The average American now holds onto their smartphone for 29 months, according to a recent survey by Reviews.org, and that cycle is getting longer. The average was around 22 months in 2016.

https://archive.is/1M6A1

  • I can’t believe there are people who update phones that often. My current one is closing on being six years old and it works fine. I don’t know anyone who gets a phone this often apart from kids and teens who need a new one when they break.

    I’ve had 3-4 smartphones total and have used each to their end of life. It might be the tism, but I hate changing my phone. All the setups, all the work of moving stuff to a new device sucks so much. Like why would anyone do this?

    • towhee [he/him]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      22
      ·
      6 days ago

      Phones bought in the early 2010s are a much different beast than phones bought closer to 2020. Pre-2015 you could expect your phone to run out of storage and RAM after only a couple years. I recall I had some google phone which immediately auto-closed every app when it wasn’t active, because of memory pressure. You couldn’t even swap between one app and another to copy & paste something. Hasn’t been the case since 2020, they’re all basically way better than you really need now.

    • FALGSConaut [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      14
      ·
      6 days ago

      Yea same, I don’t understand people who “need” a new phone every year. I’ve used every phone I’ve owned for at 4-5 years, the only reason I’ve replaced them that often is because I’m clumsy and drop them. My current phone is a cheap OnePlus I bought in 2021 and it still works great. I don’t have a reason to replace it anytime soon but when I do I’m going to look at a non-smart phone replacement.

      Fuck payment plans for phones. The only debt I have is student debt and I’m hoping to keep it that way