While the upgrade cycle for my computer has decreased from a 3 year to 7-10 year cycle, the savings in the wallet has gone to a new upgrade cycle – the cellphone upgrade cycle. A lot of people in Canada still have cellphone contracts that subsidize their cellphone upgrade cycle so they only have to pay ~$100 per upgrade, but I prefer saving ~$30 on my cellphone plan every month and buy my phones outright. That means while others can upgrade year or 1.5 years, I am more flexible; but of course I have to pay more money.

My upgrade cycle started when I bought my Nokia E71 in August 2009 (used, $300). I ended up using that for almost exactly a year until I switched to my first Android phone – that one cost $150. Since $150 is half of $300, that phone should last me for about half a year (8 months actually), which it did until I bought a Nexus S in April 2011 for almost $500.

Following that logic, I should use have used the Nexus S for a year and 8 months, which means I’m due for an upgrade in December 2012 – which is just about now. Fortunately, there is an upgrade target, which is the Nexus 4 that just came out. It’ll cost me about $400 which means, according to my new schedule, I won’t need to upgrade my phone until about oh April 2014?

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: cellphones, techlust