Americans Are Waiting Three Years To Replace Their Phones, Study Finds (engadget.com) 149
A new study released by Strategy Analytics reflects the current state of the smartphone industry. Apparently, consumers in the US -- Baby Boomers, in particular -- are increasingly delaying their smartphone purchase for three or more years. From a report: In addition, the average iPhone now remains active for 18 months, while the average Samsung phone remains active for 16.5. The era of yearly phone upgrades is over. Smartphone shipments have been dropping around the world over the past year, and some analysts even believe the industry is bound to suffer its worst decline ever in the coming months. Strategy Analytics conducted an online survey with 2,500 smartphone owners aged 18 to 64 years old in the US. Company SVP David Kerr explained that there are several reasons behind consumers' decision not upgrade as quickly as they did in the past. To start with, buyers perceive newer phones' offerings as marginal upgrades not worth getting a new device for.
Good ... should be 4-5 years. (Score:5, Insightful)
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A bezel-less phone that's less than 8mm thick is almost bound to be glued together.
Anyhow, IP68 phone ratings are a crock. That just certifies water won't get at the circuit board and battery. You aren't supposed to get the USB port wet.
Re:Good ... should be 4-5 years. (Score:5, Interesting)
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It's funny how fashion subverts the idealized view of capitalism in which companies compete to fill our *needs*. In fashion-driven industries, they compete for control of our *wants*.
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It's funny how fashion subverts the idealized view of capitalism in which companies compete to fill our *needs*. In fashion-driven industries, they compete for control of our *wants*.
There is really not much difference between a "need" and a "want". You don't really "need" clean water, or clothing, or shelter. Some people survive without them.
In some languages, there is not even a clear distinction between the concepts of "need" and "want" like there is in English.
Re:Good ... should be 4-5 years. (Score:5, Insightful)
Finally, make the outer case replaceable. Remember the old Nokias, with swappable, customizable covers? A tougher phone with a replaceable cover, and there's no need for additional protection.
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Mandate user-replaceable batteries and charging ports in phones.
Preach it, brother! I'd be all for this.
Seriously, I'd be all for a law that mandated certain parts being replaceable. So a phone might have to be 1/10th of a millimeter thicker- people will get over it.
Long-term use is the best form of recycling -- if you're using it, you're not burning energy making a new device, recycling the old one, and making e-waste out of what can't (won't) be recycled.
^^^^THIS this this. Making things that last is *the* single best way to reduce waste and to reduce the need to recycle.
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Mandate user-replaceable batteries and charging ports in phones. They can still be waterproof ...
My Kyocera Hydro VIBE [kyoceramobile.com] has a user-replaceable battery (and memory, SIM cards), has a headphone jack and is "Certified dust resistant and waterproof for IP57 - protection against dust and water immersion for up to 30 minutes in up to 3.28 feet (1 meter) of water" -- and came out in 2014. Ya, it only runs KitKat, but still does everything I need it to do...
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B..bu...but it's so 2014 and UGLY. No notch, big bezel, I wouldn't be caught DEAD carrying this thing.
I know you're being facetious, but I actually like the way it looks (and feels) -- and it's sturdy and easily fits in my hand/pocket, unlike many of the newer fondle-slabs.
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I know you're being facetious, but I actually like the way it looks (and feels) -- and it's sturdy and easily fits in my hand/pocket, unlike many of the newer fondle-slabs.
Yeah, I actually liked my old flip-phone, easy to carry around. I don't understand why phones have to be enormous.
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Yeah, I actually liked my old flip-phone, easy to carry around.
If you like flip phones so much, then why don't you buy one?
There are plenty available, and they are cheap. Go to Amazon and type "flip phone".
I don't understand why phones have to be enormous.
I don't understand why people whine about problems that don't exist.
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Exactly. People aren't carrying around a phone. They're carrying around a portable Internet, chat, and game device.
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I'd replace it with something better if it existed.
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But then cell phone makers won't be able to sell as many phones, without everyone upgrading every 2 years.
Won't someone please think of the poor cell phone companies?
