Wow, that list on the Samsung site is concerning. The S21 is a 2021 phone. Absolutely realistic people would still be using it, and outside of a tired battery I'll bet it's performing just fine.
I only just stopped using my HUAWEI P20 Pro - which I bought in 2018 - the phone was still great and handled everything I needed it to - plus the camera was amazing. I just got a new phone as the battery life was getting silly and it began restarting all the time - and I'm not loving it compared to the P20 Pro.
I think a 7 year old phone has no reason to not be suitable to 90% of what people want from a phone (in my case it was 100%). Frustrating to see them abandoned by manufacturers.
My S21 Ultra is the best phone I've ever had. I bought it a couple of months from when it was newly released and it just will not die. I've traveled with it, played all the games, thousands of photos, used it for nearly a year while I was doing gig driving (so plugged in and screen on for hours at a time), dropped countless times, and the screen has no cracks and the battery still lasts more than a day with regular use. For the past few years every new Samsung smartphone has piqued my interest, and the second my S21 dies I will buy whatever Samsung flagship happens to be the latest, but it just will not die.
Same. I have now turned my s21 ultra into a full on gaming console with the following emulators installed on it: drastic, melonds, m64plusfz, citra, snes9x, super8plus, redream, superpsx, ppsspp, duckstation, aethersx2, ppss22, cemu, dolphin, eden, sudachi, citron. And even winlator.
It plays everything below switch flawlessly. Even on switch it'll run literally everything I have thrown at it from BoTW to ToTK to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, albeit with poor performance. But lighter switch games like Super Smash Bros Ultimate or even the newer Super Mario Bros Wonder run flawlessly. Hollow Knight runs flawlessly.
I have an OLED steam deck, but I LOVE the portability of this phone. I play with it using the bsp d8 pro controller as well as the xbox series s controller using a magsafe case and a magsafe clamp that attaches to the controller. Phone works great for 3ds emulation as well.
Also the battery charges so quickly after a gaming session. It really is a wonderful gaming device.
I literally just upgraded from that a month ago, and only because of the degraded battery (which I was fine with but I was going on a trip and didn't want the headache). There's dozens of us, Jerry!
Only (in the case at hand) if they choose not to apply the free system update, right? And even then, only to the extent that they use cellular network calling?
It looks to me from the list that the newest device that needs replacement (vs updating) is a Galaxy S7, released 2017, which would be well outside the 5-year-extended-warranty period that seems to be the longest one they sell at your link, no? If I’m reading it right.
