Editorial Policy

How we verify specifications

• Specs are collected from manufacturer documentation — never copied from other spec sites.
• Support windows come from each brand's official published policy, linked on every phone page with a visible “last verified” date.
• Where a manufacturer publishes no policy (Apple), we use its documented track record, label the window Our estimate everywhere it appears, and state the written legal minimum. Details in the methodology.
• If we can't verify a figure, we flag it or leave it out — we never guess silently.

How often data is updated

• Weekly: new phones are added to the database, with new comparisons.
• Monthly: street prices and update policies are re-verified; every ranking and “last updated” date refreshes from the data.
• Within days: when a brand changes an update policy or a major phone launches.
• Stale data gets fixed, not defended — corrections jump the queue.

Independence — rankings can't be bought

• Every ranking and verdict is computed from the database by the formulas on our methodology page — there is no editorial override to sell.
• We accept no payment, free devices, or other consideration for placement, scores, or coverage.
• Advertising (when present) is clearly separated from content and has no influence on results.
• All verdict copy is written by us, for this site; we don't publish sponsored content.

Who is responsible

PhoneLifespan is built and maintained by Muhammad Tahir. Errors are mine to fix — report them at mtahirkaam@gmail.com.

What gets a review, and what doesn't

Our database tracks well over a thousand phones. Only a fraction of them have a review page, and that is a deliberate editorial rule rather than a gap in coverage.

A /phones/ page is published only where there is a genuine written opinion behind it — what the phone is good at, who it suits, what we would buy instead, and why. A page that exists purely because a row exists in a dataset is a spec table with a headline on top, and we do not publish those. The review list is a committed, version-controlled file, so adding a phone to it is a deliberate act.

Every other phone remains fully available through the Longevity Tracker, the Finder, the compare tool and site search, with its verified support date and source. It simply does not get a standalone page it has not earned.

How this content is written

Every review, guide and news post on this site is written for this site. Nothing here is syndicated from a press release, spun from another publication, or generated in bulk from a template with the model name swapped out.

Reviews are grounded strictly in the verified data we hold for that specific phone — its specifications, its documented update policy, and the dates behind both. Where a support window is our estimate rather than a manufacturer's published promise, the review says so explicitly in the text rather than presenting an estimate as a guarantee. Where a model ships in meaningfully different regional variants, we say that too.

We do not have review units from manufacturers, and we do not pretend otherwise. Our verdicts are built from documented specifications, published support commitments, and the cost-per-month analysis that is this site's reason to exist — not from hands-on testing we have not done. Where hands-on testing would change a conclusion, we say what we cannot assess.

Corrections

Accuracy is the whole product, so corrections are handled before anything else — usually within a few days. If you find an error, email mtahirkaam@gmail.com with the phone and the issue. A link to the manufacturer's own support or policy page is the most useful thing you can include; a news article is second best.

When a support date or a specification changes, we update the underlying data and the “last verified” date shown on the page moves with it, so you can always see how fresh a figure is. Substantive database movements are recorded in the changelog. We fix errors rather than quietly editing around them.

Advertising

This site is free to read and is funded by affiliate commissions and, where present, display advertising. Ad placements are fixed positions in the page layout, visually distinct from editorial content, and reserved at their rendered size so nothing shifts under your finger as you read.

Advertisers have no input into what we cover, how we score it, or what our rankings say. They cannot buy placement, a higher Value Score, an inclusion in a “best” list, or the removal of a critical verdict — every ranking is computed from the database by the formulas on our methodology page, and there is no manual override in the system for anyone to influence.