How long is the life of a smartphone? It can be long or short.

With the development of technology, smartphones have become people's closest companions. For a better experience, some people change their phones every 1-2 years. Some people have deep feelings for their phones and do not change them for 5 years. So how long is the life of a smartphone? This needs to be analyzed from three aspects: physics, technology and experience.

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1. Physical lifespan

A smartphone is made up of chips, flash memory, battery, screen, and accessories. Since chips and flash memory are almost impossible to replace or not worth replacing, they determine the service life of the entire phone. The life of these key components is determined on the production line. For example:

The physical life of components such as CPU, GPU, and memory is very long, but not forever. Because of long-term current shock, slight electron migration will occur, but this process is very slow. Under normal use, it will not be damaged after 20 years. However, if it encounters unexpected water immersion, chemical corrosion, strong electrostatic interference, and strong physical shock, the life will end immediately.

Flash memory: Flash memory will experience write wear during each erase and write process. Generally, SLC flash memory chips can be erased and written 100,000 times. However, most people may not be able to complete one erase and write cycle in a month when using a mobile phone. Based on this usage rate, the life of the flash memory can be used until the mobile phone is scrapped.

From the above, we can see that the physical lifespan of a mobile phone is very long, and using it for 10 years is definitely not a problem.

2. Technology life

Although the physical life of a smartphone is very long, technically speaking, the technology of a smartphone is time-sensitive. The development of technology will promote the improvement of hardware performance, and the improvement of hardware performance will promote the update of software. The large-scale software update will drive people to replace their mobile phones.

At present, the upgrading of smartphones in the market can be said to be changing with each passing day. Each manufacturer releases several smartphones every year, and each one improves the performance and experience compared to the previous one. According to Moore's Law in the semiconductor industry, integrated circuit chips will double every 18 months. Translated to the mobile phone industry, it will be updated to a new generation at most every 2 years. Therefore, for a better experience, the technical life of a smartphone can be defined as 2 years.

Summarize

In short, physically speaking, the lifespan of a smartphone is definitely 10 years. However, technically speaking, for a better experience, most people will choose to replace their phones after 2 years of use.