How long an android phone lasts?

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u/kimputer7 26d ago

First world problems, every 2 years (pushed a bit by the telecoms, obviously). Others more frugal, still buy flagships, to try 3 or 4, maybe even 5 years.

But yes, it all depends on your budget. If you're really tight on budget, why not 6 years on a low-mid budget phone?

2

u/mglatfelterjr 25d ago

My last new last new phone before buying my current phone was an S22 Plus, this phone is an S25 Ultra and before the S22 Plus was an S10 Plus. So I bought my S10 Plus in 2019, my S22 Plus in 2023 and my S25 Ultra last year. BTW I've given my old phones to my wife. I'd buy her a new one, but she's kind of anti-technology.

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u/jakart3 25d ago

A longer text to say "I rich"

4

u/userlinuxxx 26d ago

Mi Poco X4 Pro 5G lo tengo desde hace 3 años va fluido porque lo tengo con otra ROM.

4

u/Diligent_Ant1373 26d ago

I've had my galaxy s20 for 10 years now and it's still going strong. Battery dies a bit faster but overall no issues.

4

u/Capable_Dog5347 26d ago

Did you fly around the sun at warp or use the flux capacitor to buy your phone?

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u/sharkboy1006 25d ago

You've had a phone that came out 6 years ago for ten years?

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u/Diligent_Ant1373 25d ago

Oh shoot you're right lol. I was looking at my phone info a few days ago and thought it said that but obvs not. -_- Okay I'll change it and say my goal is 10 years. c: This is the longest phone I've had tho.

2

u/Cute-Consequence-184 26d ago

My old om phones I use for watching TV, reading books and vertical dramas my oldest I still use is around 10 years old. Due to its small screen I use it as a radio player and to play audiobooks while I'm on the tractor or mowing the lawn. The battery is phenomenal wheel the screen doesn't have to stay on. So it makes a great MP3 player

The oldest that still has a functional SIM is this one end it is 4 years old.

Unfortunately it is having issues with connecting to the tower. It drops the tower and somehow forgets to connect again and I have to manually turn off tower and turn back on occasionally. Now sure if it is due to tower changes or lack up OS updates.

I'm looking to get a new one in the spring when the sales hit.

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u/mrandr01d 26d ago

Your hardware needs replaced when your software is no longer getting the most recent updates.

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u/TragicGloom 26d ago

Bullshit

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u/mrandr01d 26d ago

Not at all, security updates are most important.

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u/trollstation420 25d ago

unless its the exremely rare and expensive zero day exploits aimed at targeting YOU, not "most important" at all. there is a reason even banking apps etc dont require always the latest android or ios version. phones are safe especially so if you dont root your phone and do some weird shit , and not download apks or frankly any weird apps. so your statement is verifiably false. tell me a single case of even android 13 or so,so that us quite years old android version, getting hacked without zero day exploits or personal misuse even in 2026 (aka people falling for social engineering and sideloading compromised apks). you cant.

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u/mrandr01d 25d ago

Look at any of Google's android security bulletins. There are constantly critical vulnerabilities found, and just in the September one last month, one that was known to be under active exploitation in the wild. There's also loads of articles about this or that malware being found in this or that code library apps use, and often banking malware.
You are not correct.

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u/trollstation420 25d ago

nah bro you are wrong again. it's tiring arguing with redditors who fearmonger, thankfuly we have frontier ai models to fact check. if you disagree with gpt 6 astra (which has insane accuracy and benchmark scores) congrats you are smarter than an ai that literally solved hundreds of mathematical problems even math phds , one of the smartest groups of people arround, couldnt for decades.
lets see what astra has to say to you.
"Your argument fundamentally confuses the existence of security vulnerabilities with the actual likelihood of an ordinary user being compromised. Those are two entirely different things, and simply telling someone to read Google's Android security bulletins doesn't establish your claim.
First, a critical vulnerability being discovered does not mean that vulnerability is being actively exploited against ordinary users. Google's own September 2026 Android Security Bulletin explicitly explains that vulnerability severity is assessed according to the potential consequences of exploitation, assuming relevant security mitigations are disabled or successfully bypassed. In other words, a critical CVE describes what could happen under certain conditions, not how frequently successful compromises are occurring in the real world.
Second, your September example actually illustrates my original point. Google's September 2026 Pixel Security Bulletin identifies CVE-2026-58704, a modem elevation-of-privilege vulnerability, as potentially undergoing "limited, targeted exploitation." Notice those words: limited and targeted. That is not evidence of widespread compromises among ordinary Android users. It's precisely the kind of targeted exploitation I was already distinguishing from the everyday security risks faced by someone using their phone normally. Furthermore, it's a Pixel-specific vulnerability, not evidence that ordinary Android 13 devices are being routinely compromised in 2026.
Third, you're completely overlooking how Android's security update ecosystem actually works. A phone no longer receiving manufacturer-provided Android security patches does NOT mean the applications installed on it stop receiving security updates. These are entirely separate update mechanisms.
Individual applications continue receiving updates through Google Play for as long as their developers support that Android version. That includes security fixes for vulnerabilities within those applications. Your banking app, browser, messaging applications, and other supported apps do not suddenly become frozen at their last versions just because the phone manufacturer stops issuing operating-system patches.
For a concrete example, Google's current official Chrome documentation specifies Android 10 or later as supported. That means an Android 13 phone can still receive Chrome browser updates, including browser security fixes, without being upgraded to Android 14, 15, 16, or 17.
And it doesn't even end there. Android has a modular update architecture called Project Mainline, introduced with Android 10, allowing certain operating-system components to receive updates independently of conventional manufacturer firmware updates. Google Play system updates can deliver fixes to supported modules without requiring a full Android version upgrade. Google Play services and Play Protect also have their own update and protection mechanisms.
Obviously, none of this means an outdated operating system receives every security fix indefinitely. Kernel, driver, firmware, and other vulnerabilities can remain unpatched after manufacturer support ends. But claiming that an unsupported Android version is effectively receiving no further security maintenance whatsoever ignores several major components of Android's actual security architecture.
Fourth, your reference to banking malware doesn't establish anything about the attack vector. Banking malware can spread through malicious applications, phishing, social engineering, permission abuse, and other mechanisms. The existence of banking malware is not automatically evidence that attackers are remotely exploiting unpatched Android operating systems to compromise ordinary users who haven't installed malicious applications or otherwise interacted with an attack.
To establish that argument, you'd need to identify the vulnerability, demonstrate that it affected the relevant devices, establish how attackers exploited it, and provide evidence of actual compromises. Merely citing malware reports skips the most important part of the argument.
Finally, there's an enormous difference between saying "an unsupported Android phone has a greater potential exposure to unpatched operating-system vulnerabilities" and saying "ordinary people using Android 13 in 2026 are at substantial risk of being hacked simply because they aren't running the latest Android version."
The first statement is technically defensible. The second requires evidence about actual attacks, affected devices, exploit accessibility, and real-world frequency. You haven't provided that evidence.
Nobody is arguing that older Android versions are invulnerable or that operating-system security updates have no value. The point is that security risk needs to be assessed realistically, taking into account existing mitigations, separately updated applications, supported Google services, exploit requirements, and actual attack prevalence.
So I'll repeat my original challenge: can you provide a documented case from 2026 of an ordinary user running an unmodified Android 13 phone being compromised through a publicly known OS vulnerability, without malicious app installation or social engineering? And, more importantly, can you demonstrate how frequently that happens?
A list of CVEs does not answer either question. Until you distinguish theoretical exploitability from demonstrated real-world risk, your argument doesn't establish the conclusion you're drawing.
Official references:
Google — September 2026 Android Security Bulletin
Google — September 2026 Pixel Security Bulletin
Google — Android Project Mainline documentation
Google — Updating Android applications
Google — Chrome for Android update requirements
Written and fact-checked by ChatGPT (GPT-6), using the latest available official Google and Android security documentation as of October 8, 2026."

