How long do you keep your smartphone for?

ian

ian

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I am just curious how long do you keep your smartphones for. I usually kept a phone for two years+
The nexus 5 was the only phone I had for one year before I bought the note 4.
To buy outright, a phone can cost as much as a computer, which I don't upgrade for well over 5+ years
I am trying to get off the tech merry go round and see how long I can keep this phone before I will break and buy a new one. Its money I would rather put in shares or invest.
 
I usually only keep my phone for the 2 year contract length and then upgrade. However, my provider is Sprint and by the end of this year they are getting rid of the 2 year contracts. So you are left with 3 options

1. paying for the full price of the phone outright which I will not do
2. pay monthly payments to lease the phone at which time when the lease is over you have to give up the phone and get a new one.
3. pay monthly payments to buy the phone and yours to keep at the end of the term.

My 2 year contract is up in February but technically can upgrade now if I wanted by doing the lease or the sprint easy pay method. I have the Note 3 which I had it on Kit Kat and upgraded to Lollipop. The battery life sucks now, I used to get almost 2 full days of battery on kit kat and now can't even get a full day on Lollipop.

So I may just keep this phone until it dies. My girlfriend and daughter contracts won't end until July and August of next year so may just hold off until then to get new phones. I think if we lease phones then we don't have to pay insurance on them, wouldn't think so anyway?
 
Computers don't move, so they don't get near the abuse of a phone.

I don't do contracts anymore, so my only option is to pay full price. I do that whenever I feel my phone can't do what I need it to anymore. Or I break it.
 
johnb35 said:
I usually only keep my phone for the 2 year contract length and then upgrade. However, my provider is Sprint and by the end of this year they are getting rid of the 2 year contracts. So you are left with 3 options

1. paying for the full price of the phone outright which I will not do
2. pay monthly payments to lease the phone at which time when the lease is over you have to give up the phone and get a new one.
3. pay monthly payments to buy the phone and yours to keep at the end of the term.

My 2 year contract is up in February but technically can upgrade now if I wanted by doing the lease or the sprint easy pay method. I have the Note 3 which I had it on Kit Kat and upgraded to Lollipop. The battery life sucks now, I used to get almost 2 full days of battery on kit kat and now can't even get a full day on Lollipop.

So I may just keep this phone until it dies. My girlfriend and daughter contracts won't end until July and August of next year so may just hold off until then to get new phones. I think if we lease phones then we don't have to pay insurance on them, wouldn't think so anyway?
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lollipop was meant to improve battery life over kit kat, I never noticed any drop in battery life when switching to lollipop.
I never get more than a days use, but then I use my phone all the time. Do you have a spare battery?
I dont know what the deals are like in America, but here you usually sign up for a two year contract. At the end of the two years you own the phone outright with no additional payments required. You can either sell it and get a new phone on a new contract or, you can keep your old phone and switch to a cheaper sim only plan which does not include any handset repayments.
Troncoso said:
Computers don't move, so they don't get near the abuse of a phone.

I don't do contracts anymore, so my only option is to pay full price. I do that whenever I feel my phone can't do what I need it to anymore. Or I break it.
Click to expand...
Although I have dropped my phones quite a few times, I always use a case on them so they dont get a lot of abuse, well not yet.
I havent bought a phone on contract in the past ten years, I always buy them outright and just get a cheaper month to month sim only plan with no lock in contract.
 
I had a tenancy to kill or require a new phone more often when I was younger. My first phone lasted me two years until I used an upgrade (Sony Ericsson Z525A). My first smart phone was the Pantech Duo. Battery sucked on that. Could text all day but couldn't even make a call before the battery died. So going off to college required a new phone. Samsung Propel Pro.

