my Samsug Galaxy J1 is getting a bit old and senile these days;

1) Occasional text message will vanish.

2) Occasionally the alarm will decide "nah, not going to chime this morning for no conceivable reason"

3) Battery power is at 80% then phone decide "Nah, i suddenly feel like being on 1% for the next 4 hours!!!, or mebe i will suddenly turn off without warning, and when you turn me back on i will be on 70% battery"

4) phone is set to chime every 10 minutes if i get a text, until i read it. phone decides "nah, this time I'm not going to chime for this message, too bad if its important"

5) Most recent new trick that it started doing... normally when i open my text messages to my partner, it opens at the most recent messages. It has started opening at the beginning two years ago!! i am to scroll past two years worth of messages to get to the most recent messages!!!!

Phones are not like humans, they should not go senile in their old age right? Senility has to be programmed into it deliberately? You know, to make me buy a new phone?

(I dont download apps, i dont play games on it, i only very occasionally use the camera.)

Bumping my post because of the massive spam attacks by bxxxzzdddv and dayapnm

Five years is generally the life expectancy of a computer, so 4 years for a phone isn't bad. My S4 has a similar issue, but it's main problem is it will turn off at random times. It sits plugged into some speakers, and is only used as a stereo these days.

Depends on the computer and its users, on these forums I would hazard a guess that more than a few have much older systems still in active use.

Memory fails me (weird that I bring it up in a topic using dementia in an analogy for phones, I guess) but there's a joke from either an episode of Futurama or The Simpsons (and no doubt other things since the joke is pretty common) that by the time you've bought the latest model phone you're already using an outdated model that came out 1 minute after you finalized your purchase.

Short shelf life by design is a given with phones at this point. Software updates outpace the hardware and once something stops supporting the hardware you feel comfortable with, it's either "pry it from my cold dead hands" or "dammit, now I need to relearn everything I just learned on the old model!".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence
There are many faces of that, and it's not necessarily an evil thing.

And I think that saying that some issues were pre-programmed into software in your phone is tad too far. ;)

Have you tried doing a factory reset and then when done check for a software update via the phones settings? I've known this to solve problems in the past but the only snag is you have to set up your phone again (alarms, etc.) as it reverts to a 'brand new' state. A faff I know but it might help to solve the problems. Good luck.

Sounds like your battery is starting to go bad. This can cause a whole mess of seemingly unrelated problems on your phone - not only from power unreliability but from possible swelling pushing on circuits. I would check the battery for noticeable swelling (put the phone on its back on a flat surface and see if you can spin it). If it spins easily it's time to replace the battery (or get a new phone).

I've never had a phone's OS crap out, but recently, I'm only looking at models that have 5000mAh. I'm done with cheap 3000 and lower.

Searching 'Australia + mobile' it looks like they mainly sell mobiles together with a contract. The system is made for those that change their mobiles every two or three years as the 24/36 month plan runs out.

I can go out and buy a mobile for less than AU$30 here that has no internet or a model that has for three times as much (but it will be slow). I guess there must be places where you can buy. If you order from abroad, ensure it will work in Australia as not all mobiles work everywhere.

I've only had one phone die in mysterious circumstances, but that's an HMD Mobile Nokia, and really to be honest, it's worlds better than the BLU phones I had before.

Being both under warranty and part of the Android One program has advantages.

I'm still running the PC I've built when the Intel i5 2500k came out :O Only thing I did was to change the GPU (HD 6870 for a GTX 1060). Oh, and I did an update from Windows 7 to 10. Must be ~10 years old now and it's still running fine.

Well, the PC I got (that isn't the laptop I'm using) is probably older than time. Okay, not that much, but about 8 years old. Anyway, I feel you, except my old phone isn't that bad (yet), but the battery is very inconsistent, the main OS crashes on nearly half the apps out there, prompting me to use a custom system....but the custom system itself doesn't have support for RIL (which, in English, basically means mobile data does not work). The battery still drains pretty quick and the phone can get darn hot.

I can't believe it was my primary phone for four years. It's still with me, giving it a total lifespan of five years.

This!!!!
A new battery and a reset will probably solve most of the issues. I have a older 5Ah battery smartphone, and although I use it very little, can't go back to charge every night.
My current record is 11 days without charging and I feel this time I will beat that record by a fair margin.

Thanks for all the posts!

So i have the choice to try a new battery or get a new phone?

If i did get a new battery, i would have to reset the phone anyway, so it would be easier to set up a new phone instead?

The other thing i forgot to mention is regarding GPS devices. I noticed when it starts getting old, it will start creating very absurd routes, sometimes in the complete opposite direction that you wanted to go, adding hours to the journey!! And then i have gone over the maps and the roads have not changed in those areas since the GPS was new. So the only possible explanation for the behavior, is deliberate sabotage! Secret 'dumbing down' patches whenever it connects to a satelite..... then similar tricks going on with phones,,,, AND laptops!

Amazing how laptops slow down over time, but desktops dont seem to do this. I think this is because all my desktops were 'hybrids' - so because of the custom hardware, it is harder for the 'dumbing down' updates to target them.