Smartphone Upgrade Cycles

You don't have to buy a phone every generation and it's not really intended that you do.

A 24-36 month upgrade cycle means people aren't buying the latest smartphone every year. I don't think that the latest smartphone is a good value, and that's why I try to hold on to mine for a few years before buying a new one.

TBH i m surprised it lasted that long. The diminishing returns started long time ago, and practically it is the OS upgrades slowing down old phones, and drained batteries that drive the upgrades. Apart from the tech crowd, ppl don't care if their phone makes marginally better photos , as long as it makes them good enough to post to facebook. Same thing with laptops. I ve been wanting to give myself a new thinkpad as christmas gift , but i just couldnt justify upgrading from an i7-5600 .<

You may not buy a new phone every year. But there's always someone who's buying a new phone right now. Why should they have to buy hardware that's potentially almost 5 years old?

No, the OP means any new phone will just be obsolete again in a couple of years, so why bother if their current obsolete phone is good enough anyway.

I think you have it backwards. Users want to buy a new phone every 2 years. A 5s still works fine, but most people don't want a 5s.

This is great because the more expensive phones get, the less likely people will want to replace their 2-year old phone with a new one.Plus, those new high end features...there have been barely any new features in a smartphone in the last 5+ years (I'm exaggerating a bit of course). Check out Fairphone. That's an interesting project!

In many countries people keep their phones until they die, loose them or get stolen. There isn't a 2 year upgrade cycle.

Not everyone has the financial capability to change their phone to follow trends, some people only buy second-hand, some people fall back on cheaper phones but change less often, some people rely on charity because their situation just doesn't allow them to fork the expense. Some people just want to keep their phone for long periods, I kept my last one 6 years and I only changed it because it died. I think all these people deserve to have a phone platform that doesn't abandon them beca

It may be an unfortunate relic of the carrier upgrade economics. Most people, in the US at least, on a subscription phone plan get essentially a new phone for free every 2 years. Things are changing a little lately and now it’s not quite a free phone but a heavily discounted one, but it’s still pretty reasonable to expect most of your uses won’t have phone much more than a few years old.I guess that means if we want to see this change we need to stop trading up every other year. Which would m