Weekly poll: how old is your phone?

2023-11-14

Fairphone is promising 8 years (possibly up to 10) of support for its new Fairphone 5. Google brought Android longevity into the mainstream with the new Pixel 8 series, which will be supported for 7 years, this includes both software updates and availability for spare parts.

But this raises the question – is anyone actually using their phone for that long? While it’s tough to predict whether there will be any Pixel 8 users left in 2030, we can focus on the here and now. So let’s change the question to this – how old is your current phone?

We know that some of you have phones that you love and have held onto for many years. We also know that others upgrade every year and, of course, there are those that are somewhere in between.

Okay, maybe some of you answered “1 year” because you just bought a new phone after getting several years out of your old unit. How old was your previous phone?

Technology is weird – old gadgets age faster than new ones. So a 3 year old phone bought in 2020 is worse now than a 3 year old phone bought now will be in 2026. In part this is due to the longer support schedules that are adopted by more and more makers (and Google’s move can push the likes of Samsung and even Apple to extend the support time frame).

And also because hardware has reached a “good enough” stage. The Snapdragon 870 remained relevant for years and we suspect that the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 will follow in its footsteps. 5G, 100+ megapixel cameras, periscopes, 100+ watt charging, etc. all made a splash when they hit the market, but if you already have a phone with these features, why upgrade?

So, we’ve covered the past and the present, now let’s see about the future – how long do you plan to keep your current phone?