Only when an essential function breaks. Current phone is about to turn 6 years old.

ITT: it is confirmed that nearly everyone on Lemmy is die-hard "if it aint broke don't replace it" about their phone (hell yeah)

Whenever the old one dies or becomes unusable. A new phone doesn't really offer much new, so I see no reason to upgrade just for the sake of upgrading

If it aint broke, don't fix it. That's my general idea anyway. The other thing to consider is security upgrades (end of life). Then again, this time around I may just install a de-googled OS instead of buying again.

Its been 6-7 years for this one. I replace them when they stop working

As long as the one I have works, I keep using it.

Every 3-4 years which is when it starts becoming really slow or something breaks. I still keep and use the old phone though and it usually works, just not enough to daily drive.

Only when the previous one is completely out of commission. My last phone was a Samsung S20 I got in 2020 and it finally died when it took it's last fall on to some concrete, and I replaced it a few months ago with an S24

Bit off topic, but do yourself a favour, take a wooden toothpick and gently remove the lint from the USB-C port. You can thank me later.

I had a moment of reflection last year about this. I told a coworker that my phone doesn't have service in the building and I refuse to get on company Wi-Fi with my personal device.

He explained that when he gets a new phone, he uses his old one as work only.

My brain hovered for a minute in "but the old one is broken do you get it fixed or something?" Before clicking in "oh, he buys a new phone before the old one goes bad"

My brain genuinely struggled with the concept. Maybe if he'd been a rich person it would have connected sooner. I dunno

About every 5 years, usually when either the phone breaks, or key software no longer supported.

When I can't use the old one anymore. Every time so far, that's been because of a hardware failure.

I'm currently on a Pixel 4A. It's running Android 16 (LineageOS), and I limit battery charge with AccA so that it doesn't wear out. It's currently showing 92% capacity, which seems pretty good for five years. I don't think I'd actually like a new phone; it would be faster and have a better camera, but my current phone isn't a bottleneck, and a new phone's camera will still be worse than my Olympus. It would have 5G, but why should I care? Most new phones are bigger, and as an adult, my hands are not growing.

I love that answers like this are popular here. There was a time when phone tech was improving fast enough that frequent upgrades made a lot of sense, but now is not that time.

When it no longer holds charge.

This is usually about 5 years. I'd change the battery, but by then the web has slowed down and become inefficient enough to warrant a new phone anyway.

I won't replace it unless it's needed. And that includes data security reasons. If my phone stops receiving security updates, I buy a new one. Trying to sort out identity theft is not worth being cheap over.

I've always thought it's a little crazy to buy a new phone on a schedule. Like some people do every year or two. That's expensive and terrible for the environment.

I use my phone until it is completely inoperable so a few years.

I once used a phone where half the screen was broken but the touch sensors still worked and I'd memorized where all the buttons were so I could still receive and send calls and texts.

People that replace electronic devices that still work confuse and annoy me.

I have averaged about every 5-6 years

When it is no longer able to do things I actually need it to do, and fixing is difficult/expensive.

So far that's about 5 years per phone for me.

In August it will be 15 years since I purchased the phone I'm typing this reply on, Samsung Galaxy S2. All I do is calling, basic browsing, and checking the weather, so I don't really feel like I need a new phone. Battery is replacable, so until the screen is broken, this phone will serve its purpose.

Generally I wait until it dies. My current one is testing my patience at 3 years old while I've disliked it since the start, but the cost of a new one is sobering enough to let me suck it up.

My first phone died under a bus after 4 years, my second one stopped getting security updates after 2 or 3 years and was starting to get seriously slow, so that one I sold, my third one took 5 years to die to repeated water exposure... And this is my fifth one.

I would still be using my pixel 3 XL if the battery hadn't died. 

Until a foldable is inexpensive, I don't see much point. They seem to have stopped major innovations that I care about.

I will use this pixel 8a until it is a brick like the 3XL

The last three have been s/h when I have bought them and then I have hung on to them for around 5 years each myself.

When it dies.

