Technologies

Make Your Phone Last Years Longer With These Easy Tips

Doing these things can help your iPhone or Android phone last for much longer, saving you a ton of money.

The superb iPhone 16 Pro or Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, are among the best phones you can buy in 2025. At least until the iPhone 17 comes along. These top-end phones have a lot in common, from their excellent cameras and high performance, but also their whopping price tags. Even wallet-friendly phones like the Google Pixel 9A still cost a sizeable chunk of money. With purse strings continuing to tighten the world over, it’s never been more important to squeeze the most value from whichever phone you buy, and the best way to do that is simply to keep using it for longer, spreading that costly purchase out over the years, rather than upgrading more often.

Doing this isn’t just better for your bank account; it’s much better for the planet, too. Upgrading your handset less often means fewer phones being produced and shipped while fewer old phones end up in a landfill. The good news is that companies like Apple, Google, Samsung and others are supporting their phones with software updates for longer, meaning the phone you buy today will remain safe to use for years to come.

The rest of it is up to you. Keeping your phone in good working condition for the seven or eight years of software support it might receive takes some effort, plenty of care and a few key strategies.

Here then are the top things you can do to help your phone last as long as possible.

Install all available updates

Using a phone that no longer receives security updates simply isn’t safe and should be avoided. Previously it was common for many Android manufacturers to support new phones for only two to three years, but now you’ll find phones like the Google Pixel 9 series coming with seven years of software support. Sadly, some more affordable phones like the new OnePlus Nord CE4 Lite still only receive a few years of updates. If you’re buying a new phone, make sure you check how long it’ll be supported as this will give you more value for money throughout the phone’s lifespan.

Updating your phone to the latest security update will help keep hackers out and keep your phone free of malicious software that could creep in and slow down your phone. Most phones will automatically prompt you to install the latest updates (and you should), but if you’re on an older phone, head into your settings menu and scroll down to Software Update and click to see if an update is available.

The same is true for your apps, which will also need to be updated to remain compatible with the version of iOS or Android you’re using. It’s good practice to allow apps to be automatically updated in the background, but if not, make sure you go into your app store of choice and check that you’re running the latest versions.

Use a case

If you’ve just bought a shiny new iPhone the best thing you can do to physically protect it is to put it in a case immediately. It’ll not only keep it safe should you accidentally drop it, but it will also help keep it from picking up micro scratches from the keys or coins in your pocket.

A screen protector is a great idea too, as once your phone’s actual screen becomes damaged, there’s little you can do to help it. If you get a nasty scratch on a screen protector, you can simply replace it, keeping the underlying phone looking fresh as a daisy for years to come. Even if you don’t plan on keeping your phone for years, keeping it looking fresh may help you sell it for more on the used market when it’s time to upgrade.

Replace a tired battery, not the phone

Your phone’s battery will gradually wear down over time, offering less battery life per charge than it did when it was new. This is true of all phones. Some older phones may have batteries that only offer 50 percent of what they once did. You may even receive warnings from your phone that your battery can’t offer the necessary power and so your processor may be throttled to compensate.

Worry not, as it’s pretty easy to replace the battery yourself on most phones to give it a whole new lease on life. iFixit sells a variety of kits and third-party replacement batteries to suit a huge range of phones, so if your battery is on the way out, it’s worth seeing if you can swap it out yourself.

There are a variety of places you can take your phone (not all of them are especially legit) to have your battery replaced — or even other components like a broken screen — and this could be a good option to consider if you’re not especially confident about your skills with a screwdriver.

Offload old apps and photos you don’t need

If you’ve had your phone for years then odds are it’s pretty clogged up with thousands of photos of your friends, your pets or the plates of food you’ve eaten over the time you’ve had it. It’s also likely you’ve got a variety of old apps and games you downloaded on a whim, played with for a few bus rides and then moved on to the next mobile gaming sensation.

A lack of storage can have a detrimental effect on your phone’s performance overall and can also mean there’s not enough room available for crucial software updates to be installed. It’s worth going through your archives, backing up the photos and videos you want to save to the cloud, and getting rid of anything on your phone that’s needlessly taking up space.

If you’ve had your phone for a long time and it’s really running slowly, it may even be worth backing up all your important data and doing a full factory reset, starting fresh and only installing the essentials you need.

Clean out your ports

Finally, give your phone a good cleaning as it can have surprisingly helpful outcomes. Pocket fluff can be a real problem for your phone, with the charging port in particular often getting clogged up with bits of nonsense. The result is that when you plug in your charger, it can’t quite connect and as a result, your phone won’t charge.

It’s easy to think that something has actually broken — the charging port itself, or the cable — but really it could be as simple as the port just being stuffed full of lint. Get a wooden toothpick in there periodically and try and ease out any dirt and debris you find to ensure your charger can fit without having to be aggressively wiggled.

It’s also worth using an old toothbrush (clean and dry) to gently brush away any debris you might find around the speakers and microphones to ensure you can clearly hear — and be heard — on your phone calls.

Steps You Can Take Right Now to Avoid an Overheated Phone

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Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for Dec. 24, #927

Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for Dec. 24 #927

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s NYT Connections puzzle is kind of tough. Ooh, that purple category! Once again, you’ll need to look inside words for hidden words. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.

