How to Know When its Time for a New Phone

Depending on how you look at it, buying a new phone can be either super fun or super stressful. One the one hand, having the chance to get your hands on the latest piece of mobile technology is an exciting prospect. On the other hand, however, the amount of options you’ll have to sort through and the amount of money you may have to spend can make the prospect of phone shopping more daunting than exciting. So in order to help you save money and stay away from unnecessary stressful decisions, we’ve put together a checklist that will tell you whether or not you should be looking for a new phone right now. If your phone exhibits any of these tell-tale signs, it may be a sign that your device is nearing the end of its life.

Your Phone Randomly Shuts Off or Restarts

If your phone is randomly shutting down or restarting, this may signal the beginning of the end for your device. There could be a variety of issues causing the problem, so it may be worth having your phone hardware and software inspected, but in many cases, it’s easier to simply replace your phone when this starts happening.

Your Phone Randomly Drops Calls

Sure, phones can drop calls for a variety of reasons including bad reception or bad weather, but if you’ve noticed a pattern of dropped calls, it may be time for a new phone. After all, making phone calls is the reason you got a cell phone in the first place, right?

Your Voicemails or Text Messages Randomly Go Missing

Being able to receive voicemails and text messages are two other key benefits of owning a cell phone. Again, you could try sending your phone to the manufacturer to see if you can have this problem fixed, but if your phone is no longer under warranty, the simplest choice is usually to look for a new phone.

It Takes You Three Minutes to Take a Picture

A phone’s CPU will slow down over time as you fill the device’s memory up with things like pictures and videos, so it makes sense that your camera will eventually start to slow down. Sometimes you can speed it up by deleting old pictures and videos or storing them on a separate hard drive or SD card. If you’ve done all that and it still takes you three minutes to take a picture, then it’s definitely time for a new phone.

It Takes You Three Minutes to Open an App

The same idea applies to apps. Deleting unused apps may speed up your phone, but if you find yourself looking for distraction like making a new pot of coffee while you wait for apps to open, then it’s probably time to ditch your device.

When Browsing the Web Feels Like 1999

Remember when you really had to think about what web pages you wanted to open because you knew that as soon as you clicked a link, you’d have to wait a good five minutes before the whole page loaded? That was how the Internet worked in the 90’s – not how it works today. If your phone’s web browser is bringing back memories of dial-up Internet and MSN Messenger, it’s definitely time to get rid of your device.

Your Phone Won’t Let You Upgrade to the Latest Operating System

It’s not always necessary to have the latest operating system on your phone, but if you like to keep up with the latest tech trends, having a phone that’s not compatible with the latest OS update simply won’t do. And even if keeping up with the trends is not really your concern, running an out-dated operating system is a sign that your phone is starting to become obsolete. New apps may not run on your device, and the software manufacturer may soon stop performing maintenance on your version of the operating system, which could lead to more bugs and slower performance over time.