[Bluenoser63]

So true. Two years is maximum anyway.

That is such a false statement.

[qwerty4ever]

Battery wont get any better and depending on the usage of internal memory that will die too, as it allows only certain amount of writes.

Yes. However, the lifecycle of internal memory likely exceeds normal day-to-day usage patterns and the battery can provide optimum performance for a number of years greater than five depending on the manufacturer.

[v0id_walker]

Yes. However, the lifecycle of internal memory likely exceeds normal day-to-day usage patterns and the battery can provide optimum performance for a number of years greater than five depending on the manufacturer.

In term or memory write cycle, nowadays it indeed does, but I managed to wear out a 16GB(it took 3+ years though). Battery is another story, I think I changed that one 3 times over the life-time of that phone.

[bluesqueen23]

It's just a phone, not a car! If they stop supporting it in 3 years, get another phone! Nothing lasts forever.

Posted via CB10

Except my Pontiac Grand Prix GT that has over 428,000 original miles. Sorry, couldn't resist.

[Chuck Finley69]

In a word, "Meh."

Here's why.

In three to five years there will be enough new spectrum deployed that no current phone can access which will force you to want to change devices. This is is just reality; new spectrum gets opened, older devices can't get to it because their RF side doesn't know about it, so you wind up with seriously sub-optimal performance unless you buy something else.

This takes time but it always happens in the cell business. The usual time period before it happens is mostly about the time to deploy for the carriers after an auction; meaningful results and improvements are typically 3-5 years down the road. Witness Band 12 for just one example and there are plenty more coming. Got a Z10 or Z30 and live in an area with Band 12 capability -- perhaps ONLY Band 12 capability? You're screwed.

So the real question is simply this: Before the risk of such an event occurring (BlackBerry dropping OS support) happens, will the device have a stable, mature operating system on it?

The answer when Lollipop was launched was "No." The several updates were "No."

But today the answer is Yes.

Therefore, the question is now moot.

You will want to eventually upgrade for RF reasons that are constant irrespective of who's device you buy. There's nothing you can do about this and it doesn't matter who's device you purchase, nor will it ever change in the future because even with SDRs you have an antenna resonance problem (in short you can't design an antenna that resonates reasonably-well on all frequencies due to the laws of physics, so even if the radio was fully adaptive, which none currently are, the antenna in the case isn't and you still lose.)

Therefore this sort of line of questioning is irrelevant. The question is simply whether you have a stable and functional OS that will remain so for the reasonably-expected period of time before such technology overruns the hardware you own.

That period of time is 3-5 years hence, always, from the time of introduction.

Oh by the way, somewhere in there your battery will have lost enough capacity to be considered worthless too.

How prophetic was this? Pretty accurate for some different things.