Is there an Android phone available that comes without any pre-installed bloatware, offers long-term support, and ensures access to the latest Android versions?
The reason you don't see long term support on Android is because of Qualcomm. Qualcomm wants manufacturers to build on new chips, so they deprecate older chips and stop support. Most manufacturers don't want to hire kernel and hardware devs.
Samsung can pull off longer support because of Exynos and they have a lot of inhouse expertise to extend support on old Qualcomm chips.
It's all money. They don't want you keeping a phone for 5 years.
Apple can do it because they lock you into their walled garden where they can double and triple dip on getting your money.
It's all money. They don't want you keeping a phone for 5 years.
Yes.
Hardware vendors love Open Source. It essentially cedes all control of the market to them.
They spend minimal time/money/effort on software development and updates because surprise, surprise --- it doesn't produce profits, it consumes them. Hardware is where they make all their money.
The only realistic way to get long term software support on Android is from Open Source. This means installing a replacement, 3rd party Open Source ROM. This is the first thing I do when I buy a new phone --- and I won't buy a phone that doesn't have good 3rd party support.
I have a Moto G4 Play from 2016 that gets regular software updates running e/OS. The last update was May 14th. This is my backup phone (I have a backup for everything that is considered "essential").
My primary phone is a Moto One 5G Ace (2021) which also has excellent support from e/OS and it's currently cheap as dirt considering the hardware specs. Only $129 from Amazon with 6GB RAM, 128GB storage, Snapdragon 765 processor, 2 day battery and microSD expansion.
If I accidentally leave it in an Uber or drop it in a toilet, it's sad but no big deal. I just switch to the backup until the replacement arrives. Try that with your $1000 iPhone.
> The only realistic way to get long term software support on Android is from Open Source. This means installing a replacement, 3rd party Open Source ROM.
What ROM do you use and what level of support does it provide? I was interested in third-party ROMs until I read this part of the GrapheneOS FAQ[1]:
> GrapheneOS can only fully provide security updates to a device provided that the OEM is releasing them. When an OEM is no longer providing security updates, GrapheneOS aims to provide harm reduction releases for devices which only have a minimum of 3 years support. [...] Harm reduction releases do not have complete security patches because it's not possible to provide full security updates for the device without OEM support and they are intended to buy users some limited time to migrate to a supported device.
So, what exactly do people mean when they claim that third-party ROMs provide "long-term" support? Do they just allow older phones to run newer versions of Android, albeit without full security updates?
Do they just allow older phones to run newer versions of Android, albeit without full security updates?
The "full security updates" GrapheneOS references has to do with proprietary device drivers. This is an unrealistic over-reaction in my opinion.
Why abandon perfectly functional hardware based on some unknown possibility that exists with both old and new hardware? Newer, supported devices could easily have these same sort of issues. They really don't know and the OEM does not offer any guarantee or certification otherwise. If the mere possibility of a bug is enough to abandon support, they really shouldn't support anything because this possibility always exists.
Most security issues occur in the OS or can be mitigated in the OS. Without physical possession of the device, access to drivers passes through the OS.
Except that popular chipsets (ie: get community support due to device saturation) do see vulnerabilities published past the point of support. I trust Qualcomm's ability to develop their modem driver (which is an entire Linux install) very little, and I trust it's ability to stand the test of time to be even less.
I'm not sure I'm saying it's a total loss, but I feel a bit lost on what to do as well. Do I think Google will support their Tensor chips longer? Not really.
I feel like I still lean towards buying a portable hotspot, a small Android tablet, and calling it good. I already get calls over VOIP and SMS/MMS over jmp.chat so I don't really need a "cellular phone". But also, ugh, those portable hotspots are probably even more of a vendor-ware security nightmare. At least I could upgrade them independently and somewhat treat it as isolated, if I only connect over Wifi? Maybe?
If the mere possibility of a bug is a show stopper, you really shouldn't use anything because this possibility always exists --- with all hardware and software.
I think there's a difference in saying "software tends to be buggy, security can't be perfect" vs "I'm using a baseband modem running out-of-date Linux, that has DMA to my entire phone, that the manufacturer has stopped supporting, and there's active CVEs".
> Without physical possession of the device, access to drivers passes through the OS.
With all due respect, that is not a wise take on modern device security. At all, all, all.
How's the camera? For me, the camera is more important than anything else on a phone, and thus far I've been stuck with Pixels because, despite the shorter support period (and absolutely mind-bogglingly bad customer service), that software does amazing things with old camera hardware .
