7 things your next phone needs if you want it to last for years

Most individuals are now not upgrading their Android telephones each two years. It’s now the norm for customers to exchange their gadgets each three or 4 years. It additionally doesn’t harm that carriers have embraced 36-month and even 48-month contracts.

As such, I completely perceive in the event you’re shopping for a cellphone with the intention of holding it for 3 or extra years. However earlier than you set your cash down or signal that contract, I’ve acquired some suggestions to bear in mind if you wish to purchase a cellphone that can final for years and years.

My first tip when shopping for a smartphone for the lengthy haul is to make sure it has an extended replace coverage. Which means the cellphone will obtain software program upgrades for a few years to return, bringing new options and holding the gadget safe.

Google, Samsung, and HONOR’s top-end telephones all supply seven years of OS and safety upgrades, making these the very best performers on this regard. In the meantime, high-end telephones from the likes of Xiaomi and OnePlus typically include 4 main OS upgrades and 6 years of safety patches. On the opposite finish of the spectrum, low cost Motorola telephones often solely get two OS updates and three years of safety patches.

In different phrases, in the event you plan to maintain an inexpensive Motorola cellphone for 5 years, it would cease receiving updates simply after the halfway level. This implies your gadget received’t be protected in opposition to newfound vulnerabilities. The shortage of Android OS upgrades after two years additionally means you received’t obtain many new options down the road.

All smartphone batteries degrade over time, successfully dropping 20% of their capability after a set variety of charging cycles. It’s why your new cellphone lasts for ages in comparison with the identical cellphone two or three years later. Nonetheless, cellphone batteries don’t degrade on the identical charge.

Some telephones have batteries rated for 800 charging cycles (i.e., roughly two years) earlier than they’ve basically misplaced 20% capability. Google and Apple’s telephones are rated for 1,000 charging cycles. Samsung is the highest canine, although, as its flagship telephones are rated for two,000 cycles (greater than 4 years) earlier than successfully dropping 20%. Meaning in the event you’ve acquired a Samsung cellphone and a Pixel gadget with the identical battery capability, the Pixel will see a extra extreme drop in battery life after a couple of years.

Evidently, you must test what number of charging cycles your subsequent cellphone is rated for in the event you don’t need its battery life to fall off a cliff after a few years. Producers generally publish this information on their product pages, however they may also be cagey about it. I’d additionally advocate you go to the EU’s EPREL database to seek out these particulars.

There’s extra to a smartphone’s long-term battery life than charging cycles, although. The precise battery capability additionally performs a significant function if you wish to maintain a cellphone for ages. In any case, who cares if the cellphone’s battery ages very slowly when it’s a small battery capability anyway?

I’d advocate shopping for a cellphone with a big battery (5,000mAh or larger), as this softens the blow of degradation. A cellphone with an average-sized battery will successfully flip into a tool with a small battery owing to that ~20% capability loss over time. Nonetheless, a cellphone with a big battery will flip into one with an average-sized battery.

In fact, you ideally need a cellphone with each an enormous battery and sluggish degradation. However an enormous battery might help offset typical degradation. Moreover, a cellphone with a big battery doesn’t should be charged as typically as one with a small battery, so it received’t accrue charging cycles as rapidly. Nonetheless, even a cellphone with a giant battery will see a noticeable decline in endurance after 5 or 6 years.

You’ll accrue a ton of information as you employ your cellphone over time. This contains pictures, movies, paperwork, downloaded podcasts, offline music playlists, and WhatsApp-related knowledge. I subsequently advocate shopping for a cellphone with loads of storage in the event you plan to maintain it for the long term. This fashion, you’re unlikely to expire of storage after a yr or two. It additionally means you don’t must continuously clear up information to claw again area.

I’d recommend shopping for a cellphone with at the least 256GB of storage in 2026, as 128GB can replenish fairly rapidly with captured media, downloaded music, and extra. The excellent news is that the most recent flagship telephones from Apple, Samsung, and most Chinese language manufacturers supply 256GB of base storage. Nonetheless, Google’s Pixel telephones and plenty of mid-range gadgets nonetheless begin at simply 128GB. This isn’t dangerous in the event you don’t use the digicam a lot, or in the event you regularly offload pictures and movies to cloud storage, but it surely’s higher to be protected than sorry.