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Mandate user-replaceable batteries and charging ports in phones. They can still be waterproof -- put the battery behind a screwed-on panel sealed with a sillycone gasket. Long-term use is the best form of recycling -- if you're using it, you're not burning energy making a new device, recycling the old one, and making e-waste out of what can't (won't) be recycled.
Isn't the percentage of phones that die to spills or submersion pretty low anyway? It's got to be far lower than the number that die from falls or dead batteries where repair costs more than its worth.
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I'd bet falls into water are 20% or so of the fall related deaths.
Re:Good ... should be 4-5 years. (Score:4, Insightful)
Mandate user-replaceable batteries and charging ports in phones.
Mandate that software updates be available for the full life of the 'phone - this should be a minimum of about 6 years from when the last 'phone is SOLD, not when the first one is - too many people buy something and support evaporates in under a year.
Stick your ManDate (Score:2)
Stop buying crap designs, and they would still be features.
You yourself are the only one that change things. Every one of you, yourselves.
Keep buying garbage, they will make garbage suitable only for their income, instead of things people need. Cameras would still be just cameras; phones would be just phones; Internet tablets would be just be tablets. Standards, modularity, and repair have all died because you and yours keep buying disposable, self-destructing, half broken, untested, non-quality items.
I think it's been 7 years for me (Score:2)
And if the Cellular company hadn't given me the phone for free because the 5 year old one used frequencies they were discontinuing I would have kept the old phone until it was no longer working. I'd rreplaced the battery and put in a bigger U sd card.
I guess I'm driving up the average keep time almost all by myself.
No kidding (Score:2)
The majority of people do the financing through their carrier which has gone from 24 to 30 month duration in most cases. The next round of phone price increases will push that to 36 month. $30/mo seems to be the sweet spot that people are willing to accept for an additional charge per month.
Re:No kidding (Score:5, Insightful)
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In my case it was because the financing was the exact same price as buying the same phone outright. If they're dumb enough to give me an interest free loan, might as well take it.
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In the USA, carriers are required to unlock phones once they are paid off.
Because of the way the cellphone market in the USA has been distorted by the carriers, the phone is likely to be cheaper.
If you want to buy a phone that is cheaper and pay cash, you need to buy a model that the carriers do not sell, or buy a grey market version, with an unenforcible warranty.
4 years so far (Score:2)
when i insisted i didn't need a new phone he looked at me like i'd slapped his mother. $55 for a new battery and it works fine.
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Given the current next gen rumors, I'll be doing a battery replacement for my 7 soon. I'm waiting for them to replace FaceID with something else. Either back to TouchID or something new. Same thing with the iPad. I'm wanting a new one, but it will wait until they figure it out.
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I’ve also got a 6S, and can’t remember ever thinking “this phone is too slow”. Phones are basically commodities now.
Should my 6S die, I have no intention of spending $900-1200 on a replacement either.
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FWIW you don’t need to deal with the hassle of going to an Apple store and dealing with the Apple repairmen cum sales droids, if you can do without your phone for a few days. Apple will send you a box to ship your phone into one of their repair facilities. It adds 7 bucks to the out-of-warranty repair cost, but your time is probably worth more than that.
https://support.apple.com/ipho... [apple.com]
Android Kitkat still in common use (Score:2)
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The new LG phone I got yesterday rebooted four times overnight while I was trying to put data on it. No warning, no notice, just boom, reboot. I had
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I also think it was the best version.
It's been a long time since I used it, but 5 was definitely a downgrade, and I'm not sure it's ever gotten as good as 4.4
Patent law (Score:3)
130 phone manufacturers (Score:2)
PhoneArena.com has entries for 130 manufacturers.
https://www.phonearena.com/pho... [phonearena.com]
Don't let reality get in the way of the ridiculousness you read on some blog, though.
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Have you actually looked at some of them? The "manufacturers" haven't updated models in like 6-8 years.
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I think it's more a "low hanging fruit" problem. The easy and useful things have been done, and nobody's quite sure how to do something else that will actually be useful. Locally handled voice recognition would be useful...but nobody knows how to do it. What else?
