My ipad mini has been updated as far as it will go (9.3.5 I think) and is now horrible to use.
I got it for Christmas 2 years ago.
Before I purchase something else it would be interesting to know which company has longevity.

It’s the damn updates. My Ipad2 has been killed by one of the IOS updates (9, I think), rendering it unusable. (Clever marketing: it worked, I bought a Pro).
Dug my old iPad1 out, no idea how old, but it works perfectly cos it’s stuck on iOS 5.1.
So, I reckon iPads have longevity as long as you don’t update them! Shame you can’t wipe and back date the o/s. (There might be a way somewhere on the net, I guess)

My wife’s iPad 2 stopped working to a tolerant level at the end of last year, it is 5 years old.

ipad 3 (2012), stopped updating it a version 8.1.2*, so that it didn’t turn into a useless pile of horsepoop. T’is very steady now, especially on ad heavy sites and I’ve fancied replacing it for a while but not gotten to it, as it still works

*Dezb’s spot on, I’m wondering whether to continue upgrading my 5se or stop now.

How do you know when to stop updating?

Linx 8″, running Windows 8, about 18 months old. Same now as it was new. Why wouldn’t it be?

Lenovo s6000 or something had it for 4 years and it’s still great

Its had a couple of updates since then, but still running as new

Got a 32g SD card full of music and kids TV on it, used a lot for ceebeebies games etc as well as general browsing, so memory isn’t too full

Sounds like paying the apple premium requires regular upgrades, almost as if they do it on purpose….

I’ve got an iPad mini 2 thats about 3 years old, running the latest iOS, and it’s fine.

We got an iPad mini when they first came out – it’s still going.

I won’t get another when it breaks – I much prefer to use a laptop.

Surface RT. Bought when they came out, still works perfectly. Brilliant operating system (for a very limited number of use cases – e.g. me, who uses it for work emails, editing simple office documents and giving training presentations)

I’ve got an original Motorola xoom from about 8 years ago or something, still works fine apart from the power button is a bit temperamental!!
We generally use a Samsung galaxy tab now though.

Got a surface RT as well, still worked until it got dropped a few months ago. Was a perfect machine for loads of things 🙁

Also still got an iPad1. Useless for browsing now but there is still one piece of software that works on it

I got a iPad mini when it first came out – still works fine – I stopped updating the OS at 9 – battery is still good – it’s been used heavily for the last 5 years

iPad 2 that the apple store was happy to sell me as a replacement by and update FUBARed the camera …. about 3 years ago. Un-usable for about a year. Tried to use it this week and it crashes in everything … even iPlayer which used to be the only thing it was good for …

My Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 is jogging along nicely – has been used every day since 2012.

My Nexus 7 2013 is still going strong, but I’ve only had it ~16 months! It’s great for a quick BT hotspot interweb surf and the GPS is pretty good for Strava, but carrying an 8″ tablet securely while cycling (even on the road) is a bit inconvenient.

My iPad2 is very close to the end of its life. It’s spent the last 2 years just for making notes of Evernote but even that’s really laggy now. I’ve now taken everything non essential off it, given it a factory reset and it now use it just for GCN turne trainer vids. It’s OK for that but it’ll be done by the end of the year I think

Blackberry PlayBook bought off here last year. Good at what I bought it for. Internet is rubbish! Keyboard still light years in front of any apple or Android device.

5 year old iPad 3 here still going along ok. Not as zippy as my iPhone 6 but a lot better than my 12ish month old Samsung tablet.

Galaxy note 10.1 , 4yrs old this month . Have to leave it switched on and not let the battery get bellow 50% – still works ok .

An iPad 2 I bought 2nd hand a couple of years ago – have updated it to the latest OS whenever it’s become available and it now happily crashes in most apps and is pretty laggy the rest of the time. A real shame as it’s still nice to use if you discount those issues. Battery life certainly still great. I know in this disposable world that it’s just the way of things and that planned obsolescence is a marketing ploy but it’s a particularly objectionable practice.

Can’t you re-install the original OS on Apple devices ?

