A modern cell phone at this point has no reason not to work for decades.

I upgrade every 4 years or so, and that's really only because it's also when battery life usually declines.

These days the only improvement seems to be memory, storage and camera. Somehow I feel some of those will stagnate.

But the new Samsung s28, it's totally a bigger number than what you have now.

I got the S24+, and my wife got the S25+, and I swear they are the exact same phone.

The changes we are seeing year over year are minute and iterative - gone are the days of anything "revolutionary" driving you to get the latest model every year.

I literally have a laptop in my pocket, and until we can make huge leaps in battery technology (i.e. good, fast, and cheap), I don't think we'll be seeing a need to update our phones for 2-5 years easy.

I've always pushed my devices to the point of them becoming so slow an broken that they're basically unusable. My current one is from 2022 and I consider it practically new. Haven't even needed to replace the battery yet which is removable as were the ones on my previous devices as well. Modern phones are so uninteresting anyway that I don't really even have a desire to upgrade. I'd just be losing features - not gaining new ones.

Dont love that they lumped basically everything over 3 together. Its likely in large part because a lot of phone contracts have you paying off your phone in 3 years so that's when the carrier starts bombarding you with deals for trading in your phone.

Three years... amateurs. If my Note10+ still had software support I probably could go another couple of years.

...And given they've taken some features away on the S25 Ultra and S26 Ultra, I'm not actually sure I want to pay such a premium price to stay with Samsung (as much as I do like this device).

I have a five year old Pixel 4A running LineageOS. I limit battery charge with AccA to ensure it doesn't wear out.

The phone reports its battery capacity at 93%. I have no plans to replace it unless I break it,

Indeed. My Sony Xperia 5 II is 5 years old, still works fine and has the latest updates thanks to LineageOS. And completely devoid of any Google apps.

The battery life is pretty terrible though, I should replace it.

I bought a Poco X3 NFC for £200ish in Dec 2020. I've been bored of the phone for a few months and started looking around for a new one, but there's nothing out there that seems worth the "upgrade", certainly in a similar price bracket. I'd generally lose a headphone jack and/or an SD card slot and gain erm.... a more up to date Android version, I guess. I'd maybe get a better camera, but given my aging eyes and lack of skill are probably the limiting factors in my photography, I don't realy see the benefit. I only play puzzle-type games and don't do anything particularly graphic intensive, so where's the incentive to subject myself to even more intrusive AI nonsense and built in adverts that seem to be unavoidable in budget phones.

My phone is close to 5 years old. I’m honestly quite happy with it still.

I really feel the pressure to upgrade from my S9 but, with ability to install a decent OS on it, I have a choice between a Motorola with the same specs as my current phone, so not much of an upgrade, or a Pixel/Fairphone without 3.5mm or even SD slot.

I just upgraded my phone from my previous 2019 device

I didn't even bother with new. I just bought a used high end phone.

Bought realme 8 4G 8gb ram 128 gb storage phone in 15k inr in 2021 (167 dollars) using it still.. Thinking of upgrading before 2026 bcuz phone prices will surge after 2026 bcuz of ram and all..