100% agree
Personally I do the 5-6 years and yeah it works great.
I’ll only upgrade once the phone stops working for what I need it for.
this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2025
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I bought a Pixel 8 and grapheneos says minimum 7 years support. I'm hoping I can not break it for that long and that the battery and everything lasts. I won't be too upset if I can get 4 years out of it though.
I'm hoping to get at least 5 years out of my current phone. Got it December 2022. The manufacturer has a 5-year warranty and Android updates and promises availability of replacement parts for 10 years. So far, there is no reason to update.
My 12 Pro Max is happily chugging along. I’ll only upgrade when it literally dies or security updates stop.
Same here. Battery is still going strong. Only thing that bothers me is the RAM seems a bit too smol. Open a game and Lemmy says byebye. Not enough of an issue to upgrade to a whole new phone tho.
Apple probably: Say no more! Lets force an update to slow your 12 Pro Max down. Did we mention your battery performance is crappy now?
"But we are only slowing down your phone to make your battery last longer!
No, you do not get a say in this. If you want a fast phone, go buy a new one."
Still on my standard issue 11. Few scuffs and scratches on the edges but otherwise still working great.
Totally with you, we run them into the ground before replacing.
I have a normal 12 and I notice the battery degradation by now, as well as performance issues. In my memory, apps did not get kicked out of memory and had to restart as quickly as they do now. Sometimes I just switch between two apps and suddenly one of them has to restart. Kinda annoying. But yeah, I want to keep this one until the updates run out. Maybe I’ll get a battery replacement soon
The battery in my 13 Pro is absolute toast. I was thinking of upgrading but really, what benefit is there?
It’s no lighter, it’s thicker, the performance may be faster on paper but I doubt I’d notice.
Maybe I’ll just replace the battery and wait a few more years.
I have a 11 Pro and swapped battery once after four years, so about a year ago. It's good as new again. Can highly recommend a battery swap.
i'm on a used pixel 6a and frankly i have no particular desire to ever get a different model. sure it'd be nice to have something newer but this works absolutely fine and i would have 0 qualms using it for the rest of my life, barring the release of phones with hologram displays or some wacky shit.
and considering that the battery health is still 99% even after at least a year of me using it, i'm looking forward to seeing just how long i can go without replacing it. it'd be quite funny to go "yeah my phone's a legal adult"
I just upgraded from my trusty Pixel 4a to a refurbished Pixel 8, it would have turned 4 years old next week. The battery was completely shot at the end, I got maybe 2½ hours of screentime.
I would have been perfectly happy with just swapping the battery and using it for the next four years, this p8 doesn't really do anything new at all, it just does all the same things slightly faster.
But I got a good deal on it, so meh.
I actually downgraded from whatever the latest Note was at the time for a second hand 6a. No complaints. And a fraction of the cost, and I'm not paying Verizon monthly installments for a "free" phone.
Related, I used to armor my phone because I get up to things that could result in damaging the phone up to and including dropping it in several feet of water. If it happens to my Pixel I'll just go get another used one. Less stress FTW!
My pixel 6 is also still functioning perfectly fine. I'm hoping all the AI bullshit that Google is trying to shove into the new pixels fades out in a few years and then I'll upgrade.
you can get rid of the AI bullshit right now by installing lineageos, that's what i did and it's a big part of making this the best phone experience available, there's just no bullshit and everything works
If you are going for Lineage, you might as well go with some more customized variants like CrDroid or EvolutionX, as long as there is an official build. They are Lineage but with more stuff.
I guess your battery isn't overheating?
indeed, plus i run ACCA to limit the charge level to 75% during the day and between 40-60% at night.
I expect my phones to last 1 year for every $100 I spent on it.
Alternatively, upgrade every year, but always to a used phone. If you’re like 2-3 years behind, the hardware upgrades aren’t that expensive, but you still have the latest software.
Every year? I couldn't be bothered
My last phone lasted me 6 years, and would have gone longer if tariffs hadn’t made me antsy about buying a new one before it stopped working. Fingers crossed this one lasts at least that long too.
I only want to upgrade to get desktop mode on the Pixel and potentially replace my laptop...
I'm sure others will chime in to disagree.....but Samsung Dex has never been able to replace a laptop for me. Even an 8 year old laptop will do basic tasks better than trying to make the Android desktop experience work. Most apps aren't designed for this. I'd recommend sticking with your phone and buying a used dirt cheap laptop.