My Nexus 7 2013 is still going strong

Same here. Daily use since Jan 2015 for notes, reading, excel and still going strong.

cranberry – Member
Can’t you re-install the original OS on Apple devices ?

It’s an utterly opaque process that’s managed internally by Apple. I’m assuming there’s no way back.

My Sinclair Scientific from 1973 still works fine.

Am currently using my Sony Xperia z tablet bought brand new about 4 years ago now. I have used it every day since new and continue to do so. Only thing that had to be fixed was the charge port and that only cost £25 to do from a phone shop.

iPad 3 (the first Retina one) so about 5 years old.
On latest iOS – still works fine.

Those complaining about failures. Make sure it still has plenty of space left. At least a gig is good. Like most operating systems iOS doesn’t do well with running out of space.

It’s not just OS updates, the apps get updated too and will often get larger and slower, and there’s not much you can do to avoid them as often old versions stop working properly…

My first smartphone, a Sony something, never got an OS update but at the end of it’s useful life it had no space for apps left and it was really slow, even after a factory reset to clear it out a bit.

LG GPad 8.3 – 2 of them in our house.
They are almost 3 years old.

Mine runs fine.

My Wife’s is a bit sluggish but mainly because she’s installed loads of nonsense apps and has done nothing to control what they’re doing….

I have an Asus tablet with a broken USB socket, so it won’t charge, probably about 3 years old. I have bought a replacement socket, just need to get around to fixing it.

Other than that, it was quite usable. Though some apps took a while to load, and some bloated websites could be slow.

Found a website with loads of downloads for old iOS versions.
Might try a revert on my 2 if I can be bothered.

Download iOS Firmware File For iPad

I pad mini about 4 yrs old software is upto date. Runs just fine maybe yours is broke or over filled with appsand crap.

Samsung Tab 2 from ages ago, it’s 4-5 years old I think, it’s glacial to use, but it was never quick – a scaled down budget model, but it’ll still show video in 1080 and has an SD slot so great for long car journeys.

maybe yours is broke or over filled with appsand crap.

Irrelevant what it’s filled with when it’s working fine until an os update makes it slow.

Dell Venue 11 Pro, about 3 years old, now running Windows 10 Enterprise nice and fine. It’s not lightning fast being a quad core Atom, but it’s full Windows and perfectly usable.

Limited storage, but just stuff everything in the cloud and don’t load it with too much bloat (I had Visual Studio on it for a while, but just takes too much space). Does have a micro SD slot of course, and fine for document and picture storage but SD is very slow (even fast ones) compared to internal storage.

Sony z3 tablet here,

2 years old.

Still works beautifully.

Ipad 2 too. Stopped updating it years ago so Apple couldn’t junk it.

iPad 2 as above. When I bought it there was no mention of the shelf life of the thing. Has really put me off Apple stuff but unfortunately they are still the best of breed in the tablet world.

Asus tablet about 18 months old. As it’s Android I can only dream of OS updates (particularly now that Cyanogen seems to be dead) but app updates have slowed it to a crawl, it crashes on a regular basis and it eats the battery in no time so it’ll be replaced by an iPad shortly.

4th Gen iPad – 5 years old. It was the first one that came with a lightning cable. Still works fine, although it seems that some apps are released requiring technology that this iPad doesn’t have.

With regards to shelf life, I’m sure Apple just aren’t sure when they release something when it might be obsolete. I would imagine new iPads/tablets contain tech now that hadn’t even been thought of when I bought this one.

If anyone has a slow tablet it might be worth backing it up, restoring to factory settings, then reinstalling from the back up. I did this with a iPhone a few years back. Made a huge difference.

2012 Nexus 10 here. It started to progressively slow down when Google stopped releasing the latest version of Android for it which I think would be around Ice Cream Sandwich. I’m sure they deliberately cripple legacy version updates. It got to the point of being so slow it was unusable despite system resets etc. so I rooted it and installed Cyanogenmod which got it back to its old performance. Its been fine for a year but its just now slowing a bit so I’ll probably try installing the latest Cyanogen build and se how that goes.