Service life of a phone

[BiotechBen]

Hey guys, trying to convince a family member that phones have a scheduled upgrade cycle of about 2 years, and he will hear none of it. He had an LG G3 that he used for like 6 years and claimed the TMobile warranty on repeatedly.

 

 

Additionally: anyone with a Pixel who can back me up on the "it only lasts 2 years"

[IBM_THINKPAD_R51]

5 minutes ago, BiotechBen said:

Hey guys, trying to convince a family member that phones have a scheduled upgrade cycle of about 2 years, and he will hear none of it. He had an LG G3 that he used for like 6 years and claimed the TMobile warranty on repeatedly.

 

 

Additionally: anyone with a Pixel who can back me up on the "it only lasts 2 years"

based on how heavy u use ur phone the battery might not last more than 2-3 years.. but tbh its a waist to keep upgrading ur phone every 2 years...maybe 6 years is too much though. Id personally just upgrade when the andriod version stops receiving security updates. I for example used a Honor 6x until 3 years ago then i went to an S9 that i got cheap off ebay and last month got a note 10+

[Zando_]

My parents used meh-tier androids with slide out keyboards for like.... 3-4+ years before finally swapping over to iPhones a few years back. Nowhere near flagships, they still kicked for double that 2 year estimate. 

[Motifator]

My Realme X2 Pro is coming closer to its 3rd year, I always use it at full performance and don't really give attention to charge cycle percentages... still kicks butt, charge lasts many days... it might have been a flagship back then, but still. More modern phones with Cortex-A72 cores based on the 778 Snappy and such, do the battery management even better than the 855+ of this phone. So they should last even longer technically. Buying shit phones is another story.

[BiotechBen]

2 minutes ago, Zando_ said:

My parents used meh-tier androids with slide out keyboards for like.... 3-4+ years before finally swapping over to iPhones a few years back. Nowhere near flagships, they still kicked for double that 2 year estimate. 

That's why I said modern, those keyboard slide phones were the GOAT. I had an LG Cosmos Touch 2 and that thing was unkillable. Two washes, a dog, a hurricane outside, and physical abuse and it never missed a beat.

[BiotechBen]

4 minutes ago, IBM_THINKPAD_R51 said:

based on how heavy u use ur phone the battery might not last more than 2-3 years.. but tbh its a waist to keep upgrading ur phone every 2 years...maybe 6 years is too much though. Id personally just upgrade when the andriod version stops receiving security updates. I for example used a Honor 6x until 3 years ago then i went to an S9 that i got cheap off ebay and last month got a note 10+

I agree, which is why I keep trying to get him to buy a better phone, but all he cares about is price.

[SkilledRebuilds]

I can't really talk, still rocking a SS Note 9 (like Linus), it gets updates still.
But if it didn't get updates, I'd still keep it until it fails or the battery goes to hell, it's already shows signs of this, but not that intrusive at all yet.

It'll be replaced I'm sure within another 2 years though...

[jaslion]

If you take care of it and arent afraid of replacinf the battery its an easy 4+ years.

 

Quite literally still have an in use one plus one. It runs fine and smooth after 8 years of use. Battered and bruised but on battery nr 4 and going strong. Lg g3 is from the same time and no surprise it lasted 6 years with the super easy battery changing.

 

As for the pixel. My og pixel (small) is still going and in active use by my bf to this day. Just got a new battery last year in it (was actually very easy) and its zooming along very well + the camera stays good.

 

 

Phones dont have a 2 year lifecycle like at all. They have a fabricated 2 year lifecycle because batteries are hard to replace. So many people in 1997-2010 used the same phone for 5+ years without even batting an eye. They did what they had to do and that was all that mattered. Hell my mom used her 3310 for 14 years and it didnt break she just wanted a camera

[IBM_THINKPAD_R51]

Just now, BiotechBen said:

I agree, which is why I keep trying to get him to buy a better phone, but all he cares about is price.

the budget motorola phones are really good for the price

[BiotechBen]

2 minutes ago, IBM_THINKPAD_R51 said:

the budget motorola phones are really good for the price

That's what I'm trying to push, but he is a man of a certain age and follows the Gospel According to Consumer Reports and will not hear anything that contradicts that. (Stubborn old Irish man)

[IBM_THINKPAD_R51]

3 minutes ago, BiotechBen said:

That's what I'm trying to push, but he is a man of a certain age and follows the Gospel According to Consumer Reports and will not hear anything that contradicts that. (Stubborn old Irish man)

my dad used to be like that until he was literally forced to upgrade from his galaxy s4 because his trading app no longer supported andriod 4 ...tbh just wait till then

[Takumidesh]

18 minutes ago, BiotechBen said:

Additionally: anyone with a Pixel who can back me up on the "it only lasts 2 years"

I got a nexus 6 near release at the end of 2014 and replaced it with a pixel 4a about 2 years ago. The only reason I stopped using it was because i dropped it off of a scaffold about 20 feet onto concrete and it exploded.

 

Had it not done that I probably would still be using it to this day.

 

[BiotechBen]

24 minutes ago, Takumidesh said:

I got a nexus 6 near release at the end of 2014 and replaced it with a pixel 4a about 2 years ago. The only reason I stopped using it was because i dropped it off of a scaffold about 20 feet onto concrete and it exploded.

 

Had it not done that I probably would still be using it to this day.

 

He loved his pixel until it suspiciously started malfunctioning about 2 weeks before the launch of the newest pixel.

[JamesVX]

21 hours ago, BiotechBen said:

Hey guys, trying to convince a family member that phones have a scheduled upgrade cycle of about 2 years, and he will hear none of it. He had an LG G3 that he used for like 6 years and claimed the TMobile warranty on repeatedly.

 

 

Additionally: anyone with a Pixel who can back me up on the "it only lasts 2 years"

My pixel 4a 5g battery swollen before reaching 2 year. Yet my pixel 3xl is still working fine, guess the build quality difference in diffrerent product line is a large factor

[Zodiark1593]

I've had a hand-me-down LG Optimus 2X (Tegra 2) up to about 2015, and then picked up a used LG G2 that lasted me a couple years, when I literally used superglue to keep the thing together. My current device, an iPhone 11, is going strong, 2 and a half years later.

 

21 hours ago, BiotechBen said:

I agree, which is why I keep trying to get him to buy a better phone, but all he cares about is price.

If he doesn't want to buy a new phone, then the most helpful thing you can do is to stop trying to push him. If the phone does what he needs, there's no reason to upgrade, and if not, you can't help someone that doesn't want help anyway.