That lasted me a year before the center select toggle broke. That brought me to Android with the HTC Aria. That phone also lasted me about a year/year and a half before I dropped it face down and the screen cracked. I got my HTC Inspire 4G after that, and was sure to get a case for it. That was the first phone I got that I kept the entire two year contract. Towards the end it was slowing down, but I held out long enough until the Nexus 5 was released, which is the first device I've ever bought on launch day. Still have it. It works fine for what I need, but come this October 31st it will be two years old. I'm waiting to see what the specs and price of the Nexus 5 (2015) are, and I will probably upgrade to that. Otherwise I'll probably go for a G4.
 
ian said:
Do you have a spare battery?
I dont know what the deals are like in America, but here you usually sign up for a two year contract. At the end of the two years you own the phone outright with no additional payments required.
Click to expand...

No, don't have an extra battery, really not needed anyway. If I worked more than 12 hours a day I might get one but I only work 8 hours a day sometimes 9. The 4 main carriers here in the USA are Verizon, ATT, Sprint and Tmobile. TMobile got rid of the 2 year contracts a couple years ago. Verizon don't have them anymore and Sprint will get rid of them by the end of the year. ATT will be the only company that will still have them but I'm sure it won't take long for them to get rid of them as well. On Sprint, you were actually able to upgrade after only 20 months into your contract, didn't have to wait for the full 24 months. However, that ended last year or the beginning of this year, can't remember which. All 3 of us are on a 1500 minute share plan with unlimited data and texts. If we call a cell number, it doesn't count against our anytime minutes, only landlines do. All 3 of us together use around 10 gb of data a month but that varies, sometimes more, sometimes less.
 
voyagerfan99 said:
Towards the end it was slowing down, but I held out long enough until the Nexus 5 was released, which is the first device I've ever bought on launch day. Still have it. It works fine for what I need, but come this October 31st it will be two years old. I'm waiting to see what the specs and price of the Nexus 5 (2015) are, and I will probably upgrade to that. Otherwise I'll probably go for a G4.
Click to expand...
My nexus 5 was good, but the hardware was let down in a number of areas. The note 4 has been awesome, probably one of my most liked gadgets so far. I know people say touchwiz is crap and I dont like it either. But I use the google now launcher so most traces of touchwiz are gone. And I actually think touchwiz improves on stock android in a number of areas, little things like having a battery percentage indicator as standard. I also prefer the samsung phone app over the stock android one. So I dont get put off by software interfaces I dont like so much. If I was buying a phone today I would probably wait and see if a LG G4 PRO came out with a bigger screen, I cant go smaller than 5.7" Since samsung have ditched the removable battery and microsd, I will revert to LG for my next phone.
Also the nexus 6 at least in Australia quite possibly saw the end of the nexus line being the cheap but yet relatively high end spec phone that was the case with the n4 and n5. The nexus 6 was selling for close to what you could get a note 4 for.
 
Yeah the Nexus 6 is $499 for the 32GB here in the US, which is more than I would want to spend right now. And that's with $150 off too.
 
Because I rarely ever use a smartphone, I get used ones from family members when they upgrade. Right now I have a Samsung Galaxy S2, but my wife is due for an upgrade so I'll probably be getting her S4.
 
Eh, depends. If my lady didn't need a smartphone I'd still be using my Moto X Gen1. I gave it to her since her Virgin phone was pretty horrific and got a Moto X Gen2. Using republic so the rates are pretty cheap, will probably use mine until it breaks or there's a more cost effective carrier offering.

With the cost of the phone included over 2 years it comes out to around $50/mo for " """Unlimited""" everything".
 
I'm still in my parents family plan with AT&T. They lowered a lot of their service prices to attract people, but they now use AT&T Next, which makes you pay for your phone in monthly installments. I'm getting 15 bucks pulled out every month for my LG Optimus G Pro. By the time I'll be done paying it off my total will be around $350 in Nov. 2016, for a device that came out in Apr. 2013. Hell, what's left on my installments is what it would cost me to just go buy another one used. I did get it in Nov of last year and it was the cheapest smartphone they had that wasn't a piece of junk. I'm hoping I can make this thing last as long as possible given how much I'm spending on "outdated" hardware. It performs very well for everything I need, which is almost entirely reddit, Chrome, Snapchat, and texting. The camera is kinda eh, but I don't use it enough to be bothered by it. It seems to be holding up quite well though.