Because phones cost nearly $1000 (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't mysterious- it's because a lot of phones cost nearly $1000, especially the trendy, sought after ones.
Who wants to pay $1000 every year when there don't seem to be any significant advances or new features?
A $200 or $300 phone is more than enough for most people, especially the ones who aren't in love with their phone, fondle it constantly, or see it as a status symbol.
I'm happily using a Galaxy S5 and it's fine for what I need. You can get one on Amazon for under $100 or go for a fancier model for ~$200. There are hundreds and hundreds of good phones on Amazon that sell for a couple of hundred bucks. In short, there's no need for me to buy a more expensive phone.
But hey, if you want to drop a $1000 on the latest Shiny Thing(r) from Apple or Samsung, be my guest.
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A $200 or $300 phone is more than enough for most people, especially the ones who aren't in love with their phone, fondle it constantly, or see it as a status symbol.
I had to buy an Android phone [tracfone.com] a few weeks ago for testing a web app at work. It cost $25 and has a 5" screen, and 8 MP camera and 16GB RAM, and runs Oreo. Never had to activate it for phone service, but I was pretty amazed that I could get a device like this for so cheap.
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Wow, that is a lot of bang for the buck.
Hmmm, maybe I should spend $50 on a new phone, something different. I figure no matter what I get, even at $50, it would probably thoroughly trounce my ancient Galaxy S5 in terms of specs and performance.
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I really like the galaxy line. I've been consistently buying 2-3 generations behind the current one every few years. On the S7 now which is a great phone, but I might bump up to the S9 at some point soon and hand down the S7. Probably whenever the next one comes out.
I'm not interested in shelling out $1000 for a top-of-the-line phone, but I'm not opposed to dropping $600 for that same phone a year or three later. If I use that $600 phone for 3 years, that comes out to less than $20/month. That's a fairly re
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I have an S7 and my wife has a S9. Be aware that they changed the S series pretty substantially with the S8 and the S9 is just an upgrade of the S8. In particular, it's far harder to use a real phone protector case or screen protector, due to the round geometry they went to (we ended up with my wife's phone having a very insensitive screen that she's just gotten used to), and I hear that unprotected it's very fragile (or at least the S8 was) though it should be noted that my wife's phone is still just fine
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Sounds goog (Score:2)
Someone said how we would soon all replace our phones to buy nice new ones that did 5g. 5g is not going to be worth much to me for a year. If there is something next summer, that will make my phone 3. That is a good point to start thinking about replacing my oneplus5.
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Wasting Money Yearly? (Score:2)
I'm in Australia, so buying a phone and paying for a connection is a bit different. I bought a Nokia (Finland, not China) about 7 years ago. It still works fine, having had software updates just once, and the replacable battery is also working fine (not replaced yet). ... but it makes calls, text messaging, takes (small) photos, keeps notes and a calendar. Did I mention it's design is in the style of the old Blackberry?
Granted I can't do social media stuff with it
I volunteer at the Library, to help people w
OS Updates (Score:5, Interesting)
The only downside to all this is the lack of OS Updates. I'm looking at Samsung here, but I think it's fairly typical of Android vendors to only do two major OS upgrades, and then you're stuck with whatever it has. With Google putting out a major Android release about once a year, that means after three years the phone no longer has the latest Android, and is probably not getting security updates either.
Now occasionally the hardware requirements for new Android releases changes, so that they can't be made available for older hardware, but that's rare. Instead the vendors just don't want to spend money on support, especially when they can turn around and use the latest software as a marketing tool to get you to buy a new phone.
Maybe if someone starts successfully advertising phones with four years of software updates, and Samsung starts to lose market share, this will change. Maybe Google could somehow force it, either by taking over the upgrades themselves (unlikely) or putting it into vendor contracts. Maybe government regulations could address this, but I would much prefer to see the market solve the problem on their own.
Re:OS Updates (Score:4)
My current phone's the 2.2 which only ran me $150 and also has a headphone jack and a removable battery; it's a nice little cheapphone. I'm sure it can't run heavy duty games, and unfortunately RetroArch crashes on startup on it (I need to remember to report that this weekend), but otherwise I really like it.
