Why would you upgrade your phone?

I recently "upgraded" to the latest iPhone SE since my 6s Plus broke. Honestly I feel this lowest model of the iPhone does everything I want already. I will be waiting many years before getting the next Pro iPhone.

I won't be upgrading until they have:
- 10x or more optical zoom
- No notch
- Touch ID (love this on the SE)
- Significant upgrade in battery life
 
Battery life. I travel quite a bit for work and get a lot of work done on it, so every time there's even a small bump in battery efficiency+capacity, it's worth it for me.

Usually wife will get my current phone and I upgrade. There are some years, where I do skip the upgrade, however. More RAM+ better battery life and I'll upgrade again this year.
 
My need to upgrade tends to come from being somewhat paranoid that my phone is more compromised than it already is - as security updates typically only goes for 2 or 3 OS updates and then the whole thing goes "EOL" Least that's the case with a lot of big Android players in the field. That and being somewhat of a heavy phone user meant that getting one with a bigger screen went a little easier on my eyes.

That and once upon a time I owned a first generation pixel that ultimately wound up with a 20 minute battery life. These days I won't touch a phone unless it has good battery management.
 
I had this realisation the last time my phone contract came up. I've got an iPhone XR so it's a few years old now but it still does everything I need it to. I was looking into an upgrade and realised I'd basically just be getting a new phone for the sake of a new phone. So I stuck with this one and got a much cheaper SIM only contract. I'll upgrade in a while once it's noticeably slower and/or the battery life sucks.
 
I upgrade every 5 years mainly because of battery degradation, OS slowdown and the emergence of new tech norms such as 5G and WiFi 6.
 
for most people considering how much time you spend using your phone its worth spending the money on.

if your phone is more efficient, less time charging, less time waiting for things to load, improve productivity. all of these things effectively increase your lifespan. but ya obviously its also kind of a trap, better phone maybe also means wasting more time on the phone but I say you choose to do it out of your own free will.
 
I got a new phone a few weeks back. The battery on my last one finally gave up the ghost. Had it since 2008 or something so it did well. I been pretty amazed by all the stuff my new phone can do. I know the Government are recording all the interesting shit I say, but it's got YouTube and Spotify apps on it, so it's a fair trade I guess.
 
When i was young it was just to have the latest shiny thing, now as an adult i only change when the previous one doesn't work fine anymore, so battery problem, reception problem, broken display etc.
 
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I'm still rocking an iPhone 8 Plus, considering the iPhone 14 though because I hear the camera is going to be 48mp, which makes for a worthy upgrade.
 
i used to upgrade every year or even sooner than that. there have been times i've only kept a phone for about 6 months. i loved getting a new phone but now it's not as exciting. plus, it's too much money to keep throwing away and it's irresponsible for the environment. i would always sell or donate my phones before i bought a new one.

now i have an iPhone 12 Pro Max. yeah it's the most expensive phone i ever bought and i even paid for the apple insurance. it worked out about £1,350. my reasoning was that i didn't mind paying that much if i was going to keep it for 3-4 years. in the 4 years before i bought my iPhone i probably spend about £2,500 on phones. i went with the iphone because i had one years ago (4S) and it was my favorite phone and the one i kept for longest (about 2 years). i was tired of android and wanted to go back to iOS plus i knew that it would get software updates for a long time. software updates on android weren't really an issue to me because i was going through phones quickly but if i'm going to keep a phone for 3+ years i want it to be kept up to date.

not going to lie i've got the itch for something new. i'm trying to talk myself out of buying the iPhone 14 this year lol. there's really no reason for me to replace my phone. it's still in good condition as i've been using a case + screen protector. the battery health is still at 97% after almost a year and a half. i try not to charge it beyond 80% unless i really need to and i don't let it drop below 20%. i have dropped it a few times and got it wet but it's still going.

if i can convince myself not to be stupid by buying a new phone this year then i'll keep it until it breaks, slows down, battery life sucks, or it stops getting updates. i don't think i need to worry about software updates for another good few years! the latest version of iOS supports the iPhone 6S which is a phone from 7 years ago. maybe software updates will slow it down over time. another cause of slow down is battery degradation. if i keep using it as i have been then it shouldn't go below 90% in the next 2-3 years and anyway i can always just get apple to put a new one in. my insurances runs out in november this year so if it breaks it might be worth buying a new phone than repairing it.
 
The phone that I use was my sisters phone that she thought was broken, turns out it was just a bug with the energy saving app. It's a Galaxy phone from 2016, it looks fine, works perfectly for browsing/listening/music/etc. I wouldn't even know how good the camera is because I'm not making a documentary nor am I an Instagram model, even if it's not good it doesn't matter in the least for me, the pictures will probably be lost eventually anyway.

I don't play mobile games because I'm not a complete degenerate.

The only reason I would get a new phone is if my screen broke and it wasn't worth the trouble to fix it.

All these new phones are a big waste of silicon that could be going to more useful things.
 
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I usually skip two-three gens before upgrading to a new phone and, in my case, the reason to do so is related to the overall user experience (e.g.: multi tasking getting slower and things like that).
 
