Repair or replace a phone?

First: is it actually the phone?

Storage. A phone with no free space slows down, fails to install updates, stops backing up and starts refusing to take photos. Together those feel exactly like a device at the end of its life. Moving photos and videos off it usually restores it completely.

The battery. A battery that no longer lasts the day is the most common reason people replace a working phone. On some devices a worn battery also makes everything feel slower, because the software reduces peak performance to avoid the phone shutting down unexpectedly as the battery ages.

Software support. The one genuine reason to replace a phone that still works, and the only one on this page that is not about money.

Check those three before pricing anything. The first two cost between nothing and about £70 to resolve.

Battery health, if your phone reports it

Most phones show a battery health percentage in their settings. Manufacturers generally treat 80% as the point at which a battery is due for service, and it is roughly where capacity warranties stop covering degradation.

A measurement beats an impression here. If your phone reports 68%, that is your answer and a replacement battery is worth pricing before anything else. If it reports 91%, the battery is not your problem and you should look elsewhere.

Compare cost per year, not cost

A £65 battery and a £700 phone are not comparable as prices. What is comparable is what each costs per year of use.

A £65 repair that buys two more years is £32.50 a year. A £700 replacement expected to last four years, less a £100 trade-in, is £150 a year. On those numbers the repair is not marginally better, it is nearly five times cheaper.

The comparison can also go the other way, and it is worth being honest when it does. A £300 repair that buys six months is £600 a year, which is worse than almost any replacement. The arithmetic is the point, not the conclusion.

Our repair or replace check does this both ways and tells you which side you are on.

Get the quote. It is free.

A repair quote turns the whole question from a judgement into arithmetic, and asking costs nothing. It is the single most useful thing you can do before deciding.

While you are asking, ask what else is likely to fail. A repairer who tells you the screen is fixable but the charging port is on its way out has given you the information that actually decides it.

On security updates

A phone that no longer receives security updates is a real reason to replace it, particularly if you bank on it. But it is worth checking rather than assuming.

Support windows are published per model by each manufacturer, they differ by device and by region, and they have generally been getting longer — several manufacturers now commit to five, six or seven years of updates on current models. Phones people assume are finished frequently are not.

Check the manufacturer’s own support page for your exact model. Our tool takes your word for it and says so, because we cannot verify your device and a wrong claim in that direction is a claim that your phone is unsafe.

Trade-in, honestly

A trade-in reduces the cost of replacing, and it should be counted. But it is worth comparing what a network offers against what the phone would fetch sold privately or through a specialist buyer, because the convenient option is not usually the highest.

And a trade-in offered as a discount on a specific contract is not the same as money — it is only worth what it is worth if that contract was the one you were going to take anyway.

If you do replace it

Work out how before working out what. Buying a handset outright and pairing it with a SIM-only plan is frequently cheaper across an ownership period than the bundled contract offering the same phone.

SIM-only versus a phone contract covers the comparison, and the tool costs all four routes over the same months.