Sure, we can build durable phones, but what about the technology inside them?
An interesting article in The New York Times, “A smartphone that lasts a decade? Yes, it’s possible”, questions the durability of our devices, and how brands tend to design them to last only a couple of years, replacing screws with glue and making it virtually impossible to access certain components.
Could a smartphone be designed to last a decade? Of course; all it would require is ensuring that components that degrade can easily be replaced, that they’re made from quality materials, and most importantly, that manufacturers have an incentive to doing so, as opposed to maintaining a market with a steady replacement rate.
That said, we also have to take the rapid evolution of technology into account. To illustrate this, I looked up a 2012 smartphones comparison, like this one from Ars Technica, and wondered what it would be like to use one of them ten years later, today. Would anyone really want a device with a processor that today we would consider archaic, with minuscule storage capacity compared to current standards, and which at most can only connect to 3G? Would we be able to use an iPhone 5 or a Samsung S3 today? Many phones had operating systems that are no longer maintained and for which there are no applications, for example, the Windows Phone … At the time I used all three, and…
