Smartphones are important part of our day-to-day lifestyle nowadays and we want to make sure that our mobile phone stays alive for long enough. Brands releases new phones in every few months but most people can’t buy new phone every now and then. And it doesn’t make sense to do that either. So, the best thing would be to take care of your smartphone in a way that it lasts for years. You can do so by following a few tips which I’ll provide you in this post.
There are many ways by which you can extend the longevity of your smartphone, and some may require some effort. If you are someone who want to use your phone for like three or four years, then it is definitely recommended to follow these tips. It is mainly for mid-range smartphones because flagship phones should last that long anyway. However, if you want your flagship to stay in better condition in the long run then you can use these as well.
Why don’t phone lasts long for some people?
Smartphones can die early or create issues in day-to-day usage due to a lot of reasons. However, the common ones which you can do to help improve lifespan of your phone are mentioned here. I am not going to mention about cover or tempered glass because those who want to use their device for long time use them anyway.
Temperature:
The ambient temperature as well as your phone’s temperature can impact your phone’s lifespan drastically. It mainly impacts the battery though, which can be replaced. Still, it can have impact on your phone’s SoC as well.
If the ambient temperature is too high or too low, then it will negatively impact your phone’s battery. Besides that, high temperature is known to reduce lifespan of electrical appliances and your smartphone is no different. It can reduce your phone’s SoC life too. However, it is not common thing unless your smartphone brand is using low quality SoC.
You can see the recommended operating temperature on your phone’s manual. If you’re on a higher or lower side, then that means your phone’s lifespan could have negative impact due to extreme temperature.
Apart from that, playing games results in heat too. And while your phone tries to manage it by throttling the cores, you should take it as indicator and try to keep the phone cool. It will improve your gameplay experience and your phone’s life both.
Storage:
Your phone’s storage degrades over time as well. With use and time, it will start getting slower and slower until it dies. Older devices which use eMMC storage degrades much faster than the devices having latest UFS storage or NVME storage (iPhones and iPads). So, if you’re looking to buy a new device, make sure your new phone won’t be sporting eMMC storage. It is slower and don’t last long either.
Just like computers’ storage whether it is HDD or SDD, your phone’s storage also has certain read/write limits. While they won’t mention the same, you can just make sure that you just don’t keep transferring huge files to your storage for no reason. With that, I don’t mean to say you shouldn’t keep a lot of time. Just make sure that you’re not putting 20GB – 30GB files on your phone for no reason occasionally.
I am not asking you to not make use of your phone’s storage though. That would be kinda… stupid.
USB & Headphone Jack ports:
This is another reason why some phones don’t last long enough. Their ports usually get damaged over time due to extreme usage or being badly handled. You can make sure they work well by using proper cable. Try to not cheap out on cables or earphones because the cheap ones might not be perfectly made which could cause issues in the long run.
Besides that, do not clean the ports with anything too hard or even anything which can get stuck.
Software Updates:
Software updates are known to improve security and fix bugs of your device. However, in many cases, they bring bugs and new issues. It is mainly for low-end to mid-range phones but even flagship devices have been part of such updates. Some updates have even reduced camera and overall performance of the device.
We don’t know whether the brands do it knowingly or it just happens with newer Android versions (which is kind of expected) but it does happen.
So, before you update to recent version, make sure to take feedback from other users who have done the update. So, you don’t encounter issues.
Installed apps:
One of the reasons why people want to switch to newer device is because of phones getting sluggish over time. It could be the result of useless apps installed by you as well. So, try to limit the number of apps installed on your device which are not needed. A lot of apps run in background and use a little bit of CPU resources all the time and when the number of such apps is insane, it could definitely impact the performance.
Some apps could even use large chunk of resources in the background. So, you must keep check on these as well.
Besides that, you should also debloat your phone from unnecessary system apps installed by your smartphone brand. It can have noticeable difference in terms of battery life.
If you’re using Mi (including Redmi and POCO) device, you can read the steps to debloat it here.
Custom ROMs & Kernels:
Custom ROMs and kernels are a great way to improve the longevity because they often result in better performance and battery backup. However, there are many people who use some specific ROMs and kernels for better gaming performance. These ROMs and/or kernels usually disables thermal throttling which lets you enjoy your games at high FPS even when your phone is heating like hellfire.
There is a reason why these devices have thermal throttling. It is to increase the life of your device by keeping the device cool. Without it, your device will keep performing great but at the same time heat a lot. So, do not sacrifice your device for gaming. Better save money and get a better device in exchange of your current device.
You might be interested in reading whether custom ROMs are safe to use or not.
What are some other ways to improve longevity of phones?
There are some more ways by which you can make your phone run for a longer duration. Some of these methods could be difficult or might result in loss of data. And if not performed properly, could even result in bricked device. So, make sure that you follow proper instructions while trying such methods.
Rollback to previous update:
There could be a chance that you started facing issues after updating to new update and maybe couldn’t the problems solve even after numerous updates. One solution to this problem is to flash the older stock ROM which was having no issues.
The methods vary from device to device, and it is not possible in many devices as well. So, you will need to check whether it is possible for your device or not and if it is then whether it is totally safe or not.
Besides that, remember that newer updates also bring better security measures. So, by rolling back to older version, you’re getting rid of those security fixes for new vulnerabilities provided by Google and your smartphone brand.
Format Data:
There could be a time when you’re facing slow-down issues on your phone out of nowhere. And others on same software versions are not having any issue. In such a situation, it will be better to format your device once which should be able to fix the issue. It will result in data loss though, so make sure you backup your data before performing the same.
Custom ROMs:
These are great to improve longevity of your device. If your phone literally came with poorly optimized OS, then you might want to look at the availability of custom development. Usually, custom ROMs are usually better optimized for day-to-day usage.
However, you might have trouble choosing an ideal ROM for you. It could be fun but at the same time it could be headache. So, next time try to choose a device which have properly optimized OS.
Conclusion:
So, these were a few methods by which you can make sure that your works fine for a long time. However, you should remember that issues can arise out-of-nowhere too. There are some brands who don’t spend a lot on quality checks, especially on mid-range and lower end devices. So, such devices can have weird issues any time. Try to avoid such brands if you’re looking to use your phone for a long time.
At last, some time a simple reboot fixes many problems. So, that should be the first thing you should try to fix any issue. xD