Genuine question: why give yourself the headache of coupling having a great camera to choosong a phone then, if it's important to you? Why not have a compact camera as well as whatever phone, and carry that when quality matters?
If "average quality" in everyone of those things was not acceptable to you and you actually needed the best of the best, and best quality could not be had in most phones....then yeah that might make sense. I doubt anyone actually cares to have absolutely top tier performance in every one of those categories though, and what most phones have is "good enough". Which is why/how phones ate all those functions. They do most of them "good enough" and "good enough" is all that most consumers care about.
Caring about performance in at least one of those categories is not that uncommon and carrying a dedicated device for that isn't crazy. I have used stand alone GPS receivers before even when I had my phone, and deciding that you need a better camera seems not crazy at all.
> Genuine question: why give yourself the headache of coupling having a great camera to choosong a phone then
But I can have a modern high end phone with a good camera. I can’t buy a camera that lets me take a picture, edit the picture on the device, and then the picture automatically gets backed up to iCloud, Google Photos, Microsoft’s One Drive and Amazon Photos and gets synced to all of my other devices.
I don’t have to settle for a low end phone that won’t see any updates after two years where the operating system is created by an adTech company.
While it's certainly not the mainstream set of priorities/preferences, it is possible for someone to have a set of priorities in a phone that precludes the high end cameras, while still wanting a very good camera. And depending on the weighting of those preferences, they might be willing to put up with the inconveniences you outline. It's obvious that you peronally don't share those preferences, which is completely fine. But it doesn't make sense to criticize someone else who does.
There are sets of preferences where it is not possible to satisfy all of them and something must be sacrificed. Some people will choose to sacrifice convenience.
Those are also the stated preference of the original poster
> How's the camera? For me, the camera is more important than anything else on a phone, and thus far I've been stuck with Pixels because, despite the shorter support period (and absolutely mind-bogglingly bad customer service), that software does amazing things with old camera hardware .
If you care deeply enough about any of those things that they're a major concern when choosing a phone, yes, I do make the same argument.
A major audiophile won't be happy with a phone. Someone big into 'caching' isn't using Google or Apple maps. A home theatre -phile won't want to watch something good on a phone.
No cameraphile uses on-camera software to.. do anything. That you can do better on a computer than a phone then goes without saying.
I'm not going to carry it everywhere no, nor did I say that. (Actually I didn't even say it applied to me.) I carry my Panasonic TZ100 when on holiday or otherwise desirous of better-than-phone photos. It fits in my pocket. Not the same one as my phone granted, but nonetheless in a pocket while in a case and straddling a spare battery.
There are audiophiles and audiophiles. A good chunk of them will laugh at Monster cables et al. as much as any of us.
You can appreciate a better DAC than found in most/all phones without descending into gold-plated USB-C charging cables that maintain optimal audio nonsense.
And even that assuming playback of some locally stored file. I'm not sure any of the mainstream streaming Services offer a format/bitrate that it's not possible objectively to do better than.
For the purpose of this discussion it doesn't matter - the germane point is that some people will want a 'better' system regardless of whether your studies agree it is significantly/detectably so.
Although you jest, phone cameras are always not as good as a regular camera due to the physics of lenses, apertures etc being so much bigger in a camera vs a phone.
It's perfectly adequate for my needs and I haven't found any issues with the e/OS ROM support. But if only the best will do for you, this obviously isn't it.
"Middling" appropriately describes Motorola cameras. I've bought Motos exclusively since the original Droid and have finally moved off of the brand because of the camera.
It wasn't an important feature until I started getting potato quality photos of my children doing first-time-ever events.
Yeah, I finally got a Pixel because the camera was hard to beat. I since jumped to an iPhone 13, but honestly the Pixel still camera results were better. iPhone's video is the best of any phone I've used, though.
It's better than almost anything else. I don't understand you people worried about driver bugs in a smartphone.
Facebook isn't going to deploy malware to my phone using Whatsapp, MS isn't going to do that using Outlook, Google isn't going to do that through Google Maps. Everything I used is either by a reputable developer, or open-source from F-Droid.
The only way I'm getting malware is if they manage to: 1) exploit a bug in my up-to-date web browser, 2) bug #1 is used to exploit a bug in the hardware driver. Oh, and of course, since I only visit reputable sites, I'm never exposed to malware. I'd have better odds of winning the lottery.
