thelionroars wrote:

The flash memory in phones only lasts 5 years of use, so the value of any smart phone value after 5 years is effectively $0, unless you're a gun with a soldering iron.

I have on occassion "fired up the iron';
but am also aware that 20ms too much heat and the tracks lift !

Can also report that the ZTE F165 NextG has operated faultlessly since:
28 th Jan 2008 ;when Telstra made it clear that CDMA was absolutely,
unconditionally, irrefutably and undeniably going to shutdown tomorrow;
and the sky would fall in if I hadn't acquired a new phone.!
Of course I was somewhat blaise by this time as they had been promising this;
for the previous 6 months by this stage and
 nothing had happened !.

So what behavior should I be seeing if the flash memory on the ZTE F165;
 has been dying for the last two years ?

                                          regards Rohan McLeod