Do you want to use your smartphone for as long as possible? Then you should know this image

Five years at Samsung. Seven years at Google. Even eight to ten years at Fairphone. Smartphone manufacturers are outdoing each other with increasingly longer software updates.

For a long time, Apple led this competition with five to six years of iOS updates. But now Android developer Google is getting serious and promising seven years of Android and security updates for the latest Pixel generation – no other major manufacturer offers a longer update guarantee. To actually use the smartphones for seven years or longer, Google now promises to supply spare parts such as batteries and displays for seven years.

Samsung has also extended software support to four to five years for many models in recent years. This puts pressure on other Android manufacturers to also extend their sometimes lousy update guarantees. This benefits consumers, who can use their devices for longer, and the environment by reducing electronic waste.

The following graph shows the update duration of the most popular smartphone brands in Switzerland. With most manufacturers, only more expensive models receive the maximum update time.

The graph shows it: Several leading manufacturers have recently improved their software support. Too often, only expensive models benefit from extensive updates.

Anyone who buys a cheap and technically fully adequate Android smartphone usually has to do without a multi-year update warranty. The fact that the situation no longer looks as bleak as it did a few years ago is not least due to the fact that Google has intervened and is providing increasingly important system updates, independently of the device manufacturers themselves (see info box on the website). end of article).

It is also important how quickly and reliably the updates come. Apple and Google have a natural advantage as operating system manufacturers. Among Android manufacturers, Samsung is known for reliable updates. Small manufacturers such as Fairphone often lag behind. Fairphone 5 users are expected to receive updates for the longest time (from 2023 to 2033), but new Android versions took a long time to arrive.

Why it takes longer for manufacturers to deliver updates

Manufacturers know that budget models in particular are often only used for one or two years. Accordingly, until now, they have had little incentive to keep even cheap mobile phones up to date with software updates for a long time.

Ultimately, it is also in the interest of manufacturers to provide their devices with updates for as long as possible. Since even cheap mobiles are now fast enough and have a good enough camera, a long-term update guarantee is one of the last ways to stand out from your rivals.

Apple realized years ago that it could retain its users for years with good software support. Conversely, manufacturers who only provide their devices with short-term updates risk losing customers to another brand after just one or two years. This is probably one of the reasons why Google extended the Android update warranty from three to seven years. This increases the chance of binding satisfied users to the Google brand and therefore to Android for years to come.

Furthermore, the tactic of encouraging consumers to buy new devices as quickly as possible with poor software support is becoming increasingly outdated. In the future, the EU wants to oblige manufacturers to provide smartphones with updates for five years and to supply spare parts for repairs during the same period. If manufacturers continually outdo each other with new update guarantees, they are simply adapting to the coming reality.