Although we like to keep our readers informed about all the new smartphones, occasionally we like to ask a question to enlighten ourselves about something. We’ve been wondering with the amount of new phones arriving at a terrific rate, how long do you keep your phone?

Some consumers will buy a pay as you go phone but plenty of us purchasing our shiny new phones happily sign a contract, commonly a 2-year contract and sometimes 12 or 18-months. At the time we buy those new handsets we’re often so delighted with our latest gadget that we can’t imagine replacing it any time soon, so locking ourselves into a contract doesn’t seem like a big deal. At one time things didn’t change so much in the time of a contract but now mobile technology is changing at such a fast pace that something that seemed cutting edge a year ago can now seem old hat after a year.

For example for a long time we were all happy with single-core processor phones and then last year we were suddenly overwhelmed with dual-core processor phones, which seemed amazing at the time. However, move on a year and now we’re about to see the first wave of quad-core processor smartphones, such as the HTC One X. The Galaxy S3 is also rumored to be featuring a quad-core Exynos processor when it releases during the first half of this year. Now then, it may seem unwise to lock yourself into a two-year contract. This has made us ponder on how many readers now end their contracts early and pay the difference to get their hands on the next best thing in the world of smartphones?

Take the next iPhone, commonly dubbed the iPhone 5, as an example. Although many of the experts are expecting a release in the fall, there are other people in the know who predict a summer release around the time of Apple’s WWDC. The last iPhone, the iPhone 4S, came out later than expected and eventually arrived in October 2011. If the iPhone 5 did release this summer then, the iPhone 4S wouldn’t even have been out a whole year. Although plenty of people who purchased the iPhone 4S couldn’t imagine wanting to trade it in in less than a year, who of us can’t say we might be swayed by whatever the iPhone 5 has to offer.

Considering all this we’d like to ask how long, on average, you keep your smartphone for? Do you find yourself now changing your phone more often than say 5 years ago? Maybe you now replace your smartphone once a year or do you keep your phone for much longer than that? We’re really interested to get your views on this so do send us your comments to let us know.