How long does a smartphone last?
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@weng said in How long does a smartphone last?:
At least nobody I know has a phone allowed to run it.
I'm going to go with it having to do with the quality of people you know. (peeks in android store - yup, it's there)
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@weng said in How long does a smartphone last?:
@timebandit said in How long does a smartphone last?:
@karla said in How long does a smartphone last?:
And doesn't seem to have the heat problems I have.
Stop playing Pokemon go
I was under the impression that all Android devices had been banned from PoGo and that it's now an IOS only affair.
At least nobody I know has a phone allowed to run it.
I can run it
It might have something to do with Safetynet though. If you're rooted, PoGo is a NoGo
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@weng I can install it. Currently on a S6 Edge+, so not terribly new.
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@dcon said in How long does a smartphone last?:
@karla said in How long does a smartphone last?:
My third LG G4 just bootlooped. A little over 4 months. The second one was repaired by LG so now I go back to that.
I'm sensing a pattern...
As much as we love to riff on Samsung, I haven't had any issues with my (old) S4mini and (current) S7. (I replace after 2 yrs - because that's what our company will pay for)Yeah, I don't know what I am going to next. My work phone is an older Samsung and seems fine. I still like the form factor of the G4 and the replaceable battery.
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@timebandit said in How long does a smartphone last?:
@karla said in How long does a smartphone last?:
And doesn't seem to have the heat problems I have.
Stop playing Pokemon go
My husband plays too. When actively playing in high temps I carry around a usb fan and ice packs.
Though before Pogo came out there were a couple times it had heated up for seemingly no reason.
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@weng said in How long does a smartphone last?:
@timebandit said in How long does a smartphone last?:
@karla said in How long does a smartphone last?:
And doesn't seem to have the heat problems I have.
Stop playing Pokemon go
I was under the impression that all Android devices had been banned from PoGo and that it's now an IOS only affair.
At least nobody I know has a phone allowed to run it.
I'm pretty sure my kids are all on Android and I've installed it on my last tablet and my newest tablet (for my daughter's account).
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@polygeekery said in How long does a smartphone last?:
@weng I can install it. Currently on a S6 Edge+, so not terribly new.
I could NOT install it on my oldest tablet but that was a Dell from 2011.
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@magus said in How long does a smartphone last?:
The only problem is that the power cord doesnt stay in well
Same with my Moto X Play, which I bought in October 2015, so coming up for 2 years.
I think there's something up in the USB socket that mangles cable ends, because when I buy a new, decent quality cable it works for a few weeks then gets gradually more and more likely to fall out, and stops gripping other phones properly as well
I reckon I can get at least another year or so out of it though, the battery still lasts through the day and it can handle all the apps I use without a problem
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@sloosecannon said in How long does a smartphone last?:
You can probably get a Nexus to last 4-5 years.
That's stretching it a bit... my wife is using a Nexus 5, and so far I've had to replace:
- Battery x 2
- Camera x 1
The front camera is now potentially going (although I'll probably check the cable connectors first), and since it was accidentally dunked in water for a couple seconds, the digitizer is now broken, so I may have to replace that.
Which makes me wonder... how many parts do I have to replace on this phone before I can no longer consider it the original Nexus 5?
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@julianlam said in How long does a smartphone last?:
@sloosecannon said in How long does a smartphone last?:
You can probably get a Nexus to last 4-5 years.
That's stretching it a bit... my wife is using a Nexus 5, and so far I've had to replace:
- Battery x 2
- Camera x 1
The front camera is now potentially going (although I'll probably check the cable connectors first), and since it was accidentally dunked in water for a couple seconds, the digitizer is now broken, so I may have to replace that.
Which makes me wonder... how many parts do I have to replace on this phone before I can no longer consider it the original Nexus 5?
Huh.
I've got a Nexus 4 that's still running strong (albeit with terrible battery life) - or at least as strong as you'd expect from a phone that old. For normal (emergency backup phone) use it works pretty well though...
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@julianlam said in How long does a smartphone last?:
That's stretching it a bit... my wife is using a Nexus 5, and so far I've had to replace
Is she using it as a phone or a projectile? I bought the Nexus 5 when it came out and it's still going strong to this day.
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@sloosecannon said in How long does a smartphone last?:
Huh.
I've got a Nexus 4 that's still running strong (albeit with terrible battery life) - or at least as strong as you'd expect from a phone that old. For normal (emergency backup phone) use it works pretty well though...I just replaced my Nexus 4. The battery life was getting bad, and it would crash or reboot several times per day.
