Smartphones Can Now Last 7 Years. Here’s How to Keep Them Working

"Software updates are one big part of what keeps a phone working well, but there are other steps to lengthen smartphone lives, similar to maintaining a car. They include:

Replace the phone battery every two years

The lithium-ion batteries in phones have a finite life. After about two years, the amount of charge they can hold diminishes, and it’s wise to replace the battery.

Replacing a smartphone battery isn’t easy, so it’s best to get help from a professional. To find repair shops that service Pixel and Galaxy phones, you can contact Google and Samsung on their websites. You could also look up a reputable shop nearby with a review site like Yelp or Google Reviews. It typically costs about $100 to replace a battery.

For iPhones, customers can schedule a battery replacement appointment at an Apple retail store through the company’s website. But in my experience, repair centers at Apple Stores are a gamble.

I recently booked an appointment to replace my iPhone 14’s battery at the Apple Store in Emeryville, Calif. When I arrived, the employee said the battery was out of stock, and the nearest store that carried it was a 40-minute drive away.

This was frustratingly inefficient — the Apple site should not have let me book an appointment at a store that didn’t have the battery. Apple said in a statement that when a part needed for repair was not available, a retail employee would find the nearest store to complete the repair or order the replacement part and do the repair when the part arrived.

Instead, I booked an appointment at a local repair shop.

Protect it

Smartphones are still mostly made of glass, so to make a phone last seven years, it’s wise to invest in a high-quality case. A screen protector is an extra safeguard, though many won’t enjoy how it distorts the picture quality of the screen. Our sister site that reviews products, Wirecutter, recommends cases from brands like Smartish, Spigen and Mujjo, or cases from the phone makers themselves.

Unless you’re very accident prone, I recommend against buying extended warranties because their costs can exceed the cost of a repair.

Clean it

Smartphones have very few moving parts, so there’s little we have to do to physically maintain them. But most of us neglect cleaning the parts that we rarely look at: charging ports and speaker holes.

Over time, those holes are clogged up with dirt, pocket lint and makeup. That built-up debris can make a phone take longer to charge or a phone call more difficult to hear.

“It’s the belly button lint of cellphones,” said Kyle Wiens, the chief executive of iFixit, a site that publishes instructions and sells parts to repair electronics.

Fortunately, he added, you don’t need a fancy tool. Just use a toothpick to dig out the gunk.

Should this change how I buy phones?

I always recommend buying a product based on the here and now — what it can do for you today, as opposed to what companies say it will do in the future. You should continue to buy a phone based on this principle.

Plenty of people will choose to upgrade sooner for other reasons, like getting a new feature such as a better camera or a longer-lasting battery.

But those who just want to buy a phone that lasts as long as possible should pick one that will be economical to repair when things break. Mr. Wiens said Google’s Pixel phones, whose parts are affordable, fit this criterion. Owners of those phones will now have longer-lasting software to keep up with the hardware." [1]

1. Smartphones Can Now Last 7 Years. Here’s How to Keep Them Working.: Tech Fix. Chen, Brian X.  New York Times (Online) New York Times Company. May 15, 2024.