To ask how often you upgrade your phone?

I'm not on a contract. I buy a smartphone and PAYG SIM. I buy a new phone when my current one gets too slow or starts playing up.

impressed👍🏻

I have a had a Pixel 6 for about 18 months. I upgrade when the battery turns to shit or there's some other thing stopping it from working properly. I have had phones for three years or more before they die. The same with tablets, but after my last one conked out I didn't bother buying a new one, because my phone serves me well enough.

The only problem is that when I do upgrade technology moves on at lightening pace so it takes me a while to get the hang of things. I never upgrade to the newest model, maybe one of two down.

Well to give you an idea, I bought the iPhone 6s when
it first came out 1st smart phone because my Nokia said 'I can't do this anymore!!' I went from 6s directly an Iphone 16

the 6 had been cajoled, resuscitated ... there was no more to be done. She's in retirement working as an alarm clock! She seemed HUGE when I bought her, now she seems tiny compared to the 16.

Would have hung on to my iPhone 13 mini, great little phone still running all the latest developer beta updates et al, but the battery was losing its already relatively modest capacity and won't run the new Apple Intelligence.

So bit the bullet and upgraded to a sim-free 16 Pro last week. Three years isn't bad and I'm loving the much better camera and AI features that are just starting to be rolled out.

Get a Firestick from Amazon. My ancient smart TV is now dumb (also lost iPlayer and Netflix), but a Firestick means they are back again, and it runs faster too.

I sympathise. There's nothing wrong with my TV but the BBC stopped supporting iPlayer for the model in October. I am very peeved.

I just had to replace my existing phone not because there was anything wrong but three stopped 3G so I was not getting any data service.
Bought refurbished that looked like new and saved 100's

Until it breaks/becomes less efficient in ways that bother me. For my last iPhone, that was the point when the battery would just not hold enough charge to get me through the day.

I am using a hand me down Samsung Galaxy S8. It does what I want it to, and I have never cracked the screen or dropped it down the loo.

When I break it

I have had my present phone since 2011.

Bought a OnePlus latest gen -1 five years ago. Still going strong and will only replace if/when completely broken.

About every 4/5 years. It’s usually because of charging - either the battery runs down too fast or it’s not charging properly and you have to hold the wire in a special way or balance it at the right angle to charge it.

My and my husband replace our phones when we get and upgrade, although I haven't yet even though due - the prices are so expensive even though I am on a contract. But we never throw away the old phone - it gets sold, or sometimes given to one of our kids. I also like to keep an old phone as a spare.

But I agree your way is a cheaper way to do it.

Debating now if I should switch to sim only. But then its a big outlay if you want a 'good' phone.

hmmmm.

Every two years, I buy mid range Oppos, which are reliable but the batteries seem to diminish after the two year mark. Maybe it's bad luck. I would never go back iphones, and I had a really crappy but expensive Samsung once.

I only have a work phone and policy replaces them every 3 years.

Buy my phones outright, and have a PAYG SIM because I'm not away from WiFi much. Use the landline for calls at home. I have an original iPhone SE that I got in early 2017 and DH has replaced the battery and headphone/charging sockets to extend its life. Only thinking of replacing it because it can't do the latest ios update and I wouldn't mind a bit more storage.

Phones used to be a status symbol but it doesn't feel that way anymore.

In our household, roughly five years. My son gets a new one, and then his old one gets passed to my OH, and OH's old one gets passed to me. I think mine is around 10 years old and is perfectly fine for what I need it for, i.e. apps, texts, phone calls, and a bit of googling. Son obviously uses it for every aspect of his life as he's always on it, and that's why after five years or so, it's outdated as he needs it for every new app or feature. These are all iphones. We used to have android phones and found they didn't really last long before becoming outdated or faults occurring. No problems at all with iphones, even batteries seem to last forever in them.

I can't bear changing my phone over. It's so much work . So l just get a new one when it breaks down .

When it gets to the point that I'm charging it twice a day then I upgrade. Battery is always the first to go.

When it stops working... because I've dropped it in the toilet 😅
That's based on my last 2 phones (they still lasted 3-5 years each). In my defence, I was heavily pregnant both times!

As you when I was younger loved tech stuff and upgraded every 18months. But I stopped 1) cant be bothered 2) my fav phone company stop producing phones LG. My LGV60 is still going on strong 3 years on may last LG was 6 years old. So I do keep them as long as possible. But as PG have stopped supporting phones everything will slowly stop working as no security uodates etc. Then I will probably buy a phone outright and not a flashy one just an older version of a Sony / Motorola

We have our sons old phone, we ve generally had the leftovers. Last time we bought a phone for ourselves was about 20years ago 🤣

Dont need all the upgrades. As long as we can message, pick up calls and have our Lidl app on it we don’t care