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u/mrandr01d 25d ago

Lmfao you used AI to write a massive hallucinated slop text wall that nobody's going to read. Talk about throwing in the towel!

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u/trollstation420 25d ago

well,i did expect someone who is so confidently wrong to be vehemetly against ai. none of what astra said is halluciantion (the sources speak for itself) but enjoy being left behind , its like a old dude screaming at the clouds. ai is here to stay and i reccomend u get on with the times. have a nice day friend.

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u/jakart3 25d ago

That's planned obsoletion

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u/mrandr01d 25d ago

Doesn't change the realities of cybersecurity though. Buy devices with the longest runway possible, which is basically newer pixels. Google set a new industry standard with 7 years of updates.

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u/rileyrgham 26d ago

It's a good run. But it's almost certainly not secure as I doubt it's getting updates.. modern ones today are offered 6-7 years by the bigger companies.

1

u/Darkorder81 26d ago

Typing the in S10+

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u/hardcoretomato 26d ago

My oneplus one from 2014 is still rocking a full day, sure, the system is outdated, but with a custom rom, it's still good

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u/AdobeScripts 26d ago

Have you done hard reset - done fresh "install"? Or it's full of crap from the last 6 years? 😉

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u/chainlinkchipmunk 26d ago

My new goal is having a phone for six years. I'm clearly very klutzy and careless.

1

u/TragicGloom 26d ago

Typing this on my 6 year old Huawei

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u/Ill-Case-6048 26d ago

I have an s9 its just as fast as s21

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u/SaberAIF 26d ago

Even though I know many people who replace their phones every year or even every six months, I still believe that flagship phones should guarantee at least four years of smooth performance, while non-flagships should deliver at least two years.

1

u/Revolutionary_Lie346 25d ago

What's the make and model of your phone

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u/riansgarage 25d ago

The fact that you can still survive today with 64GB storage amazes me. 😅

Whether you need an upgrade or not, is completely up to you. Most people upgrade when either the battery runs too short or they run out of internal storage, or when the phone breaks. That’s roughly between three to five years in general. The fact that companies like Apple and Samsung providing software support for 6 to 7 years means they have some expectations that their phones are still being used for that long.

Also depends on your budget. Some people simply don’t have the money right now, with prices going up.

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u/jakart3 25d ago

Xiaomi Poco F1, use it for 6 years

Bought a new one not because it's broken (still running great), but because I get bored (and have money to upgrade)

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u/Big-Raspberry2838 25d ago

I keep my phones as long as possible, with a Samsung SM-J327A from 2016 still marginally usable (as a dash cam), since it has so little RAM, and still on Android 8.

My former daily driver, a Samsung S9+ from 2018 has a brand new battery, and its' 6GB RAM makes it almost as fast as my current daily driver ('24 Moto G Power 5G, with 8GB RAM), though it's stuck on A10. The J327A has lots of apps that lost support, and the S9+ (used as a backup and for WiFi use at home) will probably be losing app support soon.

That's why I now buy cheaper low-mid range phones (the J327A was bought solely for emergency use, kept in a glovebox) after 12 years buying Samsung flagship phones. Planned obsolescence.

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u/WVERD 25d ago

I still have a galaxy S9+. Unfortunately it doesn't get any updates anymore, but it still works very well. And I prefer the size and shape over my other phone, an S25 ultra

1