Looking at the Carphone Warehouse website it seems they are still selling this ancient phone!

Any reason why it has lasted so long? Is it popular for a reason?

Don't know why, but the original Galaxy Ace is absolutely ancient! As of this Feb, it will be 5 years old.

I had the Galaxy Ace Plus for a while and it was still a bit old even then - now, I couldn't use it as my main phone.

The Galaxy Ace shipped with Android 2.2 Froyo (which is ancient) and got an upgrade to Gingerbread, 2.3. Android 2.3 is also ancient, with many apps starting to drop support for android 2.3. Google Chrome never even supported the 2.x series, and other browsers are following suit.

Also, the Ace Plus only supported HSDPA 7.2; not HSPA 14.4 or DC-HSPA+ 42.2 - so I assume the Galaxy Ace also maxes out at 7.2Mbps. I'm surprised that the Ace actually supports 3G900!

If people really want a Galaxy Ace series phone, they should get the Ace 4.