Is it time for me to upgrade? I'm still on iPhone 8.

PowerSavingMode

Hope it's OK to resurrect this thread as I'm in the same situation but with an iPhone7.

It's been a great little phone BUT admittedly since upgrading to IOS 15 (now on 15.7.3) it went a bit pete tong. Also, over the last week this weird black horizontal line — which looks like a fine marker pen but with varying widths — appeared in the top left of the screen about 3cm in size. 

I only just my phone (on PAYG) for banking apps and a few other apps, including WhatsApp and whatnot, and occasionally checking emails and using Safari.

What would you do in my situation?

PHK

You have screen damage. 

The iPhone 7 is still getting security updates but you might find over time that apps need newer versions of iOS. 

I think the choices you have are:

Screen repair and stick with the 7

Upgrade to an iPhone 11 era phone or newer which will have iOS 17

baser999

My partners smashed the screen on her Motorola and already has trouble downloading certain apps. I’m using an iPhone 7, updated to iOS 15.7.9 so we’re both looking at changing to probably the 11. It’ll do want we need it to and we’ll likely take the refurbished route at around the £250-300 mark

DullGreyGuy

Depending on where you trust to get your refurbished phone from it's worth looking at a range of options and seeing the price differential. Right now with Apple themselves an iPhone 13 is cheaper than a 12 because the limited options in the 12 all have non-base rate storage. If you want the higher storage the new phone is circa 10% more and may be worth it for another years use before next upgrade. 

PowerSavingMode

PHK said:

You have screen damage. 

The iPhone 7 is still getting security updates but you might find over time that apps need newer versions of iOS. 

I think the choices you have are:

Screen repair and stick with the 7

Upgrade to an iPhone 11 era phone or newer which will have iOS 17

Thank you. I think the screen repair will be perhaps a bit costly and may not fix the other issue caused by that IOS update (a LOT of people seem to have had issues ever since upgrading to it, at least according to my fairly limited research), so perhaps a new phone. 

Was looking at the iPhone 8, but will also check out the 11 — my iPhone 7 has 128GB storage iPhone, and I've 'only' used up 51.2GB of that, mostly on photos and apps, followed by system data.

PHK

Bear I mind that the 8 won't receive iOS17 so for longevity you'd be better going for iPhone 11era upwards. 

ididgetwhereiamtoday

Or if you’re happy with the size of the 8 then get an iPhone SE. they are very cheap now and will have plenty of IOS life left in it. 

PHK

Just make sure it's the 2nd or 3rd edition.

PowerSavingMode

ididgetwhereiamtoday said:

Or if you’re happy with the size of the 8 then get an iPhone SE. they are very cheap now and will have plenty of IOS life left in it. 

Am now thinking of the SE (2020) — thank you.

Has anyone had any good or bad experiences with buying refurbs on LoopMobile (via eBay) or Mozillion? (I had bought my iPhone 7 128gb via MusicMagpie and did have an issue with the described condition vs the actual, but they were very good in coming to a good resolution and quickly.)

ididgetwhereiamtoday

I got an iPhone mini 12 from Loop via Amazon and the phone looked like brand new with 100% battery health. I may have just been very lucky with that particular handset though.