[farmergiles65]

I'm looking to buyout my current contract (if I can find a decent sized cash back offer to make up for shortfall) and get a smartphone, but there's so many about. They seem to get brought out every 5 minutes.

Question is, how long is a smartphone generally good for before it becomes redundant in place of a newer model? I'm trying to get a smartphone with easy texting, good internet and decent useful apps particuarly if they help with organiser functions like calendars, birthdays, diaries, etc, and I've been told about various phones like the N900 which is new, the Xperia X10 which is due in April and of course the horribly expensive IPhone 3GS, but other phones get mentioned like the HTC ones, but as far as I can tell, they are older ones aren't they? Even the 3GS isn't that recent is it? I'm not sure how firmware etc gets updated so perhaps redundancy doesn't happen.

Just curious as I'm in the stages of looking for a decent organiser phone.

[RobM]

6 months to a year, depending on the manufacturer.

BUT - Just because a new phone comes out, it doesn't make yours crap. So if you buy something today and something new comes out 6 months later, yours doesn't get any worse. If it met your needs the day before the new release, it will the day after.

And as time goes on, there are less and less high-profile, amazing new features that get added. It's just an evolution of what went before it.

So think carefully about what you want the phone to do, now and in the future and get the best you can afford. If you wait for the next new release, you'll never buy anything as by the time you decide on a phone, it's replacement will already be on the way.

[WildeKarde]

It's the old statement of "if you can buy it then it's already out of date"
The phone is never no longer usable just not as flashy as the latest ones.

Some manufacturers evolve gradually (I'm thinking iphone here) where each new handset is an improvement on the previous. And some make wholesale changes to hardware & software (OS) for example.

Most manufacturers have recent phones and also have new ones due out, exception is apple who don't release as many handsets (but people are still using the oldest iphones for example)

Good advice above is to get the best you can just now and that suits what you want to do with it. There are lots of post asking on what phone to get so the question on which one might have been answered.

[farmergiles65]

Cool, I think I'd best post up what I'm after and see what options come up.

[bigdavecox90]

I've still seen people using old Palm PDA's from about 5/6 years ago.