QOTW: When did you last upgrade your mobile phone?

[philehidiot]

How very interesting to see the people on a tech site have so little interesting in the shiny shiny.

It's almost as if the bragging rights come from how long you can keep a phone and how little you're pushed into upgrading.

S20+ 5G.

I use mine a lot, it's a back up internet connection, used for Samsung Dex and I use the SIM in a bodged together long range cell set up. It's also my main camera as, if you give me a standalone camera, I get obsessive.

I will likely resist upgrading this one unless there is a very good reason as the monthly costs are getting out of hand.

[Phrontis]

About 2 years ago. I bought a Ulefone Armor 7 as I do a lot of physically hard work for an ordinary phone and my older HP X3 Windows phone was probably a bit light weight for what was coming. Cannot say I am totally happy with it. The on/off switch is far too light and is very easy to press in by mistake when its in my pocket. I think it manages to turn itself off a couple of times some days. The speaker is rubbish and it is not loud enough for a noisy environment. Which sort of negates the reason I bought it. Not sure what I want to do to replace it, as no one seems to do decent reviews of rugged phones. Maybe Hexus can do some real tough reviews of rugged phones, with real note of how loud they ring how good they make calls as well as the camera etc.

[Saracen999]

How very interesting to see the people on a tech site have so little interesting in the shiny shiny.

It's almost as if the bragging rights come from how long you can keep a phone and how little you're pushed into upgrading.

....

It might look like it but at least in my case, nah. It's simply a blend of several things. I was an early adopter of mobile phones, which goes way back into analog cellular days. Why? I needed it for business. It was the single biggest factor in enabling my business model to work, to be viable. The need was to be contactable, and to contact others. But as my business changed, that receded in importance, and then, being contactable at all times of day became a right pain in the backside, and more and more detrimental meaning either I couldn't concentrate without constant interruptions, or simply that it wrecked my peace and quiet.

By nature, I'm a pretty private individual. In another time (and but for the wife) I might have been a recluse. I am certainly not highly social and by choice, have a pretty select group of close friends. They, and immediate family, are pretty much the only ones (and my doctor) that can get me on the phone, and even the doctor only has the landline number, which has a call vetting/blocking service on it so unless you know the bypass code, you aren't getting straight through.

My point is that very few people have my mobile number. Probably less than a dozen. Which is precisely how I like it. But the implication is that very few people use it. All my friends and family know better than to text me, especially if it's urgent. I look at texts every couple of months, whether I need to or not. Seriously. And it wasn't unknown for me to only turn my mobile on if I went out and needed it. Usually, I'd leave it at home. More than a few times, I'd charge it and turn it off. Next time I needed it, I'd have to charge it again because in the 2 ort 3 months since I charged it, it'd gone flat again.

I seriously don't like being at the beck and call of the phone. It is a tool I use when convenient to me, not to be allowed to run my life.

Given that, I had my previous phone for about 10 or 12 years simply because my demands were so limited that I didn't need an upgrade. Why upgrade? Some family members were using WhatsApp, then Signal, and I had a need to be able to get messages back and forth. Also, to intall a couple of Alexa units for lighting control, though I got around that by using a friend's phone. Still, upgrades etc. More recently, it's used by the DJI drone.

Now, it's used for :-

- the odd phone call
- signal to family nd a couple of friends#
- changes to the Alexa setup
- drone
- occasionally, music via BT to wireless headphones.
- oh, and Met Office weather app.

That's about it.

So why upgrade? It's not sort-of inverse bragging rights (for me). It's that I genuinely don't like the <bleeep> things, and use it so little that what I already have is really way, WAY more than I need, or want.

Generally, I am (or was) a sucker for the 'shiny, shiny'. After all, most of my living came from that. These days, yawn, bored. It's rare for something new to genuinely interest me so the phone is just a tool to enable a few things I do use, and nothing more.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I got my Samsung S20FE this summer after I dropped my previous phone,and the protective glass got shattered. The phone still worked but bits of the protective glass was continuing to flake away. It had 5G and Samsung was promising at least 3 years of software and security updates,plus having a medium telephoto lens was useful.

[BoomSatsuma]

Two years ago. Will probably keep my current phone (iPhone 11 Pro Max) but another couple of years.

[maxopus]

When the last one broke. Why else would I replace a perfectly good phone?

[Garndell]

Bought a Samsung Galaxy Note 9 128GB on release in 2018, last September I swapped it for a 512GB version. Only the Sony Xperia 1/5 II/III have come close to meeting my requirements; 256GB+, 3.5mm & no camera hole. I can see the Note 9 512GB lasting me until 4G is switched off or 3-4 years.

[watercooled]

Current phone is a Oneplus Nord, purchased on release, having upgraded from my Huawei P9 which was showing some annoying problems including GPS dropping out mid-journey, some signal issues, and having stopped receiving software updates. I had already replaced the battery once which made a huge difference at the time, and general performance was still fine. Graphics performance wasn't its strongest point on release but this contributed to keeping peak SoC power down, which was a bonus IMO (not really that interested in mobile games).

