Why We Buy New Phones When The Old Ones Work — TechVirtuosity

Brandon Santangelo
The Startup
Published in
5 min readMay 17, 2020

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The Question of Buying New Phones

Recently I was asked the question “why do we choose to buy new phones if our old ones still work?”. It’s a valid question and one that deserves an explanation. But there are also several answers and several reasons to why you would buy a new phone. The question was towards smartphones but any cellular or even mobile device qualifies.

To answer this question I’ll tell you some of the reasons that are the most popular. So without waiting any longer, let’s get started!

Smartphones Lose Their Battery Effectiveness

As a simple rule to follow, smartphones start to lose their battery capacity after a year. This isn’t to say they won’t last longer or that they won’t start losing capacity sooner! Flip phones don’t tend to have this problem as much because they are relied on less, but any device with a battery will eventually fail.

Smartphones are used for several different tasks and this means that their batteries start to fail sooner. While your smartphone might be perfectly fine in two years or more, you’re likely recharging it more often. At this point many people decide to upgrade because most newer phones have embedded batteries that can’t easily be replaced.

This is a good reason to buy new phones when the old ones work, but some reasons are very different like the ones below!

Most Electronics Get Outdated as Soon as They are Released!

Sure your smartphone might still perform as well as the day you bought it, but newer ones are better. That’s a philosophy many people follow and sometimes it makes sense to upgrade. Newer devices generally offer more pixels, better battery life and a whole trove of other features!

Sometimes it makes sense to upgrade and other times this reason is less clear. Apple tends to repeat a generation. A phone released last year is typically only slightly better this year. But if you wait another year the improvements become more noticeable.

This goes for other companies too! Samsung follows a similar way of producing devices. Sometimes it’s better to wait a couple years. But if you have the money and strive to live on the edge of innovation, then buying a new phone makes sense for you!

You’re Upgrading Your Phone

This one is different than the one above. Sometimes when you try to save money you end up with an under-performing device. You find out shortly after you purchased your new phone that it’s starting to show its weaknesses.

Maybe your brand new smartphone is slow to load the latest games or videos. Maybe it’s just not capable of holding a battery charge all day for what you need. These things are more than enough reason to purchase a brand new phone despite your old one working. It’s one of those situations where you get what you pay for.

To avoid having to ever end up in this situation, I suggest you do your research ahead of time. Learn what you need and what you don’t need if you have a tight budget!

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The Manufacturer Has Slowed Your Phone

This issue has gotten a lot of attention in recent years. Apple got in trouble for slowing down older smartphones in order to allow them to run the newest updates. This was a controversial solution to a difficult problem.

Our devices get slower partly because they get outdated. Newer hardware is capable of doing more, while our old phones stay the same. This forces a manufacturer to choose between letting old devices update or only offering new features to new devices.

Smartphones can accomplish a lot but they’re only as good as their software. For this reason some companies choose to implement new features while slowing down your phone. If they didn’t do that then your phone might not even turn on! But by slowing down your phone you might not be able to use it like you normally would.

Devices slow down naturally as they get older and outdated but add on deliberate measures to slow it even more, and it might become unusable. This is why we buy new phones when the old ones work because of a manufacturer decision.

We Buy New Phones to Compete With Others in Society

Much like the one above, regarding electronics getting outdated, we need the newest. While it’s great to be able to afford the best the market has to offer by buying the latest iPhone or Android device, it’s not a great reason.

But many people will buy the newest iPhone because their friends and family also bought it. This also happens to Samsung and other high-end manufacturers too. It becomes a status symbol rather than about getting the best performance or the leading edge of tech.

A lot of people who follow this trend don’t necessarily even know what new features there are! They will simply buy the device because everyone else has it, in their mind. But fitting in is likely the worst reason to update your phone. Even with recycling efforts it can still take a heavy toll on the environment.

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Buying New Phones Isn’t That Bad

Yes buying a new phone may not help the environment but if it’s outdated or if it can’t hold a charge all day, then you might need to. It’s also controversial if everyone should be buying the newest tech. It’s important that someone buys the newest tech to ensure that companies can still experiment and provide new products.

It honestly hurts a company more to provide long lasting devices. When you aren’t buying a new phone, whether it’s a flip or smart device it costs them money. They spend millions of dollars into research and development long before they release the device. If it didn’t sell they may not recoup those costs.

Likewise, a company that invents something may choose to profit on that same invention for years. This was a major problem with Intel regarding processors, where they profited on old inventions for years.

Luckily for us, the smartphone industry has a lot of competition. This forces companies to continually invent something new. Plus another advantage of people buying new devices is that you can always buy their old ones for cheaper costs.

Should people hold on to their phones longer? Why do you think we should buy new phones when the old ones work? Let me know what you think below!

Originally published at https://techvirtuosity.com on May 17, 2020.

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Brandon Santangelo
The Startup

I'm a writer, blogger, technician and software developer. Writing is my passion that I do on the side. I love all things technology.