Phones are consumer goods and most of us replace them within two or three years. But of course you can keep them for much longer and it’s entirely up to each user what they prefer and whether they mind the problems that more age can cause. If you want to keep your phone until the end of its life, here are the warning signs that the moment is inexorably approaching.
Battery life is lousy
If you’ve never replaced the battery on your phone throughout its lifetime, it’s going to be absolutely miserable on a single charge towards the end of the device’s life. So once you get to the stage where you have to take a charger with you everywhere, not just in case, but as a necessity, it’s clear that your phone is ripe for replacement. Yes, it’s still possible to replace the battery, but that’s usually no longer worth it with an old device on the verge of life.
Completely full internal storage
Today’s phones come with quite a bit of internal storage, however, as your phone ages, it inevitably fills up, and at some point, this situation will get to the point where it starts to tell you you’re running out of space. Of course, storage can be cleared of various ballast, but once you have to start deleting apps to install new ones, it’s time to look for a new device (ideally with double the memory).
System crashes and lags
As the phone ages, the processor and general hardware that was sufficient at the time of purchase becomes less and less usable. The demands on apps and games increase over time, and at some point you’ll probably reach a point where you’ll have multiple apps running at once and the phone will start to get more and more laggy. Apps can also become unresponsive or shut down completely due to lack of performance. Now is definitely the time to buy a new device with up-to-date hardware.
Incompatibility with new apps
Foto de Obi – @pixel7propix na Unsplash
Software support from manufacturers today is quite decent. For flagship phones, you can expect 5 years of support, but the mid-range receives updates mostly for 2 or 3 years, which is not so glorious anymore. Once you get to the stage where you start using a phone not supported by the manufacturer, it can be a problem both from a security standpoint and from a new software standpoint. When your phone notifies you when you install a new app that it’s incompatible because of the old system, it’s time to replace it.
Bad camera
The camera, or rather the quality of photos, is flying ahead in smartphones by leaps and bounds, and this feature has really improved dramatically in recent years. Even though your phone may have been a top-notch photo phone at the time of purchase, after a while, the quality of photos it offers simply isn’t enough. For example, the Samsung Galaxy S6 was one of the best photomobiles on the market at the time, but through today’s optics, the quality of the pictures it takes are grossly sub-par.
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