Newsletter
It happens every time. Samsung, Motorola, OnePlus, Apple, or another company announces an upcoming event and you hear people go “but I just got” so and so smartphone. And now their smartphone is about to be replaced by something newer and better. But who cares? You don’t need to upgrade your smartphone every year.
It’s a lot like a car. Car makers like Audi, Volkswagen, Chevrolet and others all come out with a new model every year. Usually, there’s not a lot of changes in the year-over-year models. But do you upgrade to the newest Chevy Equinox every year? No. You’ll keep that car for a few years, or maybe even longer. It should be the same for cars.
Apple seems to get this more than other smartphone makers. As they aren’t trying to get you to upgrade your phone every year. But they want to have something new and better there for you when it is time for you to upgrade. Whereas Samsung really wants you to upgrade from the Galaxy S22 to the Galaxy S23, when it gets announced on February 1.
It’s a status symbol
Why do we feel the need to upgrade our phone every year? Well, simply put, it’s a status symbol. Smartphone makers will from time to time, add something new to the new model that will make it obvious that you have the new one, or the old one. But to be honest, strangers walking down the street won’t care if you have the Pixel 7, or the Pixel 4a.
These days, smartphones are so good, and are incremental upgrades every year, we really don’t need to update it every single year. A Pixel 5 is likely still running just fine in 2023, and has an awesome camera, even in 2023. So why are we upgrading every year? We want the new shiny thing.
Carriers and OEMs make it hard not to upgrade every year
Of course, carriers (in the US) and smartphone makers really want you to upgrade every year. That’s where the bulk of their revenue comes in each year. Not from giving you service on their network, but from selling you a Galaxy Z Fold 4. Which is why we see trade-ins being so generous here in the US (unfortunately, this is not true around the world). On top of that, carriers like Verizon allow you to “upgrade” after you’ve paid off half of your phone. Which used to be after 12 months, so you could upgrade every year from the Galaxy Z Fold 2, to the Fold 3 and then the Fold 4. Though now, Verizon has moved to 36 month financing on most phones. So it’s more like 18 months now.
Some of these deals are just to good not to pass up. For instance, I traded in a Pixel 4a last year to Verizon, they gave me $800 for that phone. The Pixel 4a was $349 when it launched in 2020. Which made that an insanely good deal. Not to mention, that now carriers are allowing you to trade-in broken and cracked phones and still get a pretty good amount for them too.
Android OEMs make it so you can’t keep your phone for 4 or more years
Unfortunately, Android smartphone makers do make it harder for you to keep your phone for multiple years. Especially if you did not get the phone at launch. Most Android OEMs only promise around 2-3 years of software updates and 3-4 years of security updates. That’s better than it used to be, but still not good. Take a look at this chart from r/Android to see how the Android OEMs stack up.
Meanwhile, over on iOS, Apple updates its iPhones for at least six years. Apple just dropped support for the iPhone 6S with iOS 16 in September 2022. The iPhone 6S launched in 2015. That is pretty insane. And Apple can do this because it controls the entire experience. From the chipset, to the phone, to the software. Over on Android, it’s not quite that easy.
The biggest reason why Android phones don’t get updated for as long is, because of Qualcomm. A lot of smartphones use Qualcomm for its chipset, and the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is a pretty good chip. But Qualcomm doesn’t like to update its binaries for its processors for each new version of Android. Making it harder for companies like Samsung, OnePlus, Motorola and others to actually keep their phones updated for multiple years. But then you have Google, who uses their own chipset (it’s basically a Samsung Exynos chip that’s been repurposed to Google’s liking), and they aren’t promising more than 3 years of software updates. While Samsung is beating them with 4.
You wouldn’t buy a new Volkswagen ID.4 every year, so why buy a new Pixel every year?
Unless you were taking advantage of the recent tax breaks for EVs and the insane car market in the past couple of years, you wouldn’t get a new car every year. So why would you buy a new Pixel every year? It’s not needed. The difference between the Pixel 6 and Pixel 7 are pretty small – though the modem upgrade is pretty huge.
Just because Samsung is announcing a new phone every year (or really, every 6 months) doesn’t mean they dictate when you upgrade your phone. Keep your phone a bit longer. It’s better for the environment anyways, and limits e-waste.