An alternative choice is to discover a cellphone with a built-in microSD card slot, permitting you to increase your storage with a reminiscence card. Sadly, this function is basically restricted to finances Android telephones and Sony’s high-end Xperia gadgets.

Many smartphones decelerate over time, so it’s value contemplating a cellphone that has good efficiency. As a result of very like battery degradation, a cellphone with mediocre efficiency on day one may be a stuttering mess 4 or 5 years later. However a cellphone with good efficiency out of the field ought to nonetheless be comparatively clean, or at the least passable, down the road. The large distinction is you could all the time exchange your battery, however you possibly can’t exchange your cellphone’s processor.

Moreover, producers and Google continuously carry new options to their telephones with every main replace. A few of these options require a comparatively highly effective cellphone, leaving you within the lurch in case your gadget has no horsepower. You also needs to contemplate gadget efficiency in the event you’re a cell gamer, as a cellphone with disappointing efficiency in 2026 is much less prone to help probably the most demanding video games a couple of years from now. My rule of thumb is to purchase telephones with Snapdragon 8 sequence chips, latest Snapdragon 7 sequence processors, Dimensity 8000 or 9000 chips, Samsung’s Exynos 2×00 sequence, or Google’s Tensor line.

Some Chinese language manufacturers like OPPO, vivo, and OnePlus additionally make fascinating claims about long-term efficiency. For instance, OnePlus asserts that the Nord CE 6 Lite will preserve its smoothness for 5 years, whereas vivo made the identical declare for its V50. I think about that if these telephones have middling efficiency on day one, this promise simply means they’ll have the identical middling efficiency 5 years from now. I’d nonetheless prioritize a very good chip and a good quantity of RAM (8GB or extra) over these claims, although. Nevertheless it’s one thing else to bear in mind if you wish to maintain your cellphone for 3 or extra years.

One other vital consideration is the cellphone’s sturdiness. In any case, you don’t need your new gadget to interrupt after its first drop. There are a number of durability-related elements value understanding.

Maybe a very powerful consideration is the kind of protecting glass on the cellphone’s show. Gorilla Glass is the preferred protecting glass answer in the marketplace, however there are a lot of variations. Some low cost telephones use previous Gorilla Glass variations (i.e., Gorilla Glass 3), however you must actually search for the Gorilla Glass Victus sequence and Gorilla Glass 7i if you need extra sturdy safety. A number of the most sturdy telephones in the marketplace use ceramic-based protecting glass, equivalent to Gorilla Glass Ceramic, HONOR NanoCrystal Protect, and Gorilla Armor, for improved scratch resistance. Does the cellphone you’re eyeing have a glass again? Then you definately also needs to ensure that the rear cowl is protected by Gorilla Glass.

You also needs to test your cellphone’s IP ranking, which is expressed as two digits (e.g., IP53, IP68). The primary digit refers to mud resistance, whereas the second refers to freshwater resistance. Meaning a cellphone with an IP53 ranking can resist mud and splashes however can’t be dunked in water. In the meantime, a cellphone with an IP67 ranking or larger is sealed in opposition to mud and may be immersed in water. Some telephones don’t have outstanding IP rankings in any respect, however might need “water-repellent” designs. Translation: You may most likely use the cellphone within the rain, however that’s it.

One other key tip when shopping for a cellphone for long-term utilization is to ensure that repairs received’t be an issue. Telephones formally bought in your nation will typically have official or licensed restore facilities, but it surely’s a good suggestion to double-check this.

If you happen to don’t thoughts DIY repairs, you must learn the way simple it’s to restore your future smartphone. The iFixit platform typically posts written articles and movies detailing a cellphone’s repairability, full with a rating out of 10. The JerryRigEverything and PBKReviews YouTube channels additionally ship nice teardown movies. In any other case, Fairphone is the undisputed king of repairable telephones, whereas HMD has additionally launched a couple of repairable telephones within the final couple of years.

Even in the event you don’t plan to repair your personal cellphone, you must nonetheless learn the way simple it’s to get spare components in your potential cellphone. Some manufacturers promote spare components through their web site or restore facilities, whereas others may accomplice with iFixit. The likes of Google and Samsung each promote spare components within the US, with Google additionally confirming it’ll supply them for seven years, matching their cellphone replace coverage. That’s excellent news and means you received’t be left within the lurch in the event you want a brand new display or battery 5 years from now. This additionally means you should buy spare components after which take each the components and your damaged cellphone to an alternate restore retailer in the event you’d like.