I used a 2018 phone for 30 days to prove you don’t need to upgrade

There are many excellent reasons to upgrade a smartphone. Maybe you lost or broke your phone. Possibly something important, like the camera or speaker, stopped working. Perhaps it’s not getting software updates anymore. But increasingly, upgrading just because your phone is a year or two old doesn’t make sense.

Honestly, I think if you have a phone that came out in the last four or five years and still works well, there’s very little in newer phones that warrants an upgrade.

I said as much to MobileSyrup’s devices editor Dean Daley, who didn’t entirely agree with me. So he challenged me to use a smartphone that is at least five years old for 30 days. I took him up on the challenge with the promise that I’d write about how wrong he was when I was done.

My 30 days in smartphone purgatory ended on May 13, and I have some thoughts about the experiment. But most importantly, I think I proved my point: old phones still work well, and newer phones aren’t that much better. (Also, you were wrong Dean 😝.)

Putting my SIM in an iPhone XS

The first step of my 30-day challenge was selecting a phone to use. I had a few old devices kicking around, but there were a few criteria I needed to meet to make the experiment more authentic.

For example, smartphone batteries degrade over time as you drain and charge the battery, so I wanted to make sure the old phone I chose had a sufficiently degraded battery. Additionally, I wanted to pick a phone that was still getting software updates because using a phone running old software isn’t a great idea.

Unfortunately, that stipulation ruled out most of the old Android phones I had kicking around, as they were from the era when three years of software updates was the norm and thus were quite out of date. (Sure, I could have messed around with custom ROMs to run newer software, but that brings a host of other potential compatibility issues, and ultimately I decided it wasn’t the best path to take. It was a bit of a bummer, as I had initially looked forward to using the Pixel 3 – my favourite Pixel design ever – once again.)

So, I settled on using an iPhone XS. The one I had on hand was a launch model from 2018 that’s seen heavy use by several members of the MobileSyrup team before it eventually came to me. I’ve used it on and off for years, though most recently it’s served as a testing device for iOS apps and features I write about, as well as for messing around with new iOS updates.

All that meant the battery was quite degraded. Per the Battery Health menu, my XS had a maximum battery capacity of 77 per cent compared to when it was new. Granted, if I had been using the XS as my main phone for the last seven years, the battery would likely be more degraded. Regardless, it was enough to cause problems throughout my 30-day challenge.

Battery life was the biggest pain point

Battery life was probably the biggest issue I dealt with during the 30-day challenge. With regular usage, my iPhone XS drained crazy fast, and I needed to top up at least once to make it to the end of each day.

But, the thing about the battery is that it’s a relatively inexpensive problem to deal with, at least compared to buying a new phone. For example, Apple’s website quoted $119 to repair the battery in the iPhone XS, a fair bit less than the $899 cost of an iPhone 16e. (That said, I probably wouldn’t do a battery repair on the XS since it’s likely at the end of its software support cycle – a battery replacement makes more sense for a four- or five-year-old iPhone.)

Despite the battery not holding a charge for long, it honestly didn’t cause many problems for me during the 30-day challenge, especially after I adapted to needing to charge more frequently.

Branching off the battery, it’s worth mentioning that performance was also problematic, but nowhere near bad enough to stop me from using the phone. There are likely a few contributing factors to the performance, from the age of the device to the degraded battery. But while the iPhone XS certainly felt slow, especially coming from a modern device, it never felt unusable.

Most of my day-to-day smartphone use involves browsing social media, communicating with friends, family, and coworkers via messaging apps and phone calls, checking emails, watching occasional YouTube videos and playing the odd game. I didn’t have any issues doing any of these tasks on the iPhone XS, though I will note that the older chip will restrict game options (no playing Assassin’s Creed on my phone, not that I was going to).

I didn’t miss any of the Apple Intelligence features (although they’re barely available) or any other AI features for that matter. There isn’t a single newer smartphone feature I missed while using the iPhone XS. Since I typically use a Pixel phone, I can say I missed some Pixel features like Call Screen and the Recorder app, but those both came out in 2019 and therefore don’t count as “new” features.

Truthfully, I also didn’t miss my 5G connection. The XS only supports LTE, which meant my data speeds weren’t as fast as on 5G-capable devices. Still, the XS was pulling 100Mbps downloads most of the time, which was more than enough for most of my tasks, including hotspotting my laptop to work on the train.

Smartphone cameras have come a long way

The other major issue with using an older phone is that smartphone cameras have come a long way in the last few years. However, I found the iPhone XS camera was quite capable as long as I played to its strengths.

For the most part, that meant just taking photos in good lighting. Newer smartphones have larger and higher-res sensors capable of capturing a lot more information, enabling better low-light photography. Zoom shots are another area where newer phones fare better.

Still, I captured some nice pictures with the XS. A lot of photos I take on my phone are of my toddler, and the XS was great for snapping shots on walks or while playing at the park. I missed the occasional action shot because the phone’s shutter speed wasn’t as fast as newer phones, but it wasn’t the end of the world.

Indoor photos, especially when lighting wasn’t ideal, were a lot worse. The XS produced noisy, muddy shots when there wasn’t enough light.

But again, when I adjusted my behaviour and played to the phone’s strengths, these issues became less of a problem. It just meant thinking more about how I composed photos, maybe requiring me to move physically closer instead of relying on zoom, or opening the drapes to bring in more light.

All that said, the camera was hands down the area where modern improvements are most notable. But how much that matters really depends on how you use your smartphone camera. Like I said above, I mostly just use my phone camera to take photos of my toddler and as long as it does that well, I’m happy.

Someone who uses their phone for professional photography, like content creation, will absolutely want to run a more modern device. (I did capture some photos for work on the iPhone XS, but I’ve long used a mirrorless camera for any professional shots.)

So, do you really need a new phone?

After 30 days using a seven-year-old phone, I’d argue that most people don’t need to upgrade their smartphone. As I mentioned at the top, there are very legitimate reasons to upgrade. Increasingly, however, upgrading for a “better” phone isn’t really a thing because the year-to-year improvements are so minimal.

Take it from someone who tests out new phones every year. Going from a Pixel 8 to a Pixel 9, or an iPhone 15 to an iPhone 16, isn’t really a huge difference. Many of the improvements are small. But going from an iPhone XS to a 16? Now that’s a huge leap.

Most people can safely hold onto a smartphone for five years before truly needing an upgrade. Sure, you might need to replace the battery in that time, but that’s a lot cheaper than a new phone.

Moreover, I’m confident now that I could keep using the iPhone XS without any real issues. However, I will be switching back to my Pixel 9 Pro after this. Mostly, it’s because I prefer Android to iOS, but the better camera and battery are both factors as well. And while I’ll continue using the latest and greatest smartphones, it’s because it’s my job to do so. If it wasn’t, I’d be holding onto my phone for many years to come.