It is a feature, not a bug.

For those that are not chronically online, a mobile phone from a decade ago has everything they need. If you only have to phone the family, WhatsApp your neighbours, get the map out, use a search engine and do your online banking, then a flagship phone is a bit over the top. If anything, the old phone is preferable since its loss would not be the end of the world.

I have seen a few elderly neighbours rocking Samsung Galaxy S7s with no need to upgrade. Although the S7 isn't quite a decade old, the apps that are actually used (WhatsApp, online banking) will be working with the S7 for many years to come since there is this demographic of active users.

Now, what if we could get these people to upgrade every three years with a feature that the 'elderly neighbour' would want? Eyesight isn't what it used to be in old age, so how about a nice big screen?

You can't deliberately hobble the phone with poor battery life or programme it to go slow in an update because we know that isn't going to win the customer over, but a screen that gets tatty after three years? Sounds good to me.

> the apps that are actually used (WhatsApp, online banking) will be working with the S7 for many years to come

I have several apps that no longer work on my otherwise good phone bought in 2018 because I can no longer update the OS that they require.

It's the software updates that's the problem. Apple aren't too bad, but their hardware support only seems to last 7 years.

The S7 you mention lasted 4 years, and received the last patch in 2020.

Not convinced that doing online banking on a phone that hasn't had software updates for 5 years is a good idea.

Samsung Galaxy A40 checking in.

It's small, has dual sim card sockets, and a headphone jack.

I'm not sure how I'd replace it to be honest.