> Phaedo takes place on Socrates' deathbed so might be considered more representative of the philosopher's final opinions.
One distinction that I do want to make (that was made to me as an undergrad studying both Classics and Philosophy) is that we do want to remember that Phaedo is essentially third-hand information. It is written by Plato based on his understanding and editing of conversations he had with students of Socrates.
My professors always made this very clear and stressed that while it is common to consider things in the Platonic dialogues as Socratic canon, they were not, in fact, written by Socrates at all or in his immediate time period; as I recall, they were written a few decades after his death.
It's not really relevant what Socrate's actual cannon was.
The philosophic Socrates is what Plato made.
A few others (Xenophon etc) also wrote of Socrates, but the philosopher Socrates is 99% Plato's writings.
It's like the question of whether X or Y was the real Shakespeare.
Even if so, the only thing we care about Shakespeare is his plays, and those don't change if the real name of the person who wrote them was another (Borges makes that point somewhere, iirc -- actually Shakespeare himself makes it too: "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet").
"Socrates" people read / care about for 2 millennia -> what Plato wrote.
"Shakespeare" people read / watch / care about for several centuries -> the plays and poems themselves
One distinction that I do want to make (that was made to me as an undergrad studying both Classics and Philosophy) is that we do want to remember that Phaedo is essentially third-hand information. It is written by Plato based on his understanding and editing of conversations he had with students of Socrates.
My professors always made this very clear and stressed that while it is common to consider things in the Platonic dialogues as Socratic canon, they were not, in fact, written by Socrates at all or in his immediate time period; as I recall, they were written a few decades after his death.