To antique dealers, "antique" means at least 100 years old, "vintage" means at least 40 years old. How old should a phone be to be considered "vintage"?
@joat I think that's the difference between digital and analogue tech. Moore's law (myth) keeps pushing the processors to being faster and faster, but analogue signals are just less distorted and the difference is beyond human perception.
@philleu @ludrol hopefully less so now. The new fairphone has 10 years of updates, the new pixel has 7, iPhones have fairly long update cycles but yeah, most manufacturers bring out a fancy new $1000+ phone, 2 years of updates, then wonder why nobody buys it. It's really Qualcomm's fault, they drop Linux kernel driver support so quickly.
But we have to get away from this software-induced obsolescence... the hardware really doesn't change that much.
@ludrol I was originally going to say "electronics" but the type varies hugely. I have a 30-year-old shortwave radio that's entirely digitally controlled and looks very similar to modern equivalents. A 20-year-old AA battery charger is fine. But a 20-year-old phone? Hopelessly outdated.