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@julianlam said in How long does a smartphone last?:
Which makes me wonder... how many parts do I have to replace on this phone before I can no longer consider it the original Nexus 5?
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@dkf said in How long does a smartphone last?:
@julianlam said in How long does a smartphone last?:
Which makes me wonder... how many parts do I have to replace on this phone before I can no longer consider it the original Nexus 5?
Trigger's Broom – 00:24
— Woody Kane
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My colleague got a Russian brand Android phone that has dual screen (one of them is black and white, low resolution matte screen, that supposed to work for e-book readers) while his iPhone goes to repair. His comment so far is better than what he had expected.
Not this model, but to give you idea of what I mean, it's something like this.
Russia's first smartphone has an extra e-ink screen on the back
The YotaPhone slaps an extra e-inck screen on the back of a phone to relay information to the user as a battery saving measure. It's on sale in Russia now, but its future is uncertain elsewhere.
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In my experience, a decent smartphone will last you about 3-4 years before needing to be replaced.
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@sloosecannon said in How long does a smartphone last?:
You can probably get a Nexus to last 4-5 years.
As long as it's not 6p, which was a wonderful phone that barely worked. Performant, sleek and with a nice design, but overheating to hell, with a battery that wouldn't last a day, and eventually I had to put it on life support because the large CPU cluster got fucked (yeah, that famed bootloop issue that Google got sued over - turns out it's fixable, but requires disabling the primary cores). Now it has just enough processing power to quietly beg for a merciful death.
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@maciejasjmj said in How long does a smartphone last?:
@sloosecannon said in How long does a smartphone last?:
You can probably get a Nexus to last 4-5 years.
As long as it's not 6p, which was a wonderful phone that barely worked. Performant, sleek and with a nice design, but overheating to hell, with a battery that wouldn't last a day, and eventually I had to put it on life support because the large CPU cluster got fucked (yeah, that famed bootloop issue that Google got sued over - turns out it's fixable, but requires disabling the primary cores). Now it has just enough processing power to quietly beg for a merciful death.
Huh.
I've had overheating, but not any of those other things... I guess I got lucky?
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@sloosecannon not sure if it was an uneven production run or what, but the bootloop hit a lot of people, and a lot of people went completely unaffected. I thought I did too, then the phone turned from fully functional to a paperweight in like five minutes.
The battery wasn't that bad, but my replacement phone is the 2017 Galaxy A5 and I'm getting about twice as much mileage out of it. Probably owing to a smaller and less pixel-dense screen.
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@maciejasjmj said in How long does a smartphone last?:
@sloosecannon not sure if it was an uneven production run or what, but the bootloop hit a lot of people, and a lot of people went completely unaffected. I thought I did too, then the phone turned from fully functional to a paperweight in like five minutes.
The battery wasn't that bad, but my replacement phone is the 2017 Galaxy A5 and I'm getting about twice as much mileage out of it. Probably owing to a smaller and less pixel-dense screen.
Hmm.
Yeah, my battery is pretty OK. It's about normal for a phone of that age, it can make a day if I'm not using it too much. USB-C fast-charging is nice though, it lets me top off if I'm using it too much.
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@sloosecannon said in How long does a smartphone last?:
It's about normal for a phone of that age, it can make a day if I'm not using it too much.
Same on the Nexus, but the Samsung I can forget to charge overnight and have it still good enough for a day of mild use.
USB C is nice, though the Samsung has this weird issue where if I connect it to my powerbank with a C-C cable it tries to charge the powerbank.
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@maciejasjmj Do USBC powerbanks not have separate input and output ports? That sounds like a design flaw.
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@hungrier said in How long does a smartphone last?:
@maciejasjmj Do USBC powerbanks not have separate input and output ports? That sounds like a design flaw.
It has a 3.0 port, a Qualcomm (I think?) proprietary fast charge port and a C port for charging the powerbank which can also be used to charge devices. I got the 3.0 port to charge the Samsung, but I'm not sure if it's fast charging.
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@sloosecannon said in How long does a smartphone last?:
USB-C fast-charging is nice though
My Nexus 6 has fast-charging but uses a micros-USB port.
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@hungrier said in How long does a smartphone last?:
@maciejasjmj Do USBC powerbanks not have separate input and output ports? That sounds like a design flaw.
That's actually by design and a Good Thing. Usually.
Ideally, USB-C works everywhere on either end of the connection.
Of course, if there's no way to force the power bank to output, not input, that's a design flaw...