The Times has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including the number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.

Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time

Hints for today’s Connections groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Cash out.

Green group hint: Chomp

Blue group hint: Walleye and salmon.

Purple group hint: Make a musical sound, with a twist.

Answers for today’s Connections groups

Yellow group: Slang for money.

Green group: Masticate.

Blue group: Fish.

Purple group: Ways to vocalize musically plus a letter.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is slang for money. The four answers are bacon, bread, cheese and paper.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is masticate. The four answers are bite, champ, chew and munch.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is fish. The four answers are char, pollock, sole and tang.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is ways to vocalize musically plus a letter. The four answers are hump (hum), rapt (rap), singe (sing) and whistler (whistle).

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Toughest Connections puzzles

We’ve made a note of some of the toughest Connections puzzles so far. Maybe they’ll help you see patterns in future puzzles.

#5: Included «things you can set,» such as mood, record, table and volleyball.

#4: Included «one in a dozen,» such as egg, juror, month and rose.

#3: Included «streets on screen,» such as Elm, Fear, Jump and Sesame.

#2: Included «power ___» such as nap, plant, Ranger and trip.

#1: Included «things that can run,» such as candidate, faucet, mascara and nose.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Wednesday, Dec. 24

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Dec. 24.

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? I’m Irish-American, but yet 6-Down, which involves Ireland, stumped me at first. Read on for all the answers.. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: Wordle or Boggle
Answer: GAME

5A clue: Big Newton
Answer: ISAAC

7A clue: Specialized vocabulary
Answer: LINGO

8A clue: «See you in a bit!»
Answer: LATER

9A clue: Tone of many internet comments
Answer: SNARK

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Sharks use them to breathe
Answer: GILLS

2D clue: From Singapore or South Korea, say
Answer: ASIAN

3D clue: Large ocean ray
Answer: MANTA

4D clue: ___ beaver
Answer: EAGER

6D clue: Second-largest city in the Republic of Ireland, after Dublin
Answer: CORK

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Technologies

Quadrantids Is a Short but Sweet Meteor Shower Just After New Year’s. How to See It

This meteor shower has one of the most active peaks, but it doesn’t last for very long.

The Quadrantids has the potential to be one of the most active meteor showers of the year, and skygazers won’t have long to wait to see it. The annual shower is predicted to reach maximum intensity on Jan. 3. And with a display that can rival Perseids, Quadrantids could be worth braving the cold to see it.

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

The show officially begins on Dec. 28 and lasts until Jan. 12, according to the American Meteor Society. Quadrantids is scheduled to peak on Jan. 2-3, when it may produce upwards of 125 meteors per hour. This matches Perseids and other larger meteor showers on a per-hour rate, but Quadrantids also has one of the shortest peaks at just 6 hours, so it rarely produces as many meteors overall as the other big ones.

The meteor shower comes to Earth courtesy of the 2003 EH1 asteroid, which is notable because most meteor showers are fed from comets, not asteroids. Per NASA, 2003 EH1 is a near-Earth asteroid that orbits the sun once every five and a half years. Science posits that 2003 EH1 was a comet in a past life, but too many trips around the sun stripped it of its ice, leaving only its rocky core. The Earth runs through EH1’s orbital debris every January, which results in the Quadrantids meteor shower.

How and where to see Quadrantids

Quadrantids is named for the constellation where its meteors appear to originate, a point known as the radiant. This presents another oddity, as the shower originates from the constellation Quadrans Muralis. This constellation ceased to be recognized as an official constellation in the 1920s and isn’t available on most publicly accessible sky maps.

For the modern skygazer, you’ll instead need to find the Bootes and Draco constellations, both of which contain stars that were once a part of the Quadrans Muralis. Draco will be easier to find after sunset on the evening of Jan. 2, and will be just above the horizon in the northern sky. Bootes orbits around Draco, but will remain under the horizon until just after 1 a.m. local time in the northeastern sky. From that point forward, both will sit in the northeastern part of the sky until sunrise. You’ll want to point your chair in that direction and stay there to see meteors.

As the American Meteor Society notes, Quadrantids has a short but active peak, lasting around 6 hours. The peak is expected to start around 4 p.m. ET and last well into the evening. NASA predicts the meteor shower to start one day later on Jan. 3-4, so if you don’t see any on the evening of Jan. 2, try again on Jan. 3.

To get the best results, the standard space viewing tips apply. You’ll want to get as far away from the city and suburbs as possible to reduce light pollution. Since it’ll be so cold outside, dress warmly and abstain from alcoholic beverages, as they can affect your body temperature. You won’t need any binoculars or telescopes, and the reduced field of view may actually impact your ability to see meteors.

The bad news is that either way, the Quadrantids meteor shower coincides almost perfectly with January’s Wolf Moon, which also happens to be a supermoon. This will introduce quite a lot of light pollution, which will likely drown out all but the brightest meteors. So, while it may have a peak of over 100 meteors per hour, both NASA and the AMS agree that the more realistic expectation is 10 or so bright meteors per hour.