Other than your carrier give it for free or cheap, I don’t really see the reason why should you buy new phone. I’ve been using Redmi Note 9 for past 3 years and recently got my had on Poco F5. I don’t see the point of my ‘upgrade’. I sold it and come back to my Note 9. Gaming? Most of them are p2w or microtransaction garbage or just gimped version of its PC/Console counterpart. I mean, $400 still get you PS4, TV and Switch if you don’t mind buying used. At least here where I live. Storage? Dude, newer phone wont even let you have SD Card. Features? Well, all I see is newer phones take more features than it adds. Headphone jack, more ads, and repairability are to name a few. Battery? Just replace them. However, my Note 9 still get through day with one 80% charge in the dawn. Which takes 1 hour.
I am genuinely curious why newer phone always selling like hot cakes. Since there’s virtually no difference between 4gb of RAM and 12gb of RAM, or 12mp camera and 100mp camera on phone.
Honestly, this is more bad “charging hygiene” than anything else. I thought this was the case too until like 10 years ago when I learned how Li-on batteries worked, and since then, I’ve had negligible battery deterioration after 3+ year old devices.
The TLDR is don’t charge your phone past ~80% except on rare days you need the extra juice, and by extension, definitely don’t leave your phone on the charger overnight. Most people do exactly that and it absolutely murders your battery health.
If you’re on Android, AccuBattery is helpful with charge alarms and detailed info if you want to learn about it.
If you have a Samsung with the “protect battery” quick option, it’s a god send and makes this all super easy.
If the battery greatly damages itself by charging past 80%, then the device should be aware of that and accommodate. I should never have to set an alarm to unplug my phone in fear of destroying it. This isn’t the 90s, where we tried to avoid over-charging Ni-Cd batteries. Making it work for the lowest common denominator is the only way to do it.
If, you know, you’re a company that doesn’t want your customers to buy more of your stuff. Yay e-waste.
I don’t know about other manufacturers but I have a Pixel phone and it has a smart charging feature that learns what time you normally unplug it in the morning, and it intelligently manages the charge overnight to minimise potential battery damage from overcharging. Is this not a standard feature across phone manufacturers?
My OnePlus 7t also has this feature, but it was added as a recent Android software update. It’s great to see that it’s on the Pixel! This probably means that it’ll probably be distributed among other flavors!