I don't keep them fully synced. I do back up the "important stuff" on my primary phone to off device storage on a fairly regular basis. So my backup phone can be brought up to sync if need be.
A secret weapon in this regard is an Android open source file manager called Material Files which can create compressed files and speaks SMB. I usually create backups onto a SD memory card and then periodically copy these to local off device storage using wifi.
> The only realistic way to get long term software support on Android is from Open Source.
Or by laws and regulations.
I hope the EU will do something practical in this area, since it seems to be the only entity capable of pushing some useful changes.
Example: the digital markets act, which will force companies like apple to allow for side loading of apps. No us entity even attempted at anything similar as far as i know.
Apple is the only phone manufacturer providing long term software support...
Every single phone shipping with Qualcomm SoCs are at the mercy of Qualcomm. When they want you to buy a new chip, they'll kill support for your current chip, meaning that the manufacturer will have to spend effort making newer Android work with older kernel versions if even possible.
My Sony Xperia Z3 had software support killed by Qualcomm. They refused to provide the binary blobs required to make next Android version work despite the CPU being perfectly capable, as evidenced by the beta builds that only needed a small update from Qualcomm.
I've the same phone, and stock it is pretty bloat-free. Main complaint is the charging; no wireless and the USB-C is not secure and will pop out in most orientations.
I'm seconding the Pixels - they're also pretty much the only phones that allow you to upload your own signing keys, so you can run Google-free GrapheneOS with secure boot enabled.
GrapheneOS stops supporting phones when Google stops releasing new firmware for them for security reasons, so you aren’t going to get longer term support from it.
Technically, yes. The big hangup is that spec sheets for these chips are often hidden behind NDAs, so devs are left reverse engineering existing firmwares. This extra barrier to entry hobbles further development for many phones.
Not really, modem firmware even for wifi and BT is pretty much tied down "thanks" to regulations, you won't get far without an exploit bypassing the signature verification. Governments are apparently very afraid of people modifying their chipsets to be more powerful in range than allowed.
They do have extra 2 years of partial "transitional" support, if I'm not mistaken. But yes, even they will not support them forever as it's not financially feasible without help in the form of first-party updates.
I have been nominated seven straight years for hacker news reader with the least knowledge of security, so I’m embarrassed to ask: what keys would one want to sign and why?
It’s not your keys, it’s the Operating System keys uploaded to your device.
Essentially the same way UEFI secure boot works in the PC world.
You’re telling the device hardware “it’s only ok to run software that’s been signed with the private key that matches this public key”, so that once you’ve done that, you can have confidence that the operating system hasn’t been modified in future by anyone other than the original vendor (as only they have the private key).
The keys that verify that new boot software is allowed, the ones that verify it's coming from _you_ and not some other asshole trying to take over your phone after you rooted it.
>Samsung can do it because they're smart, but Apple does it because they're evil?
Nobody said Apple are doing it because they're are evil, calm down.
Your parent said Apple can afford to give you longer support because they not only make money when they sell you the phone HW, they also keep making money from your iCloud, iTunes and every other third party subscription or SW you buy on Apple App store. Basically, they double dip and monetize you over the entire period of you owning the device. That's exactly what your parent said. Apple's walled garden affords them enough revenue to keep funding SW updates for your old Apple devices which Android makers can't do.
All the other Android makers, apart from Google, don't make any other money after they sell you the phone HW, since Google is the one earning 30% off Playstore sales, not Samsung, or the others HW makers. Therefore they can't afford to pay teams of SW devs to keep pushing you SW updated for your old phone, so many years after you stopped giving them money, especially since they depend on Quallcomm and other semi vendors giving them up to date drivers, which they won't do for free since semi makers also want to sell newer chips rather than supporting older ones for free.
Google could do like Apple in theory, since they own the whole ecosystem stack apart from the SoC and they do have the cash for it, but they don't want to do it because Google sucks at maintaining anything "old" long-term, especially HW, so they keep doing what Google does best and focus on the new shiny while sunsetting the older shinys.
It's ironic that Samsung offers longer Andorid updates for their flagships S-series, than Google themselves do for the Pixels. That says everying about Google.
No, Google just sucks at maintaining an ecosystem.
Microsoft figured out how to license an OS to third party OEMs and still allow end users to update their hardware without depending on the vendor for literally decades.
Heck I was able to just throw a Windows 7 CD in my old first gen Mac Mini x86 1.66Ghz Core Duo and run it for years after Apple dropped support.
