Seven years of OS updates is the best-sounding promise in phones right now, and it’s only half a promise. Google made it with the Pixel 8, and Samsung matched it with the Galaxy S24 series. Both deserve credit, because Android used to mean two years of patches and a shrug. But software support is the cheap part to keep. The expensive part is a lithium-ion cell that starts degrading the day you unbox the phone.
Apple’s own figure is a useful yardstick. For the iPhone 15 and later, it says the battery is designed to hold 80 percent of its original capacity at 1,000 charge cycles. Charge once a day and you hit that around year three. After that you’re not on a seven-year phone, you’re on a three-year phone with a long tail of nominal support.
The update promise has no hardware clause
Nothing in a software-support pledge says what a replacement battery costs, how long the manufacturer will stock one, or whether an independent shop can fit it without wrecking the adhesive and the water seals. Those are the details that decide whether year five is a minor service visit or a reason to buy a new phone. And a new phone is the outcome the manufacturers are, let’s be honest, more comfortable with.
I’d like to see the pledge rewritten as a package: updates, parts availability, and a published price for the battery swap, all with the same end date. Right now we get the first and have to guess at the rest.
Regulation is doing what the market won’t
The EU’s Battery Regulation, adopted in 2023, requires that portable batteries in most consumer devices be removable and replaceable by the end user, with the rule applying from February 2027. There are exemptions, and manufacturers will certainly lean on them. Still, it’s notable that the push for a swappable battery came from Brussels rather than from any company that could have made it a selling point years ago.
What I’d check before buying
Before you pay flagship money for a seven-year phone, look up the manufacturer’s battery service price and whether it ships to your region. If that page is hard to find, you’ve learned what the support pledge is actually worth.