According to statistics mentioned by Tom's Guide, people are now keeping their smartphones for up to three years. So, if you are in the market for a new phone, you should probably carefully consider what your requirements in one could be several years from now, not just today. 

The good news, though, is that - at least for many people - the days of a smartphone feeling depressingly outdated just a few months after it hits retail shelves are now long gone. Here are several reasons why a smartphone bought today could serve you surprisingly well for the long haul. 

These days, a smartphone is essentially a mini computer

You could even say it's better than one. You are probably already accustomed to, say, editing a Word file or Excel spreadsheet on your phone while commuting on the train - and the increasing size of smartphone screens over the last few years has doubtless helped with all of this. 

Consider the example of Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold3, which was announced in August 2021 and can be folded out to produce a 7.6-inch internal display. Furthermore, the Fold3 comes in 256B and 512GB storage configurations, giving you a lot of room to store business documents on the device itself. 

However, you might not have realized that, in the last decade, smartphones have improved so drastically that they now often outclass PCs and laptops in performance and speed. 

Samsung reports that today's smartphones are even multiple times speedier than the computer powering NASA's Perseverance rover.  

There's plenty of RAM to play with

While the Fold3 houses 12GB of RAM, the first Galaxy S smartphone arrived in 2010 with just 512GB of RAM - or 'Random Access Memory', as the acronym means. 

"Generally speaking, more RAM is better, and performance isn't hampered by having more RAM," John Poole of software developer Primate Labs has told Digital Trends. Nonetheless, he added: "But is it really necessary?"

He points out that RAM left unused in a phone could potentially and needlessly drain its battery. So, even if you pick up one of the cut-price mobile phones sold online, chances are that its amount of RAM will more than suffice for basic needs. 

5G or not 5G? That is... less of a question than it once was 

The simple fact that 5G is only just emerging as the successor to 4G in mobile connectivity suggests that now is an especially good time to snaffle a 5G-ready phone. 

Fortunately, most flagship phones are now being released with 5G support as standard - and the technology has increasingly trickled down to 'budget' handsets as well, such as the OnePlus Nord. 

Ben Wood of the tech analyst firm CCS Insight has opined to Tom's Guide that "it increasingly makes sense to buy a 5G-capable device," adding: "A good analogy is with TVs. A decade or so ago, it would have been foolish to buy a TV that was not HD-Ready, even if you did not have access to HD content. We believe the same argument applies to 5G."