Ironically despite me being against the sealed battery idea, i was once a proud user of both an iPhone 3GS that was two years old, and later two iPhone 4's. neither had issues with battery regardless of their age. since the iPhone 3GS is the most often seen here in town, i'm surprised they're holding charge at all. they're pretty ancient these days.
My father uses an even older iPhone 3. not the GS. just the iPhone 3. he uses it tons to email and uses Safari. unless the person who gave it to him had the battery replaced by Apple, it's holding a great charge even as old as it is. my Nokia 5185's battery was too far gone in 2009, but not bad for a phone made in 1998 with its OEM battery.
Funny thing is, Android matures at a much faster rate than Apple or anyone else, so most of us wouldn't even hold onto our phones for more than one year before buying the 'Next Big Thing' and therefore would never go outside the specified lifetime of the stock battery.
So let's see...i signed up for VZW which got me the Samsung Galaxy S3, and i upgraded to the S4 (which i bought outright) 6 months later, then a month after that, the Note 3 became a 'free' upgrade via Verizon EDGE. i might get either the S5 (for the waterproofing, my Note 3 has already had the water sensors tripped by sweat in my pocket and once shorted out and rebooted itself at work) or the Note 4 depending on how much i save and how long it takes for the Note 4 to launch. not a big fan of the charger port 'flap' that you have to pull out on the S5.
