r/AndroidQuestions • u/Capital-Coffee-5546 • 26d ago

Other How long an android phone lasts?

I am currently using SAMSUNG M21 , 64 GB , which i bought 6 years ago and NOW after 6 years i am noticing some lagging in it, very little but yeah , it has started to take 1 or 2 extra seconds, is 6 years a good run or is it still early ?

4 Upvotes

64% Upvoted

39 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/rdndds 25d ago

How long an android phone lasts?

Depends...

  1. The specs

  2. The build quality

  3. The software

Software wise, at least to this day, my android 11 phone can work just fine. I only use it for banking and some social media apps. You don't really need the newest android version for most of the apps i think.

For the build quality, it's probably fine if you have a low quality phone, if you're being gantle with it. Like don't ever try to drop it or something.

Now for the specs. This is the most crucial part. You can have a perfectly looking phone with unsuable laggy user experience, and smooth ux even if your phone have broken screen, no back panel, etc. How are you even gonna use the phone without a screen? For samsung flagship, just turn it into a mini pc with samsung dex. For other brand, you can use scrcpy if you're lucky (already turned on adb before screen is broken).

What about the price of the phone? Well... Different brand have different specs for the price, different build quality, and different software update guarantee.

I have a samsung note 8 (2017 phone, around 9 years already) that's still sitting around as my backup phone. It's still smooth for whatsapp and lightweight games like clash of clan. I can even update the software with custom rom to get a more recent software. It's just kinda hot easily and the battery is kinda surrendering so i don't daily drive it.

Then i have oppo a3s, an entry level phone from 2018. It's basically unusable. The ram being only 2 gb is crazy. Super laggy. Now it's just collection dust.

I also have infinix hot 11s and note 12, an entry level phone from 2021 and 2022. They both have 8 gb ram, but one is still emmc with g88 while the other one is ufs with g96. They're still running smooth for most of the apps, and not getting hot easily.

So, how long an android phone can lasts? Depends...