The Issue With The Modern Smartphone Rat Race

Do you remember when smartphones were all the rage? Thousands of people would wait in line, camp outside tech stores and pay insane prices for a brand new Samsung S4 or iPhone 5. This was just a few years ago and arguably, we have not really seen a cultural shift like that before. Now however, millions of us will wait…At home! We aren’t as taken aback by brand spanking new smartphones. We’ve seen and experienced so much of what they have to offer. Yet, we still buy the newest models because it’s a fashionable thing to do these days. The issue with this is, brands have realized we will do this and thus, do not support their ‘older’ models anymore. The smartphone rat race is approaching a mousetrap.

Samsung and Abandonment

Samsung is notorious for its abandonment of ‘older phones’. We should probably make this clear, when we say ‘old’ phone, we mean a phone that is about 2-3 years old. Yeah, it’s crazy! Speak to your nearest S8 owner, and they will tell you that their software hasn’t been updated in over a year. They have complained on the forums on the internet about Samsung abandoning their phone and them as a customer. Samsung has a defense. They will claim that because the operating system, Android, moves so fast, their hardware cannot cope with the new demands after just 2-3 years. Customers however, believe that with better optimization and lesser versions of the latest software could bypass this issue.

Broken Hardware

One of the things that older smartphone users know all too clearly, is there is no infrastructure to fix broken hardware anyway. Unless you have a new phone with a warranty, you cannot bring your ‘old’ phone back to the store you bought it from. This means you can only rely on the classic independent cell phone repair business. They can fix just about anything. If your speaker isn’t working properly, they can take the phone apart, clean it, fix it and put it back together again. If your glass is broken, they can also replace it. This is vital for wireless charging users. If you have a broken headphone jack, they can either fix the current one or replace it with a new jack. There is no brand-led infrastructure to do this. Repair companies buy the parts themselves and thank god they do!

At Risk

Older phones are also notoriously seen as a weak link by hackers and malware. It’s common knowledge that due to their older software, they do not have a strong anti-virus capacity. They are inherently at risk of being broken into. If you own an ‘old’ phone then you should download as many anti-virus apps as you think you need. This is crucial if you use your phone to make regular payments and have cards saved in them.

The smartphone rat race has left many customers, who don’t buy a new phone every single year, somewhat in the dust. Hopefully, this culture will change and brands seek to keep customers both loyal and new, on their side.