Holding on to your phone until it turns off has become a lot harder lately, right? Hardware has reached a point in recent years where, for once, you're more likely to get bored with your phone long before you turn it off, and phone companies are starting to fall into this admittedly positive slide.
That is, unless you're OnePlus. Relatively recent phone launches from Samsung and Google have introduced seven years of Android updates to the flagship standard. But OnePlus is not yet joining the party. The OnePlus 12 launched with support for just four years of major Android updates but contrary to popular belief, this could actually be a good thing.
Holding on to your roots
Since its inception, OnePlus has consistently followed the line of high performance without a high price. While its prices have increased over the years, it still produces phones that can outperform the best Android phones like the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, all without an exorbitant price tag. The OnePlus 12 continues this trend and, from what I can tell, makes it even more attractive.
OnePlus loyalists often boast about their phone's ability to match, or even surpass, the quality of its rivals from Samsung and Google, not to mention the iPhone. It's this almost cult-like drive for superiority that arguably makes OnePlus' call for a reduced lifespan on the OnePlus 12 one of its best decisions yet.
You see, with a great life expectancy comes great boredom, to misrephrase an iconic quote. Although this is not something that is necessarily true for all phone users, it is definitely true for phone lovers, as OnePlus users tend to be. The data backs this up, too: in a UK survey by YouGov, 62% of people said they only expect to use a phone for up to four years. In the US, Statista data suggests that people change their phone on average every two to three years, and this isn't just OnePlus lovers, it's everyone.
So why would people need seven years of Android updates? Sure, it will serve those who simply choose not to replace their phone until it breaks in a way that the OnePlus 12 won't, but is that the majority at this point? I do not think so.
Find opportunities
As always, there is a small but malleable gap in the smartphone market that OnePlus has deftly made its way into. The OnePlus 12 takes the best of some of its key rivals, like the Galaxy S24 Ultra and Xiaomi 14, and tailors them to its own model in a way that could possibly make you want to spend four years with it, rather than needing to. . to ensure you get your money's worth.
The OnePlus 12 features Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 as standard, something that is not the global case with the Samsung Galaxy S24, it has a camera system created in collaboration with Hasselblad to create an improved but recognizable OnePlus snapper suite, very similar Xiaomi has done it with Leica and surpasses them both in both battery size and charging speed. That's before you even consider the advanced cooling technology and battery maintenance engine that the OnePlus 12 features to help keep you at peak performance for longer.
Of course, as you'd expect, the OnePlus 12 does all of this and is still arguably excellent value. The basic 12GB RAM and 256GB storage model of the OnePlus 12 costs £849/$799.99, while the Samsung Galaxy S24 with just 8GB RAM and 128GB storage costs £799/$799. So , for just £50 more, or absolutely no difference if you're in the US, you can get more RAM, more storage and specs that match or beat the phone, which is supposedly the best phone right now. Fundamentally, why wouldn't you choose OnePlus?
Thinking in the future
Don't get me wrong, seven years of updates is huge. If you can't afford a new phone, that many Android updates will mean there's more reason to look toward the refurbished phone market. It will add resale value to old devices, which will not only improve your bank balance but also give people fewer reasons to simply throw away their old phone, reducing e-waste.
Ok, now the environmental part is mentioned, from a phones point of view, there is another clear side for die-hard phone lovers, as fundamentally, seven years is a long time in the technology world right now.
Right now, advancements in phones have accelerated again, in part thanks to advances in artificial intelligence, yes, but also simply because of the sheer number of improvements we're seeing in the hardware and software that devices use. . Seven years will simply leave you far behind everyone else, with a phone that could well be on its last legs and a phone bill that will have seen one, or maybe six, too many annual price increases. And nobody wants that, especially true phone lovers; However, four years might be the sweet spot.
