders]

10 minutes ago, Caroline said:

Almost 12 years and it works so I plan to keep it until it breaks, if it breaks

So just for calls and the occasion text I'm guessing?

 

4 minutes ago, SenKa said:

Depends on the circumstances. I had my XS Max for a year and a half because I got a killer deal on my 11 Pro Max I have now. (Paid $183 for it out the door)

 

Prior to that I had a Note 8, which I got rid of on the exact day my 2y contract ran out, I began to hate that thing as the software experience was so bad by the time I got rid of it. Prior to that I had a slide phone which I kept for 3 years because I couldn't afford a new phone sooner

How the hell did you pull that off, did it fall off the back of a truck? 

[SenKa]

1 minute ago, Ehmc130 said:

So just for calls and the occasion text I'm guessing?

 

How the hell did you pull that off, did it fall off the back of a truck? 

Nope, brand new! Part of my work involves collecting phones that people would otherwise throw away, and I live ~30 minutes outside of a fairly well off area. Whole bunch of free or near-free iPhone 6s' later, + my XS Max which was gifted to me.

[Kilrah]

Some years ago when there was actual progress with consecutive models of a line I used to upgrade every year with the new model, but nowadays I tend to switch brands and it's "whenever I find something that interests me", aka not that often.

[Founders]

Just now, SenKa said:

Nope, brand new! Part of my work involves collecting phones that people would otherwise throw away, and I live ~30 minutes outside of a fairly well off area. Whole bunch of free or near-free iPhone 6s' later, + my XS Max which was gifted to me.

Good for you, enjoy!

[SenKa]

Just now, Ehmc130 said:

Good for you, enjoy!

One thing that kind of annoyed me, Apple dropped the trade in price of an XS Max from $120 to 100 the day BEFORE I managed to free up time to show up...

 

Loving my 11 Pro Max, though I have experienced the seemingly common gouged glass issue that Linus mentioned in his review. I am in talks with Apple's engineers about fixing it.

[dizmo]

I get a new phone every year.

[Techicolors]

i had my last 2 phones for about 2 years each. intend to keep my current phone for 2 years as well, maybe longer since apple is pretty good at support 

[Bombastinator]

Until it’s more expensive to repair than to replace, or until it can’t receive security updates.

[Kisai]

44 minutes ago, Ehmc130 said:

I tend to keep my phone for 3 years. I keep it long enough to get my money's worth but not so long that it slows down to a crawl coping with more demanding tasks. The phone usually has enough residual value to trade in towards a new phone to help offset some of the cost of the upgrade. The new phone always brings significant gains in performance and features, something those that upgrade more frequently may not appreciate as much. So, how often do you go for an upgrade?

 

Let's see, I have actual dates for when I replaced my phones:

199x, let's be honest, I didn't own a cell phone. I had access to a startac.

The first phone that was actuallly "mine" was a Motorola T193. It was rubbish, circa 2001, 1900Mhz-only band and the coverage was rubbish.

I bought a Nokia from a co-worker ... I have no idea, I never had the original faceplate. That lasted me while I worked at the cell phone call center, and then I replaced it with a Nokia 6200 when EDGE was new... from apparently a former customer via ebay roughly 2003.

That lasted until 2007 when Nokia N95's came out. 

That got retired in 2015 when I got the iPhone 6S, which then died in 2018 when updated to iOS 12 and quit charging and Apple won't repair it because the AppleCare just ended.

That was replaced with the XS, and I tell ya, if it dies just outside of AppleCare I'm done with smartphones.

 

All the Nokia's I unlocked or came unlocked. I have NEVER bought a mobile phone from a wireless carrier. 

 

I also wouldn't recommend changing/switching phones until 5G has been completely rolled out. I make my purchase decisions along technology changes

So the T193 to the Nokia went from single-band to triband. That one was replaced with an EDGE device, and the N95(NAM-3) was a UMTS device. The iPad (2012) was the first LTE device I bought, and the iPhone was purchased mainly because it was capable of doing 4K video and could replace all the gear I normally travel with.

 

[Mihle]

Usually keep a phone untill the battery is so bad that I feel I need one, or that it breaks, usually the battery thing happen first. The last two phones I have had about 3 ish years, so that's what I voted.

 

If you ask why I then don't just replace the battery, thats because I buy midrange phones, aka 500€ max (my current one was 400€, and it's good), and then it's just usually not worth it. And it at that point usually have lots of scratches and stuff and at least on my previous phone, I started fighting with the storage space getting filled up.

[Arika]

when the battery no longer lasts a full work day.

[Flying Sausages]

When my phone no work anymore.

[Gegger]

I've had my Nexus 5(technically my mom's but whatever), it works for what i need it to.

 

before i got it, my mom/me replaced the "non-replaceable" battery

 

i'd just change it when it either breaks or i can't use it for my use case. which takes a long time to do

[NineEyeRon]

I always buy upper mid range Apple so 4 years at least.

 

My iPhone 7 and my wife’s XR perform pretty much identical so that convinced me to keep the 7 for another year.

[minibois]

My current phone is 3 years old and I have little to no reason to upgrade. I would if I played games or took pictures on my phone.. But I don't.

 

[Radioactive Snowman]

Usually around 3-6 months, I get bored pretty fast so I'm constantly swapping it out to see what I like best. In the last year I've gone from note 9 -> iPhone Xs -> note 9 -> S10 -> iPhone Xs Max -> OnePlus 7t Pro. I am aiming to keep the oneplus for around a year before switching to the iPhone 12 Pro Max or whatever it ends up being called.

[DoctorNick]

3-4 years or until it breaks. But I'm thinking on getting a new phone because I don't receive any new updates and haven't for about 1½ year and... It's Huawei. 

[GenericFanboy]

Usually i get a new phone every 2 years. seeing as my subscription ends and i can start a new one. Usually this isnt a problem. But because i have a foreign passport and they changed the rules here, i cant get a new one right now. And i'm trying to figure out how to do it otherwise. (Ofcourse buying a phone would work. But thats a bit troublesome for me.)