They arguably never did. Android updates are all-encompassing, unlike Windows. You still depend on manufacturers of your hardware (motherboard, CPU) to provide firmware updates (BIOS, Microcode). How old is your Motherboard's firmware? You probably don't even know, because most people don't consider these things important, which is a mistake. On Android, generally, firmware updates are included.
You are just describing why Android's update/support model is broken, which is agreeing with the parent comment.
Cleaving the hardware support from the OS support is precisely why the PC ecosystem can sustain much longer support periods, because those are separate concerns. Yes, at some point BIOS feature updates will cease (although usually they will crank out an update for everything going back a decade+ if there is some major vulnerability) but that doesn't mean Microsoft or Canonical or Red Hat can't keep rolling out OS feature updates for another decade on the existing BIOS feature level. And while BIOS security updates are occasionally a thing, the attack surface is much smaller, just like the hypervisor reduces Xbox/PS5 attack surface too.
The problem with Android's model is specifically that it ties these two together, so when the SOC vendor or the phone vendor get bored, the OS updates also cease.
Google has been moving towards changing that, by packaging more and more things as Google Service updates/etc rather than OS updates, but fundamentally the Android model is like your PC not getting Windows 10 because the motherboard vendor doesn't want to package it in a new BIOS image. And that's different.
Sometimes there are genuine feature cliffs, like 32-bit support, or UEFI support, or Windows 11 starting to move towards mandatory TPM. But if the OS vendor is willing to live with the old BIOS feature level, the BIOS vendor or the System Integrator doesn't need to keep packaging the updates for microsoft.
My Mac Mini built by Apple without using BootCamp was able to run Windows 7 just by sticking a DVD in.
How much more all encompassing can you get than that.
I assure that Apple never went out of its way to release firmware for the 1st gen Intel Mac Mini so it could work with Windows 7.
Windows 7 supported all of my Mac hardware - Bluetooth, gigabit Ethernet, wifi, and it found the IR sensor for the remote. I never tried to use it.
Even before that, I had more obscure x86 hardware - a 486DX/2-66Mhz “DOS Compatibility Card” for my old Mac that came with Windows 3.1 and had a built in Soundblaster card. I was able to our Windows 95 on it without any updated drivers from Apple.
Part of that is the OS kernel design. Unlike Linux, Windows has a stable device driver API which makes it easy for hardware vendors to release drivers separately and maintain them across versions.
>Microsoft figured out how to license an OS to third party OEMs and still allow end users to update their hardware without depending on the vendor for literally decades.
You're cluelessly comparing apples to oranges. ARM smartphones, for better and for worse, are not like the Windows based IBM X86 PCs in any way when it comes to boot process, OS and drivers interactions.
ARM SBCs which is what all smartphones are, are completely different than X86 PCs which have more open standards when it comes to booting and driver support, versus ARM where it's mostly proprietary blobs different from vendor to vendor.
> Apple can do it because they lock you into their walled garden where they can double and triple dip on getting your money.
Nonsense.
It’s because they have all the expertise in-house anyway, they get extremely good terms due to their weight and negotiation, and they figure if you don’t change phone now you might do so next year and they’ll get your money anyway. There’s no brand loyalty on the Android side, and fostering it seems impossible (even brand recognition efforts don’t seem to do much).
On what is based your claim that it is impossible to foster brand loyalty on Android side?
Maybe there is a reason that there is no brand loyalty on Android side, a reason that maybe those brands created themselves after seeking instant profits above anything else. Not one android phone manufacturer tried to cultivate long term relations with their customers for any reasonable amount of time. A lot of customers tried variety of android phones exactly for that reason, to find a brand that would not let you down and yet very quicly all promises were broken.
Also even if you don’t buy a new iPhone now, i.e. you keep using your old iPhone, they still benefit if you continue to buy apps (and buy in-app purchases), if you continue to buy from iTunes just for the convenience, or subscribe to Apple Music.
This incentivises them to support all their phones as long as technologically possible.
Other phone manufacturers have the opposite incentive, they want you to buy a new phone ASAP, since they earn nothing if you don’t buy a new phone.
From an e-waste perspective, Apple’s model is definitely better.
There is, in fact, zero hassle. "It just works
"
Also, GrapheneOS updates never remove functionality or battery life.
But yes it only works on supported devices - in related news, iOS does not run on unsupported devices, so what's your point?
I know I can buy an iOS device and get support from the vendor without hoping that some third party will support it out of the kindness of their heart and know that it supports apps from the AppStore.
