Technology

59118 readers

3191 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related content.
Be excellent to each another!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

214

Is it time to question the yearly release cycle for phones? (lemmy.zip)

submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) by shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip to c/technology@lemmy.world

80 comments fedilink hide all child comments

So recently I've been seeing the trend where Android OEMs such as Google, Samsung, etc. have been extending their software release times up to like five, six, and seven years after device release. Clearly, phone hardware has gotten to the point where it can support software for that long, and computers have been in that stage for a very long time. From what I can tell, the only OEM that does this currently might be Fairphone.

Edit: The battery is the thing that goes the fastest so manufacturers could just offer new batteries and that would solve a lot of the problem.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] flamingo_pinyata@sopuli.xyz 19 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Makes sense from manufacturing and business perspective to refresh your offer every year. It doesn't have to be a huge improvement, but technology slowly advances, there might be a better or cheaper manufacture for some components, etc.

On the other hand there no reason for any individual to be buying a new phone so often. Software support must be a thing - there's no reason for a phone to become obsolete after 2 years because of the software. It's a computer, you can update the OS almost indefinitely.

[–] BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 5 points 3 days ago

Just this month I finally moved off my 2017 flagship... Only because my cell provider stopped supporting it (for no fucking reason).

I was running the latest version of Lineage too. Thing was great. It did need a battery (which I may still replace for about $7).