Android 15 can tell you how long your phone’s storage chip will last
There won’t be any mysteries about the remaining lifetime of your phone’s internal storage.
JoriPress
- Android 15 is preparing a new feature that will tell users the remaining lifetime of their device’s internal storage.
- Like other hardware components, storage chips have a limited lifetime that’s affected by how much they’re used.
- Android routinely runs maintenance on storage chips to extend their lifespan, but users currently cannot know how much life their device’s storage chip has left.
With smartphone companies pushing longer and longer phone update policies, it’s become increasingly important to consider factors like aftersales parts availability and ease of self-repair when making a new phone purchase. After all, even if your phone maker promises to deliver seven years of software support, will your phone’s hardware even last that long? There are easy steps you can take to maximize battery life, but there’s not much you can do to extend the lifetime of your phone’s storage chip. For starters, there isn’t even a way for you to find out the remaining lifetime of your phone’s storage chip. Fortunately, that’ll change in the Android 15 update.
Since late last year, Google has been working on surfacing useful information about your phone’s hardware. It started with battery health-related information such as the manufacture date, cycle count, and state of health, which are all useful factors in knowing when it’s time to replace your phone’s battery. Some of this information was briefly shown under the Settings > About phone > Battery information page before it was removed in March’s Android 14 QPR2 update, since the page is supposedly intended to only be enabled on the upcoming Pixel 8a and onward.
