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Robert asked: “Do you see a correlation between the length of battery life and 2-year contracts with carriers? It seems like when your contract is up, your phone needs to be charged more often.”
Robert, batteries are chemical devices and they have an estimated number of charge cycles before they wear out, for most people that means that they stop holding much of a charge after two years.
Between that, the rate of release of new phones, and how expensive phones are, it makes sense for carriers to give users an affordable way to upgrade the phone before the user decides to jump carriers to finance a new device.
So, we definitely see a correlation, but there’s probably no big conspiracy there. The 2-year contracts existed back in the day when every single phone had an easily replaceable battery, and they continue now when many phones no longer include them.
It seems to make good business sense for carriers to pick up on how long batteries last, and how long it takes for a phone to start feeling old compared to the newer models, and try to get their clients to continue to be clients when their phones start to fail by making it easier for them to upgrade.