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Survey reveals most people are holding onto their phones for a long time, and it makes sense
(www.androidauthority.com)
this post was submitted on 24 Dec 2025
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Three years is a long time?
I usually have mine for at least five years, and only replace them when the battery won't hold a charge and there is some kind of massive discount.
Yeah, my last phone's battery was starting to go and I was able to get a last gen flagship for a riddiculous £400 with a £200 cashback from Samusng just for buying it and I got £75 for my old phone in trade-in so it ended up being not that much more expensive than changing the battery. I'd had the last one for almost 5 years before trading it in.
Battery replacement is $50-100, don't replace the whole phone for battery performance.
While good advice, the replacements have been between zero and $100 but I wouldn't have bothered switching for free if the battery wasn't going dead.
Thinking more about it, the increase in memory for the new one made the minor effort to replace the battery less appealing as well.
I usually keep mine for as long as it is getting security updates (plus a few months). This currently means 5-7 years.
And quite frankly, I would like to keep it longer. New phones just aren't that much better anymore.
My last phone was 8 years old and was still doing well.
Really after 8 years the new phones were finally significantly better for the same price.