Security on a phone? (Score:2)
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Pretty much spot on (Score:2)
Nexus 4, Nexus 5x (with one mid-cycle warranty bootloop replacement), Pixel 3a. I'm guessing late-'22-ish the Google Borg will figure it's time to launch another reasonably-priced full-feature phone and I'll grudgingly go to it.
People aren't buying a new car every year either. (Score:2)
The phone release update cycle starts resembling something like the car industry products. With cars, you get a major redesign now and then (more like once in 5-8 years), however, a slightly updated model is announced every year. The same goes with phones now, I think apple exemplifies it best. First were those little original iphones, 3G, 4, 4S, effectively the same design with slightly updated specs. When Apple jumped onto the bigger screens, then we saw the reincarnations of the same iPhone 6 for 4 years
I've had 3 phones in the last 10 years (Score:2)
...sounds about right.
If it ain't broke (Score:2)
I never saw the reasoning to replace a $1000 phone every year when there's nothing wrong with it. I usually go 4-5 years replacing when either the screen is busted (really busted) or it doesn't hold a charge long enough anymore.
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Got a replacement battery for my Samsung galazy note to a few quid and it was Samsung branded, worth considering. And even if the battery isn't user replaceable you might get a shop do it for you cheap.
why upgrade? (Score:2)
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Was perfectly happy with my iPhone 5C for 4 years (Score:2)
I had to update because my bank and credit card company said their apps would stop working.
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I see your problem: Doing financial activities over a cell phone.
Do you have any idea how insecure that is?
Stupid pollsters (Score:2)
It is that new phones are tiny upgrades in small parts of the phone. Oh, look, my already good camera is slighlty more gooder! Not.
Or, Holy Cow, Batman, the processor is 10% faster! which with the current boards and ports means a tiny 2% speed improvement in some cases! Not.
new phones suck and they cost MORE than laptops or many tablets. Battery life is a joke, and who
What a coincidence (Score:2)
If it ain't broke... (Score:2)
Second mobile since '96 (Score:2)
I'm still rocking the S5 (Score:2)
It came out in 2014 and I have no urge to upgrade. I can surf, txt and even make a call. It has a replaceable battery which I've replaced three times. It has real buttons and headphone jack. I've have not saw any new feature that could compel me to upgrade.
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Apple's lack of genius at their Genius Bars (Score:2)
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Three Years! This is an Emergancy! : P (Score:2)
Less Landfill (Score:2)
Which brings up a question (Score:2)
Because almost everyone's phones are "good enough" (Score:3)
Just Reality? (Score:2)
To start with, buyers perceive newer phones' offerings as marginal upgrades not worth getting a new device for.
Sometimes what people see is reality.
Re: Does this surprise anyone? (Score:2)
in short, cell phones have become boring.
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To be fair, it's not exactly like the leading manufacturers are giving us a brand new design every year. It would be foolish. Apple stuck with the same basic original iphone design, updating only the inernals for years. Then came the turn of the iPhone 6 based designs (6, 6s, 7, 8) basically the same basic design with slightly updated specs that mattered only superficially to most people. Witness how many people still stick with 6S (the last phone with the headphone jack, but does come with 2GB of RAM as op
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Same. I was on the 5 for years. Upgraded to the 7 Plus when the 8 was announced.
Was deciding to upgrade to the X but don't really see the point. Don't care about upgrading anymore.
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Works for me.
Frankly, if I replaced any other thing I own at intervals of 3 years it would be because the object was defective.
I don't see any reason to replace a phone any faster than every three years, and probably not that fast.
Re: Does this surprise anyone? (Score:5, Funny)
if I replaced any other thing I own at intervals of 3 years it would be because the object was defective.
Man, they don't quite make toilet paper like they used to.
Yup (Score:2)
People aren't "waiting 3 years", just like they don't "wait 3 years" before replacing a fridge.
It's when needed, and for an iPhone it's when the support stops and features (like map support) degrade.