For me it's just the battery going bad. After 3 or 4 years or whenever the battery won't make it through the day anymore, I start looking for a mid-priced replacement. I ordered a Pixel 4A 5G right when it came out and have been happy so far.
 
Only if it completely or partially stops working, or when the battery life becomes too bad (there' no official repair shop in my town and I don't trust any of the local ones to use anything but the cheapest aliexpress batteries).
Sadly the Battery on my Galaxy S8 is starting to become notoriously weak, but I think I'll still get another year or two out of it before I need a replacement.

To each their own, but I know so many people that upgrade their phone every 1-2 years and I don't get it. A lot of them aren't even heavy phone users, they use the same couple of basicApps as most people (whatsapp, browser, spotify, some social media, etc) but they'll rush to get the next $1000 phone because the camera is slightly better or some other minor upgrade.
 
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I buy a 200-300€ Android phone every 4 years or so and it does its job perfectly. Don't need fancy cams or play games on them.
 
I'm with you. I have a OnePlus 6t that still is a great phone and the battery is still good so there is no reason. I'll use it till the screen cracks some more and the value of repairing plus time without phone is too much.

I will add that I also don't play games but for my business I do make reels and stuff and I could use some more horsepower for that I guess.
 
My Samsung Galaxy S6 still does the job. I would probably still have my old flip phone if I wasn't "forced" to upgrade a few years back when the Network was changed :pie_savoring:
 
Jennings said:
My phone is from 2015. I don't game on it either, but I totally would if phone games didn't completely fucking suck. I tried for years to find fun games without mobile timers, ads, manipulative advancement mechanics, and other crappy limitations; years to find anything on par with portable Nintendo or other console/pc games, and the best I could find were shitty ports of games I already own on better platforms.

So to answer your question, since I don't game there's no reason to upgrade my seven-year-old phone. But I totally would if phone gaming didn't suck. Diablo Immortal would convince me upgrade if it was a good game, but I'm pretty sure the monetization is just going to murder it in my eyes. I plan to read reviews and watch gameplay footage for a few months before possibly upgrading, just in case they don't fuck this one up.
Click to expand...
I guess you don't like Hearthstone? I love Hearthstone. Never spent a dime on it.
 
When the security updates stop, if the battery goes, it breaks or when 5G rolls out in a big way (cos my existing phone is 4G only).
 
I'm still rocking my Samsung Galaxy Note 9 and was close to getting a Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, but there really isn't any point really. Specs are better but the technology hasn't evolved enough to warrant the eye watering price.
 
Battery life on smartphones suck. They also tend to slow down over time. So those are good reasons to upgrade for me. Especially as an Apple user
 
If it breaks. Battery life doesn't really bother me much since I rarely use my phone, outside if browsing while in bed. But it's plugged in for that.
 
I only just bought my third phone since 2010. I first upgraded my iPhone 4 to 6S in 2015 because it was thoroughly obsolete. But the only reason I upgraded this time around was because the battery was getting weak.

I don't see many other reasons to upgrade nowadays. I just went with the largest battery and will probably use that for the next 5 years.
 
For me, after around 2 years androids used to feel kind of junky and slow. iPhones seem to last much longer. I do have concerns with battery replacement though
 
I use it till it breaks, and or some friend or relative gets a new one, then I adopt their old phone for free, and have a brand new phone that there's nothing wrong with.

I refuse to pay for phones. It's overpriced garbage that is designed to break.
 
I recently switched to iPhone 12 Mini after only using mid range Android phones and my last Android was very low tier. I always felt the need to upgrade yearly to every 2 years as Android handsets really started to slow down and degrade over time, especially with the battery life.

Now I have this new phone I really don't see any need to upgrade for another 3-4 years. I love the size, power and battery and it's lightening fast. Would a faster screen be nice? Sure but it's not pushing me to upgrade. Obviously the thing to watch out for is ios updates, eventually you kind of have to upgrade.

It would be amazing to get an apple foldable. I'm just a bit disappointed that Apple might be phasing out the Mini series and I really don't like the bigger sizes. If there's a mini size on the 14 and no foldable from Apple or its too expensive, I might just upgrade to the 14 mini in a few years. But for now I have zero reason to upgrade. Very happy with it.
 
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I only upgraded this year because of the 3g/(4g lte in some cases) shutdown and the fact that certain carriers stopped supporting cheap Chinese phones with flagship specs.
 
Battery or other major hardware fault of that nature would be the only thing that would make me get a new phone.

Still rocking my Galaxy S9+ that I bought... Over 4 years ago now. Prior to that, had a Galaxy S5 that I owned for 4 years (had to change the battery at least once on that, as the stock battery was starting to have issues into year 2).

I appreciate all the smart phone features and I do use convenience apps a lot (e.g., supermarket sales apps, city parking meter apps, a running app to track my running stats, etc). But I don't need a supercomputer to do that; as long as the phone performs reasonably, it's good enough. Because, after all, the main feature I need a smart phone for is to... make phone calls.

So I plan on keeping this S9+ pretty much until it's dead.
 
My iPhone 6s Plus battery was draining very quick and became slow. But the thing still looked brand new.

So after 6yrs, I got the iPhone 13 pro max. I like it but the cameras being raised and not flush on back sucks!
 
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