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TacticalDesire

macrumors 68020
Mar 19, 2012
2,286
23
Michigan
I've had a 2013 Moto X that still performs perfectly fine. Only problem is that the battery has degraded but that's going to happen with any 2 year old phone. I've been updated from Jellybean to Kitkat and Lollipop. Can't really complain much. Definitely got my 2 years worth out of it.

Any flagship device you buy now is probably going to last you two years. Especially with current feature sets. I must be the only person on this forums that couldn't care less about software updates. If the phone isn't how I want it out of the box, I don't buy it. I'm not going to rely on an update that may or may not come to change things.

iOS is nice in the sense that you'll probably get updates for as long as you're likely to use the device (2-3 years). The issue with apple is that the updates will often degrade performance to the level that after the 2nd or 3rd update, most people will be clamoring for a new device. People can argue whether or not apple does this intentionally. You'll also get the people that say their iPhone 4S or iPad 2 performs better on iOS 9 than it did on iOS 4/5. All anecdotal of course.
 

kasakka

macrumors 68020
Oct 25, 2008
2,389
1,083
I have a Galaxy S4 and it has lasted 2.5 years now. The only physical damage on it is some chipping on the fake metal band on the edges (could be fixed with a part costing something like 10 bucks). I run the Google Play Edition ROM on mine, Lollipop 5.0. 5.1 is also available but since this is not an official GPE it needs to be some custom ROM. Performance is fine for the most part.

Basically most popular Android phones can usually be updated to the latest OS version via a custom ROM and it will work fine.

Resale value is miserable though. I still see iPhone 5S phones going for 300 euros here while it's tough to sell a Galaxy S4 for even 200 euros. I paid around 500 for mine originally (used with warranty). It's down to a point where if the thing breaks it might be better to buy another one used than to spend money on repairs.
 
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