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@timebandit said in How long does a smartphone last?:
@sloosecannon said in How long does a smartphone last?:
USB-C fast-charging is nice though
My Nexus 6 has fast-charging but uses a micros-USB port.
Yeah, but that's a non-standard extension to MicroUSB. With C, it's supported by default on everything*
*YMMV
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@sloosecannon said in How long does a smartphone last?:
That's actually by design and a Good Thing. Usually.
Ideally, USB-C works everywhere on either end of the connection.I know about USBC being bi
directional, and it makes sense for smartphones that can be either a host or guest. But for a power bank I think it makes more sense to have dedicated, separate power in/power out ports, to avoid exactly that situation where the power bank drains your phone.
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@hungrier Just turn the cable around. Jesus, do I have to think of everything?
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@jaloopa said in How long does a smartphone last?:
Just turn the cable around.
:( I only got those cheap cables without the arrows on.
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@maciejasjmj said in How long does a smartphone last?:
@sloosecannon not sure if it was an uneven production run or what, but the bootloop hit a lot of people, and a lot of people went completely unaffected.
Interesting. Nexus 5 had a prevalent boot loop issue as well but it was due to a faulty power button. I did surgery on mine a couple of times which would stop it for a couple months then it'd start doing it again.
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@heterodox said in How long does a smartphone last?:
@maciejasjmj said in How long does a smartphone last?:
@sloosecannon not sure if it was an uneven production run or what, but the bootloop hit a lot of people, and a lot of people went completely unaffected.
Interesting. Nexus 5 had a prevalent boot loop issue as well but it was due to a faulty power button. I did surgery on mine a couple of times which would stop it for a couple months then it'd start doing it again.
yeah. both mine and me mum's had that issue. we solved it by putting a bit of open cell foam behind the button to make it so it would bounce back up and not make constant contact. worked a treat that did.
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@heterodox Some intrepid developer somewhere found a fix to the software variant of the bootloop. Unfortunately, it involves disabling half of the cores on the phone, so while you get your phone, it's slow as shit.
But hey... no more bootloops, right?
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@julianlam said in How long does a smartphone last?:
@heterodox Some intrepid developer somewhere found a fix to the software variant of the bootloop. Unfortunately, it involves disabling half of the cores on the phone, so while you get your phone, it's slow as shit.
But hey... no more bootloops, right?
That's for the Nexus 6p issue, if I understand the posts above correctly. A software fix to the Nexus 5 issue is impossible. The hardware power button "sticks" and just resets the phone over and over again. The closest thing to a fix in software is setting things up so the screen can be woken using the volume buttons and can be put to sleep by double-tapping the status bar (which I did), so you don't use the hardware power button at all.
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I never had the Nexus 5 issue, but I did have a problem with the Nexus 4 where the power button would sometimes fail to chooch, and sometimes act as if it was held down.
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@heterodox Yeah, same guy ported it to Nexus 5 (and 5X) as well, though it was untested when I read it.
As for the physical issue of sticky buttons, I've also heard about that... we use cases on our phones though, so nothing really gums up the button (literally!)
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@julianlam said in How long does a smartphone last?:
As for the physical issue of sticky buttons, I've also heard about that... we use cases on our phones though, so nothing really gums up the button (literally!)
I use a case as well. My understanding is it's an electrical contact issue and not something gumming it up (that seems to be borne up by my surgery). I found instructions on how to desolder/resolder the button but that's not something I'm comfortable doing. :(
In any case, I'm getting a new phone soon anyway.
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@heterodox said in How long does a smartphone last?:
@julianlam said in How long does a smartphone last?:
As for the physical issue of sticky buttons, I've also heard about that... we use cases on our phones though, so nothing really gums up the button (literally!)
I use a case as well. My understanding is it's an electrical contact issue and not something gumming it up (that seems to be borne up by my surgery). I found instructions on how to desolder/resolder the button but that's not something I'm comfortable doing. :(
In any case, I'm getting a new phone soon anyway.
Yeah, solder and phones don't go together unless you're really good
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@karla said in How long does a smartphone last?:
Though before Pogo came out there were a couple times it had heated up for seemingly no reason.
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@hungrier said in How long does a smartphone last?:
He's got a whole wiki? Weird -- I found his English perfectly understandable.
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@maciejasjmj said in How long does a smartphone last?:
As long as it's not 6p, which was a wonderful phone that barely worked.
Or a 5X, which becomes more and more likely to bootloop or just die as the years go on
Ship of Theseus - Wikipedia
