Keep Your phone for Longer

Writing this comment from my refurbished pixel 4a.

Currently don't have a smartphone, using a CatB40 but the company that was licensed to produce them no longer exists. Have been starting to wonder what to replace it with as I don't really care for Android and there are not really many options left.

Probably leaning towards cheap second hand, SIM that is calls/SMS only so data is never enabled. Download local maps using osmAnd then limit it to LAN only so it can access my rygel media server with VLC. Now I wonder if steam link works if you are LAN only, I think so? Can always play Dwarf Fortress and CDDA over SSH instead though.

While I'm not in the mood to click through to the article, I'm fairly well known for using devices until they fail. Enough so that I sometimes get brought older devices to put to use.

I tend to buy refurbished tablets since I don't have to rely on them for anything I can't keep doing on a different one. Sometimes just used tablets, not even refurbished.

The key is that what ends up being the "death" of a device isn't usually something like the flash dying, or screens breaking. It's the damn batteries. You can limp along with a replaced screen, even if it's lost something from being heated to replace it. It'll still work fine as a picture frame or short term security camera, or whatever.

But most manufacturers make replacing a battery a major hassle.

Refurbished devices rarely replace them. I'm fairly convinced that refurbished often should be written as "refurbished" because at some point, I end up having to try and replace a battery and there's no signs anyone ever took the device apart before. Not always, but there's enough times where it's obvious all they did was power the thing on and determine that was all they needed to do.

Replacing batteries in specific is key to device longevity. The harder it is to do, the more stress you place on the device in the process. More flexed joins, more unscrewed threads, more worn connectors, and more adhesives to deal with removing, which is also usually going to mean more heat applied to electronics, which is never a good thing. And the battery is almost guaranteed to wear out before anything else, along with the risk of a spicy pillow damaging things because it couldn't be easily swapped out.

Even when they do get replaced by whoever did the "refurbishment", did they use a good battery? Is it oem or random? Was it actually a new battery, or one pulled from another device of the same specification (some brands use the same batteries in everything) run an unknown amount of cycles through it?

Right now, I have an old lgg3 that I can't find new batteries for. It also has a faulty SD card slot, but it is otherwise fully functional. Once the batteries I have are gone, the device is dead. I could maybe try and improvise a battery bypass so it could just stay plugged in, but I don't trust my hands enough to dick around with soldering any more.

I also have an even older galaxy tab2 win the same lack of battery availability, though I can likely swap it with something similar if I really want to.

It's absurd that these devices that can last over a decade (in the case of my oldest tablet) are so often relegated to the trash because of batteries.

At the very least, having the ability to just disconnect the battery and run while plugged in should be the default for tablets and phones.

I buy almost all of my electronics refurbished. Think my steamdeck from like 3 years ago which was new tech I wanted enough to be first round preorder was the last new electronic I bought. I see no reason not to buy refurb, I've never bought a new gpu. Written from my refurb phone.

My past 4 mobile phones were refurbished. I would still be using the OG Pixel (refurbished) if it was not for the lack of security updates, and it was easier to change the battery.

My main concern would be worn flash chips that can make the phone slow, and possibly cell radios no longer supported. My Note 3 is banned from Australia networks due to no VoLTE capability.