Costliest iPhone mistake you can make is scarily common – I’m shocked more people don’t know as it saves you hundreds

IF you've had your iPhone for a while now, don't make a costly mistake that you'll regret.

If it's starting to get slow and the battery life just isn't holding up any more, don't rush out to upgrade. Please.

WHAT'S GOING WRONG WITH YOUR IPHONE?

The problem with all smartphones – including your – is that they have lithium-ion batteries inside.

They're a great battery choice because they're cheap to make, are easily rechargeable, and hold a fair amount of juice.

But lithium-ion batteries degrade over time as you charge and discharge them.

For instance, you'd expect a phone battery to hold about 80% of its original charge after 500 full discharges.

And that's probably going to take you about two years to hit.

You can even check this number yourself.

Just go to Settings > Battery > Battery Health to see the Maximum Capacity for your iPhone.

And depending on your iOS and model, you can also see how many charge cycles you've gone through too.

The obvious downside here is that the longer you hold onto a phone, the worse the battery life will get.

That doesn't just affect battery life either – it also hits performance.

Your iPhone will eventually start to reduce its performance to better-protect the battery from getting worse.

So you can end up with an old iPhone that has generally fine working parts – a great camera and powerful processor – but that holds less charge and doesn't perform like it used to.

Now iPhones don't come cheap, so if you forked out hundreds for one then you'll want it to last.

It might be tempting to upgrade to the latest model – like Apple's new iPhone 16 – but hold your horses. There's a better way.