Mobile phones have seen explosive growth in the recent years. It's starting to fizzle a bit in terms of "bigger and better" though as of late. Phone can't get a whole lot bigger, and for what most people use them for the extra cores or RAM aren't really needed. My S3 was a dual core, my LG is a quad core, and I know they've got octa-cores with 1440p or higher displays. It gets to be a bit pointless unless you're playing games a lot. My friend's G3 is remarkably similar to my phone in a lot of ways, but mine actually seems to perform better and have less quirks, despite his being newer, more powerful, and a flagship vs an AT&T exclusive phone most people have never heard of. I have trouble finding cases for it even.

As Troncoso said, your phone sees a lot of abuse and any device that is used day in and day out is going to only get you so far. I'll run this thing until it has enough problems to motivate me to upgrade. Also I'm seeing removable batteries become more and more scarce, which is something I really prefer to have. Given that it has a removable battery, I could probably make it last a pretty long time. I had my S3 for 2 years, and by the time I had it for a year, it was already starting to get a bit quirky. It was a refurb through AT&T though and cost $50 as a one off, so I'm not too torn up about it. My LG was nearly 50 for the down payment and first month, not to mention all the months of paying for it afterwards.
 
I generally keep my smartphones for about 3 years. I've had my LG G2 for about a year and a half so far and don't have any plans to replace it soon as it does what I need.

As far as battery life, the G2 seems to have the best battery life of any phone I've owned so far. It can last me all day even if used pretty hard (unless I take a long trip using the GPS). I don't care if I need to charge the phone everyday or not, I plug it in to charge every night for sure but will also keep the battery topped off during the day if possible. If I'm seated at my desk using my computer, I will often plug the phone in to the USB to keep it topped off. While in the car, I'll plug it in there to top it off. The way I look at it, I never know when I may need to use it on battery for a long period so it's best to keep it charged if possible. I'm the same way with the gas tank on my car, I don't wait until I have to buy gas, I keep it topped off.
 
I rocked a dumbphone and iPod touch combo for 5 years before getting my current smartphone. 2 year contract and then I might upgrade but typically it's as long as the product lasts.
 
C4C said:
I rocked a dumbphone and iPod touch combo for 5 years before getting my current smartphone. 2 year contract and then I might upgrade but typically it's as long as the product lasts.
Click to expand...

Ah the classic "parents don't want to buy me a smartphone" setup. I had this going on for a few years before I was able to just pay for it myself. I'm glad my parents did that though, and I loved the hell out of my iPod Touch. That's still the only real exposure I have to Apple products outside of iTunes that I still use.
 
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I used to keep my phones for 2 years back when I had a contract, but now that I don't have a contract and pay full price for my phone I find myself updating every 8-12 months. It really depends if a new phone comes out that I want, which is usually every spring and/or fall.
 
I had a 3gs and a 4s, the 3gs was a good phone for its time, if Apple hadn't persisted with their stupid policy of making only small screens, I may have still been using an iPhone today. Once I switched to Android, there is little chance of me going back, unless they introduce widgets in the same way android uses them.
 
I still can't believe how restrictive iPhones are after getting used to my Android. There are some really cool design elements and little things that iOS has that I enjoy, but I feel claustrophobic as soon as I start using it.

That is a decent looking home screen for its age. I remember when it was a big deal that I could put a wallpaper behind my apps when I went from a 2G to a 4G iTouch.
 
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Darren said:
I still can't believe how restrictive iPhones are after getting used to my Android. There are some really cool design elements and little things that iOS has that I enjoy, but I feel claustrophobic as soon as I start using it.

That is a decent looking home screen for its age. I remember when it was a big deal that I could put a wallpaper behind my apps when I went from a 2G to a 4G iTouch.
Click to expand...
You really need to jailbreak them, otherwise they are still very limited. The only difference in customization is really the custom wallpaper.
 
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