I've had my current one since 2019. One before that I had for about the same amount of time.

This current one is starting to get issues with battery drain though (going from 100% to dead in less than 4 hours, used to last 8-12 hours)

I replace mine when it either breaks or becomes too slow for/incompatible with the apps I use. If it works, why upgrade?

I also find old phones make for great dash cams. There's a few apps out there built specifically for this purpose and they work pretty well overall

Current phone is from 2019 (iPhone 11 Pro) so 6 years and counting, but im getting real jealous of Android users as all the cool FOSS stuff gets released there first or exclusive . Wont be buying a new one until it breaks though. Honestly its a miracle how well it still works, I did swap out most apps with FOSS alternatives though and I do notice the difference when i compare it to an iPhone 15 running Instagram and other spyware in terms of battery life and overall performance. Liquid ass, 120hz, 5G and other stuff doesn't help either.

Never. I never buy a new phone. If my current phone suffers a critical, unrepairable mishap, I'll buy a refurbished used phone, two or three generations old.

My current phone is about to start a fourth year, and it still works fine. I replace only when I need to. (My previous phone's charging port/mobo broke down.)

I'd say about every 7 years, or older. Using custom roms, it's possible to keep a phone up-to-date for a while, or even to escape google services (on android, of course) using MicroG. Personally, I use /e/os, which has all that built in (including a tracker blocker). It is very neat.

https://e.foundation/e-os/

I'm happy if a phone lasts 5 years. I've been using custom ROM the whole time.

Pixel 8 currently with GrapheneOS until something hardware breaks that I can't repair or Graphene due to G**gle.

I use my 2018 Samsung S9+. Still has the original battery and screen

• 2006 or so
• 2009 or so,
• 2012? 13? gifted to me
• around 2017, first smartphone, my previous' phone speaker broke, got a used one
• 2019 or so, used phone's battery died badly, friend gave me this reconditioned one
• 2025, previous phone's screen turned purple, idk what's up with that

When I can no longer update apps because the phone is not able to update operating systems due to old hardware/memory issues etc.

A) A new phone comes out with a feature I'm dying to have, and I happen to have some fun money tucked away

B) My old phone is degraded to the point of noticeably affecting my experience

C (most common)) A little of A, a little of B, and I get a great trade in or upgrade deal

Usually on a 2-3 year cycle, finances allowing

Because I use my phone for banking I am stuck with OEM android. I have an S21 that loses support soon, that pushes me to upgrade when the next version comes out but will also be jumping to the S26 Ultra. The S26 series gets updates for 7 years so after that I will look at upgrading again.

Hardware changes are no longer huge leaps like they used to be. With devices no longer being functionally obsolete every few years squeezing as much life as possible is the new game.

My old devices end up being used for dashboards for HomeAssistant or turned into picture frames. So they will live on and still be useful for a long time.

My current is now going on 8 years and I have no intention of replacing it. About time for a new battery tho

I typically use it untill it becomes unusable. Typically around 5 to 6 years I guess. On my last phone I had changed so many parts it was practically a new phone.

I use my phones until they're limping and pleading me to just let them die. At that point I look on the used market and buy the best previous-gen phone I can find for the cheapest price, then repeat. I'm not a fan of cell contracts - I like to buy my phone outright to keep my monthly bill as low as possible.

Up until now I was only buying used Pixels so I could install Graphene, but if Goog ever locks the bootloader or anything like that I will move to something else supported by Graphene.

Or maybe just revert to dumbphone and start carrying a small ultralight laptop around for internet stuff. Probably less doomscrolling that way.

When it is about to die, then I buy the best one I can find for less than 300€ in second hand or refurbished. It is easy to find 4 year old flagships.

I started with an iPhone 5. I replaced it after the second battery started dying with an iPhone 8. Replaced that with an iPhone 16 when the second battery started dying. I always have them in an OtterBox Defender case and take good care of them, so batteries become the deciding factor.

When I was a poor teenager it was about 3 years before it became unusable. Now that I know how to find good second hand models and can afford better quality it's more like 6 years before I feel the device is kind of inadequate.