Before that was my Nexus 4, another phone I really liked overall, and had performed a couple of repairs on including replacing the power/lock button which had worn out.

Nexus 4 (3G), P9 (4G), so naturally I wanted to ensure my upgrade had a 5G radio; the 765G processor in the Nord was ideal. Plus, being a more modern modem with a higher LTE category meant 4G performance is generally better and more stable too.

I did experience some very annoying bugs with my Nord on release and didn't have the best experience with their customer support who seemed quite dismissive, providing generic responses, even though lots of people were reporting the same bug on the forums, Reddit, etc. The most major bug being with cellular connectivity where seemingly anything Google-related on the phone (e.g. search, maps, app store, etc) would just refuse to connect. Besides cycling flight mode to temporarily resolve the issue, connecting via a VPN restored connectivity but obviously not something you expect to need to ensure a reliable connection to fundamental phone functions. The bugs were ironed out when a major OS update arrived, though I half suspect that was due to coincidence rather than them actually figuring out what was causing the problem.

In fairness, I don't know how other manufacturers would have responded, but I was left quite unimpressed by their response.

With those problems resolved, I do like the device now, at least enough to suggest it to other people looking for a phone in that sort of price range.

[DOA_Draven]

Upgraded this year - from a 6 year old budget handset, to a new budget handset of £100 that will no doubt last me another 6 years. It does all I will need a phone to do, send messages, take a few basic snaps, internet, browse gallery of photos and videos, it even make phone calls :-) !!!!

[Wozza63]

February, but had a OnePlus One for 5-6 years before that. Hoping to be able to keep this one as long. The whole 2 year cycle is a scam now that phones have reached a "good enough" point with only minor improvements each year. Apart from fingerprint scanner, there's really no revolutionary features on new phones compared to my OnePlus One, just slightly better screen/camera/internals.

[LeetyMcLeet]

I'm still happy with my 2018 Galaxy S9+. Does the job.

No incentives to 'regularly' upgrade these days. That and the cost.

[malculator]

February, but had a OnePlus One for 5-6 years before that. Hoping to be able to keep this one as long. The whole 2 year cycle is a scam now that phones have reached a "good enough" point with only minor improvements each year. Apart from fingerprint scanner, there's really no revolutionary features on new phones compared to my OnePlus One, just slightly better screen/camera/internals.

I had a OnePlus One, but after three and a half years the battery life just wasn't up to it. With all the fake batteries going around I never felt confident in having it replaced. So I bought one of the last flagship phones to sport a replaceable battery - the LG V20, which wasn't actually sold in Europe, so had to get one from Hong Kong. I've had that three and a half years now, and replaced the battery once.

Earlier this week I ordered a new mobile as I thought the V20's performance is getting a bit laggy and needs frequent reboots to restore performance. I'm awaiting a Xiaomi Mi 10T 5G that I've ordered from Amazon for aproximately £300. It's got a former flagship processor in it, the SD865, and that should be good enough for me.

[Wozza63]

February, but had a OnePlus One for 5-6 years before that. Hoping to be able to keep this one as long. The whole 2 year cycle is a scam now that phones have reached a "good enough" point with only minor improvements each year. Apart from fingerprint scanner, there's really no revolutionary features on new phones compared to my OnePlus One, just slightly better screen/camera/internals.

I had a OnePlus One, but after three and a half years the battery life just wasn't up to it. With all the fake batteries going around I never felt confident in having it replaced. So I bought one of the last flagship phones to sport a replaceable battery - the LG V20, which wasn't actually sold in Europe, so had to get one from Hong Kong. I've had that three and a half years now, and replaced the battery once.

Earlier this week I ordered a new mobile as I thought the V20's performance is getting a bit laggy and needs frequent reboots to restore performance. I'm awaiting a Xiaomi Mi 10T 5G that I've ordered from Amazon for aproximately £300. It's got a former flagship processor in it, the SD865, and that should be good enough for me.

Funnily enough, my battery was still going strong. But I definitely put in the effort to make it last. Custom ROM, background apps stripped down to the bare minimum and even undervolting the CPU within an inch of instability.

It was day to day performance that really did it for me in the end, apps that used to be super quick getting slower and slower with each update

[Ozaron]

Two years ago, picked up an Oppo Reno to upgrade from my old Huawei P9 Lite which I kept as a backup and eventually gave to a friend.

Love the Reno, it's updated from Android 9 to 11 now so should survive a while longer.

[nablor]

March 2018 Mi Mix 3 and its still fast, looks good and the great part is the battery still last a day even after 2 years of having gps and bluetooth switched on permanently.

[Zhaoman]

Xiaomi Mi6 from 2017 but I just ordered a Fairphone 4. Hoping to keep it 4+ years as I usually do with my phones.