The smartphone industry is a fickle one. Every year, your favorite manufacturer has a new flagship to tempt you with over the last flagship that you may have already just purchased. It can often make it hard to decide when to upgrade if you know a newer and (usually) better option is already in the works.
On the other hand, plenty of people are okay with holding onto their phones for as long as possible, so long as it works. We at Android Central want to know how old the current phone is in your hand. And if you don't know when it was released, how long have you personally owned it?
As smartphones become more advanced, they generally become more expensive as well. Flagship smartphones have well passed the $1000 mark, with phones like the Sony Xperia Pro-I and Samsung's best foldable phones costing nearly $2000. As smartphones become more expensive, it starts to make less sense to upgrade every year, despite how tempting it may be, and it makes it easier to hold onto your current smartphone for a little longer.
Apple has been very good at supporting its smartphones for years and years — the benefit of controlling the hardware and software. With Android, it's not so cut and dry, with various manufacturers fighting to extend their software support more and more each year. Samsung recently announced four years of OS upgrades for the Galaxy S22 series and some of its other devices, plus five years of security updates, which means you can hold onto your new Galaxy S22 until 2027 without worrying about vulnerabilities. The policy also extends to the Galaxy S21, making it almost not worth the effort to upgrade.
However, these newly extended upgrade promises are still relatively new for some OEMs, while others — Motorola, for example — are content with providing one and maybe two years of support. Still, people seem content to hold onto their phones for a while if they work well enough for their needs. There are still plenty of people rocking the Pixel 2 and Pixel 3 despite support for those phones ending.
Let us know how old your phone is and whether it still works well for you. Shoot us a comment on our Twitter and Facebook pages.
