Asking because… On one hand I do see smartphones being released left-and-right, and they are rather integral to modern life
On the other hand I’m still chugging alone with my Pixel 6a that I bought 3 years ago with a replaced battery and a somewhat clogged charging port… and all my previous phones I only replaced when they have serious deficits that make them difficult to use
Wondering when you all replace phones. Please definitely mention it too if you ended up repurposing the old phone for something else
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.
4A club member! I love the hell out of this phone but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t looking for a good upgrade option. I’ve got burned in notification and tray icons and this guy has been in the drink a couple times. The 9A looks okay but I really hate all the AI integration phones have now.
I’m still on a 4a too! I’m kind of thinking about upgrading 'cause I run GrapheneOS on it and nowadays whenever I reboot it I get a warning that it’s no longer supported, but also it still works so whatever.
I think maybe if I see a newer Pixel that’s cheap second-hand somewhere I might think about it, that way I can keep using GrapheneOS and not give any money to Google.