The LED should be expected to outlast the rest of the phone by a large margin. That said, given enough units out there, it's statistically inevitable to get a couple with some issue that die earlier.
I do not take them for granted. everything I use, I use sparingly because I know what it's like when things burn out & die & need to be replaced which is always an infuriating inconvenience, so to prevent that from ever happening, everything I use, I use exactly as long as I need to and then I turn it off.
No but I did have a flashlight fail me while I was exploring a long abandoned power plant and in a dark room with evidence that someone may have been living in the facility. I only shit my pants a little
I once got a „refurbished“ phone from a third party shop where it was not working. But I guess it was a defect from the refurbishment itself. They repaired it though.
Other than that, no. And I don’t think the LED would fail, maybe the plug would rattle loose.
This isn't necessarily true. LEDs are capable of running for years, but not all LEDs are designed this way or are operated this way. An LED in a given application can die quicker if:
the LED manufacturer cheaps out
the phone manufacturer runs the LED at higher current for more brightness
the phone is poorly designed, allowing the LED to heat up
the phone is exposed to significant heat and/or the LED is covered while used for a long enough duration
Yes. Samsung S6 edge I think? Before flashlight was an intentional functionality. I had an app or a ROM that gave me a flashlight button but if I used it too long it would stop working for a while. It would come back eventually but made me nervous so I avoided using it for more than a few seconds.