Perhaps this is a clue as to why Android firmware upgrades are typically abysmally short lived after products are discontinued.
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It's more than that. All the new phones offer very little to even consider buying a new phone. For me, the camera has always been the number one thing that I've always considered upgrading for. But for the past years, most of these phones have been stuck in this 12-16mp cycle with very little difference from the old. They've made this situation even worse with the stupid selfie notch. Then they take away the SD card slot, and taking away more and more features. They've made rooting your phone extremely diff
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For me the main purpose of a phone is to be a phone. I use the built-in address book, and an appointments reminder. The rest is garbage that there's no obvious way to remove.
Now I would not have switched to a smartphone, except I needed a replacement cell phone quickly, so I took what was available. But the "upgrade" replacements would, AFAIKT, to an even worse job of being a phone than my current model. So it's not just that they're an added expense, and that they aren't any better, they're actively wo
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You get marginal spec gains (that are offset by developer bloat anyway (LOL IMPORT ALL)) and often lose functionality. As my friend and I were clocking out he mentioned babysitting an evening presentation, and lamented his dead headphones. I offered my tethered ones and he said he had no port.
Something is wrong if our "progress" is to invent entirely new problems for the man of tomorrow.
The laughable price creep is a conversation for another day.
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Even with $200 phones there's no temptation to "upgrade" them, unless they're broken.
And they still don't break often enough, which probably just means my next upgrade should be to a $100 phone, so that hopefully that will break often enough so that I'll stay reasonably current on the hippest gear, man.
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Exactly. Phones are just too fricking expensive to keep upgrading every year. Decreasing returns, Commodity items, and all that jazz.
Tag the article as "No Shit, Sherlock"
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Given my biggest issue is the dead spots (same dead spots on all three major networks) along my commute to work, And given LTE works just peachy for me when I do have coverage - I’m not bothering with 5G until my current phone dies. But maybe I’m the only one.
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....not bothering with 5G until my current phone dies...
Lots of people will say that. But the 5G hype machine will start, and you'll see ads everywhere. The average guy will start to think he should get a 5G phone sometime. Not now, but sometime, maybe when his old phone stops working. Then 3 months later he'll have some problem with his old phone and get a 5G phone.
He will like it because it's a new phone and the new phones are nice, 5G or no 5G.
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Aha! So the average guy will get hyped, but people who filter ads won't have any idea.
I remember now. I remember why I started filtering ads. I've glimpsed this a few times before over the last couple decades, but only when I was staying at a hotel, staring in horror what cable TV is like without a Tivo.
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To the best of my understanding...5G signals don't go through walls.
Incorrect. You have 5G confused with the signal frequency. 5G encompasses various frequency signals, some of which penetrate walls exactly the same way existing cellular service signals do.
Re: Until next year (Score:2)
I couldn't give even the slightest crap about 5g if I tried.
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I'm pretty hyped for it.
I live in an area with dense enough population to probably get it in not too long, but only have broadband available through Comcast. It seems pretty likely 5g will lead to some competition in the broadband here.
I have no interest in it for my phone though, LTE is already faster than my home internet connection, and they throttle big files anyway.
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I'm struggling to understand the benefit of 5G. Data plan caps make the data throughput you can get out of the tech worthless. No one can actually take advantage of it. You're capped out for the month after streaming one high def movie. They advertise like it's this great thing but in reality you can't use it.
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I'm not watching VR porn nor movies on my phone. Don't even need 3G
Phone calls, texting to family, personal and corporate email/calendar and multifactor auth... and some books to read while on train.
bandwidth shmandwidth
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Aye. We got refurbished Pixel XL's (128GB) last year, and paid ~$300 for one in January, and ~$200 for one in May. Automatic OS updates will likely cease this year, although I'd be surprised if they don't continue to get security updates on Android 10.
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I just upgraded to an LG V20 for $65 (I will have to replace/fix the vibration motor, though). Since it has a removable battery, I may not need to upgrade again for many years. I just hope I can use some vulnerability to root it one day.
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You do realize that posting Anon deletes your mods, right?
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