How old is my phone?

How old is my phone?

Understanding how old your phone is can be useful for several reasons. You may want a general idea of its age to decide if you’re due an upgrade, or to see when the device was made. There is no setting on your phone that will tell you this directly, but there are ways of finding this information with the right knowledge.

In this guide, we will show you different ways you can check your phone’s age, on both Android and iPhone devices. If you decide it’s time for a new handset, take a look at our contract and refurbished deals from the industry’s top smartphone brands.

Why is the age of a phone important?

There are several reasons you might want to know your phone’s age: it can indicate if the handset is potentially outdated in terms of technology, or when your warranty period started. As such, smartphone age typically falls into 4 categories:

Manufacturing date – when your phone was put together in the factory. Devices with older manufacturing dates might have less advanced technology compared to newer handsets
Release date – when the phone was sold to the public. Similar to the manufacturing date, this can help identify how up-to-date a handset’s features and hardware are
Purchase date – when you bought your phone. This is typically when the warranty period begins
Activation date – when you added your SIM card to a phone and connected to the network provider

How to find the manufacturing date

1 - The box

If you still own the box your phone came in, this can tell you the manufacturing date of your device. Usually, a white sticker is placed on the back of the box, with a set of symbols and numbers on it; the date will be located within these digits.

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To confirm that this box is the phone’s original packaging, check if the IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) number on the box matches the number in the settings menu of your device. You can find this in the following step.

2 - The phone settings

A phone’s manufacturing date can also be found in the settings menu. Go to ‘About Phone’ on Android or ‘About’ on an iPhone and look for the serial number. Within this set of digits is your device’s year and month of manufacturing.

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The serial number structure may differ based on the manufacturer, so you might need to double-check online if the below method doesn’t line up with your serial number.

Using Samsung as an example:

• Find the fourth character in the serial number. This letter will tell you the year the phone was made e.g. M is 2019, N is 2020
• The fifth character determines the month e.g. 4 is April
• Combine the two to form the date your phone was constructed e.g., M4 is April 2019

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To find the date on iPhones, decoding works slightly differently:

• Find the model of your phone e.g. is it an iPhone 11
• Look for the fourth character in the serial code. On Apple products, this is the year or half-year in which it was made e.g. C covers the months of January to June, while D covers the months of July to December
• The fifth character is the week of manufacturing
• As an example, if the fourth and fifth characters were CJ, this would be either 2010 or 2020. If we know the phone is an iPhone 11, this was released in 2019, and so the creation year must be 2020. The J tells us it was made in the second week of April

3 – Use an app

Some apps, such as Device Info, can tell you what your serial number is without searching through the settings. It will then display your phone’s core information in an easy-to-understand format.

Not every app will help decode a serial number, but they are a great way of getting these details all in one place.

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4 – The manufacturing code

Dialling a specific code on your phone can also reveal its assembly date. It won’t work on every model of phone but is worth trying, if instead of other methods.

From your device’s dial keypad, input one of the below codes:
• #197328640#
• ##197328640##
• #0000#

This will then open a menu on your phone. Go to ‘Menu Version Information’, followed by ‘Hardware versions’. The ‘Read Manufacturing Date’ section will show your phone’s date of assembly.

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How to find the release date

The easiest way to find your phone’s release date is a simple online search. Enter the model of your handset alongside ‘release date’ and you should see when it was first sold.

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If you’re unsure which model you have, this will normally be listed in the ‘About’ section of the settings menu.

How to find the purchase date

Your original sales receipt or invoice should indicate when you bought your phone. Likewise, if you purchased it online, the email you received will usually contain this information.

How to find the activation date

A phone’s activation date can be found by entering its IMEI number on the brand’s website. For some series, such as the Google Pixel, you can also find this information on your account dashboard.

Now that you know how old your phone is, it’s much easier to determine if a new handset is in order. We have various guides to help you move your old data across, whether it’s for an Android or Apple device.