How long should a good smartphone last you?

In the good old days, the phones used to last really long. You would buy a Nokia and if you could save it from accidents and thieves, it would work perfectly fine for four to five years.

Nowadays, if a phone can survive and keep working for four years, that's incredible.

So the question is: how long should a phone last nowadays?

What is the reasonable life of a modern smartphone and when should you upgrade?

The answer varies depending on who you ask? If you ask Google, which makes the Android operating system powering almost 80 per cent smartphones in the world, the answer is 18 to 24 months.

Also read - 3 iOS apps you've never heard of

Google doesn't say that after two years you should chuck out your phone, but it does have a policy of not supporting Nexus phones older than 18 months with software updates.

In other words, Google expects you to upgrade your phone once it is two years old.

Companies like Samsung, HTC, LG, Sony, Xiaomi, etc, also follow a similar policy, although there could be some variations this way or that depending on the phone.

Apple, however, with its software update policy, seems to suggest that an iPhone should be used for three years. After that the company expects users to upgrade.

In other words, when recently it launches the iPhone 7, it expects that the iPhone 5S users would upgrade to the latest iPhone.

But these are some hints that companies seem to offer to consumers and these hints are aimed at maximising their profit. What is the best way forward for consumers?

Earlier, it would seem that a two-year gap between the phone upgrade was optimum but of late the technology leaps in the world of mobiles have become shorter.

So, a three-year upgrade plan is more optimum. A smartphone is more complex than the immortal feature phones that Nokia once sold.

The batteries deplete at a higher rate and after a year or two, they start losing their capacity. The large screens attract scratches and the glass starts to fade out.

The storage gets full and loses its read-and-write speed. More significantly, technology changes enough to warrant a new phone. All of this necessitates an upgrade.

But good phones can still easily last three years. If your phone doesn't, that would mean it is a lemon and you should not trust the maker of that phone again.

(Courtesy of Mail Today.)