Phones are not at all worth upgrading within 5 years for most people. Laptops and PCs don't need upgrading in even longer. The cycle of trading in for new devices is a scam that everyone seems to be happy to fall for. The most dysfunctional this gets is where people do this with cars!
The only caveat to phones is their batteries. Batteries have a limited lifespan, and users can't easily change the batteries in current phones.
There's also the risk that the mobile device manufacturer will brick your phone if you try to replace the battery yourself or have a 3rd party do it.
From a hardware spec standpoint, though, most flagship phones could easily last a decade.
but Samsung Dex has never been able to replace a laptop for me
I suppose that depends on your usecase? Most everything I do can be done in the browser. My phone already handles webpages with ease.
All I want is a bigger screen and KBM when it's convenient.
Would you care to elaborate?
It might work for you, give it a shot.
But I found it was never really a viable use case to have a desk and monitor and KB+M and USB hub and charger......yet somehow be more inconvenient to have a laptop.
Androids don't have great performance on desktop mode. It's noticeably slow and kinda less responsive.
Almost no app is made for KB+M interface and a big screen.
Browser interface isn't as you expect compared to PCs (context menus, extensions, link handling that might go straight to some app, etc).
It's hard to describe completely, but it's just a really poor experience that doesnt work at all for me. If I were going to rely on a portable device with me, then I would just use a Steam Deck to actually have a proper PC. I got a small 13 inch laptop for £150 with an 8th gen Intel and it works infinitely better. The only reason I would connect my phone to a monitor is for emulation gaming.
But I found it was never really a viable use case to have a desk and monitor and KB+M and USB hub and charger......yet somehow be more inconvenient to have a laptop.
You can get something like a NexDock that has all of that built in. Just 1 cable.
Other than that, that's pretty much just how I already use my laptop.
Androids don't have great performance on desktop mode. It's noticeably slow and kinda less responsive.
How would you even know that? Have you used the new desktop experience? It's not the impression anyone has given me. I am also not purchasing anything today, I am waiting for a stable release + good reviews.
If I were going to rely on a portable device with me, then I would just use a Steam Deck to actually have a proper PC
Steam Deck does not include any of the things I listed above. That's like, the whole point.
You can get something like a NexDock that has all of that built in. Just 1 cable.
Maybe I'm missing something, but how is this more convenient than a laptop? It has the form factor of one, so you're already stuck carrying around what is basically a laptop. Wouldn't a super cheap Chromebook or similar be more convenient since it's a full desktop experience with all you'd expect from a desktop environment?
Anyway, working entirely on mobile is a thing these days, so if that works for you, keep doing what you're doing. If all you need is a bigger browser, I'd also recommend a tablet with a detachable keyboard. If you want to keep the experience consistent between devices, honestly I'd suggest an iPhone and iPad (as much as I avoid Apple myself).
The point is management. As in managing apps and data. On a single device.
Even in that super limited use case - you could just use a tablet for- basic keyboard and mouse interactions can be a problem.
There is the expectation that certain keybinds would work, that you could toggle natural scrolling, set a comfy cursor size, turn off acceleration and such.
That's not a limited use case. Lots of people work that way.
I could use a tablet but then...why not just a laptop?
The idea is to only have 1 device to manage.
I consider myself fairly bleeding edge; I absolutely love all things new, especially if they are novel. However, I have never really seen the point in upgrading anything after just a year or two. If there is even any improvement at all, it's never enough to justify spending money on it. You're not going to be left behind just because the new device is 0.01℅ faster in 3 specific edge cases.
I'm in this situation with my Note 20. I see no reason to upgrade just yet, though. Thought about a foldable, but the Samsung ones are too expensive and the Chinese ones look amazing but tricky to import and use in the US.
I'd stay away from folding phones unless you want to replace your phone every year or so. I've known several people who had them just to have the screen start delaminating right after the 1 year warranty expired.
I've had two folding phones work for over two years without any delamination or other issues - I only replaced the first one because I dropped it and shattered a corner of the outer screen. Inner screen was in perfect condition still.
I can understand the hesitation but if you can get a good deal on one they're way better now than they were at the beginning.
Yeah this is a concern as well. That's the other thing keeping me from upgrading. The advantages of newer models are only slight compared to this phone which works perfectly fine. The longer I wait, the better the tech becomes. Eventually it'll reach a point where upgrading makes sense, but it doesn't seem like it's gonna be this year or even next.
The only thing I’m looking forward to is the possibility of OLED in a MacBook next year.
The longer you can wait the better, but I think every 4 years is the sweet spot for me right now.