Only when it no longer works. I would have kept my last phone much longer, but the basic function of connecting to cell/mobile towers stopped. Still works as a wifi-only device.

I typically only replace my phones when they’re significantly worse than what a new, more modern phone would get me. So, that usually means when there are a bunch of new hardware features on the newer models or when the battery in my current phone is so old that it holds significantly less charge than it did when it was new.

when my phone no longer functions

my last phone was an S9+, first time I'd ever bought a brand new current year model

it met its demise last year in a clumsy drop that finally broke the screen for good (would not display anything). prior to that, both the front and back had some shattered corners where glass was just missing. didn't really matter since it was in a case.

my last phone was really starting to slow down, and typing was getting difficult because of lag. but that wasn't enough reason to replace it

I bought my current phone in 2017. It will be replaced when the cons of continuing to use it outweigh the cons of buying a new one. Fortunately phone manufacturers have removed most of the features I want in a phone and added nothing of value so I'm saving a ton of money.

When I had a phone with a replaceable battery I used it until the power button stopped working. I wish more phones had replaceable batteries.

I purchased my current phone (Fairphone 4) in January 2022. And that was because my last phone's battery was dying, and the screen was very cracked.

I decided for a Fairphone because you can easily replace the battery (already done once) and the screen (not yet broken).

As of now, I still have no plans to buy a new phone.

My current one is around 6 years old. I don’t really have a set time table, what made me replace my last one is it slipped out of my hand I watch in slo-mo as it fell to its death.

Still got my pixel 6 running GrapheneOs.

When I break it or it becomes unusable. I paid extra when I got my current phone for a thicker case that also plugs up the charging port, because the charging port has been the point of failure on most of my phones so far. On the other hand, I do have wireless charging built-in this time, so I could use that if the USBC port dies.

My current phone is 3 years old. I have no intention to replace it unless it breaks.

I kept my S7 until they shutdown 3g service and then bought the oldest 5g phone I could find and ill keep it until it dies or they shutdown 5g.

My previous phone was replaced when the main (for most apps only) camera stopped working, and more importantly, it randomly rebooted frequently whenever Wi-Fi was on. Also, my carrier didn't acknowledge that it used LTE, so it was about to be booted off the network.

Also the OS was old enough that some apps I used were starting to drop support and I would hear about others I couldn't install.

And Google Services Framework very often got into a rut where it would use 100% CPU and crash every few seconds, eventually getting bad enough that rebooting rarely helped. I wrote a long bash script to try and monitor it and reset it when it did this (by deleting a file that occasionally seemed to help and killing all its processes at once) but it just got worse over time. I didn't want to do a factory reset for some reason I've now forgotten.

Typical dad here. I replace it when it dies. I usually get 5 years or so out of each one.

I'm banking on my fairphone lasting at least a decade.

I replace a phone when it becomes intolerably difficult to use due to hardware failure.

My current phone was bought refurbished in July of 2020. Phone before that was purchased in 2018, and the phone before was purchased new in 2014.

The current one is a Samsung Galaxy S10, and I'm not seeing any reason to replace it yet.

Only when absolutely necessary. Like, it doesn't work at all anymore. I've only ever had 6 phones including the one I have now. A sidekick, the original Razr, a Nexus 4, a Samsung S4, a OnePlus 6, and currently on a Pixel 8.

I keep mine until they die or become so slow that it just isn't very usable anymore.

I used to have a One Plus 3 for 4 years until it fell out of my pocket and a cow (or cows) stomped on it. It came back to me after another farmhand found it in the mud 3 months later. Still works, but completely bent, and screen is cracked and crazy discoloured. I keep it now as a paperweight, or to hotspot. I also keep my Canadian sim card in it so I know exactly where it is when I go back.

Then I had a OP6 for another 3 years, and it black screened.

I now have a Samsung S23, and will keep it until it dies.

BTW, I think there are charging port cleaners out there, if nobody has mentioned it already.