I can do the same thing with Windows. Microsoft figured this out almost 30 years ago.
Apple just released a security update for the 2013 iPhone 5s earlier this year.
Apple has had security updates for the following iPhones this year: iPhone 5s, iPhone 6, iPhone 6s, iPhone 7, iPhone 7Plus iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, iPhone 10, iPhone 10XR, iPhone 10s, iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Plus, iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Pro, iPhone 12 Pro Max, iPhone 13 Pro, iPhone 13 Pro Max, iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Pro Max, and two generations of iPhone SEs and a couple of iPhone Minis
I ran CalyxOS on my Pixel 3XL and while it delivers on the privacy focus, I think most users would find it too irritating for long term usage. I ended up replacing it with Pixel Experience, which as the name implies is pretty much an up to date version of the stock ROM.
I couldn't be so cold as to give Graphene to my grandmother. That said, I am writing this from Graphene myself, having never touched an Apple device in my life.
With Google Play Services and the Play Store enabled there's almost zero usability difference between the standard Google Pixel Android and GrapheneOS.
Cloud sync that works across all of my devices in a centralized manner. Zero bloatware, adware OS that works out of the box and doesn’t change every year. Consistent experience across devices.
iOS, specifically, all of what I listed there and really nice, fluent system compared to Androids that have frame drops even on top end devices.
> Zero bloatware, adware OS that works out of the box and doesn’t change every year.
Now that’s just blatantly bullshit. The OS takes up at least 9GB. There are many Linux distros that take half of that. Not to mention the OS is preloaded with a lot of Apple’s proprietary apps, most of which are designed to pull you into some kind of sales pitch. Fitness+, Apple Music, iCloud, the entire OS is an ad designed to sell you on their ecosystem.
The most egregious statement, however, is that the OS “doesn’t change every year”. You say this right after the iOS 16 update completely changed a large portion of the OS, and in some very user unintuitive ways.
Not to mention iOS is a glitchy mess even on the latest hardware. Frequently the OS stalls on wakeup, stalls when trying to swap apps, randomly drops wifi when my laptop doesn’t, the keyboard will get stuck on screen, it’ll even skip inputs entirely and freeze for a few seconds.
> Now that’s just blatantly bullshit. The OS takes up at least 9GB. There are many Linux distros that take half of that.
Don’t care about that.
> Not to mention the OS is preloaded with a lot of Apple’s proprietary apps, most of which are designed to pull you into some kind of sales pitch.
Fitness+, Apple Music, iCloud, the entire OS is an ad designed to sell you on their ecosystem.
I’ve been iOS user for almost two years now. The only sales pitch I saw, was at the start about 3 months of free Apple Music. The rest I haven’t saw, as I don’t use fitness app or any other things.
The only thing that I’ve bought so far, was €1 iCloud subscription to increase iCloud storage to 50GB. And I didn’t even see any “ad” for it.
> The most egregious statement, however, is that the OS “doesn’t change every year”. You say this right after the iOS 16 update completely changed a large portion of the OS, and in some very user unintuitive ways.
The only thing I noticed after upgrading to iOS 16 was a slightly degraded battery life and performance which was eventually fixed. The rest stayed majorly the same.
Compare that to mayhem that is Android where it’s Material 1 then Material 2 with apps still lagging behind on Material 1 then it’s material You, now it’s material 3 or whatever.
> Not to mention iOS is a glitchy mess even on the latest hardware. Frequently the OS stalls on wakeup, stalls when trying to swap apps, randomly drops wifi when my laptop doesn’t, the keyboard will get stuck on screen, it’ll even skip inputs entirely and freeze for a few seconds.
Haven’t seen any of the behavior that you’re mentioning.
It's probably the biggest problem in the ecosystem, for all the papercuts I piss and moan over. The existence of an F-Droid style store on iOS would go such a long ways in stimulating competition. Even if Apple defends their right to tax platform payments, the mere existence of no-cost ad-free software would force other ecosystem players to do better. It's a win for FOSS fanatics and paid software stalwarts alike.
Now, if Apple unlocked the bootloader and promised no more ownership shenanigans, I'd never badmouth Tim or his company's software ever again. This website has my word on that.
Eeeh, kinda. A local DNS server is the only way I’ve found, and that causes problems on apps that block the “VPN” status and completely breaks cellular data.
It also doesn’t always work, particularly if the app isn’t covered in your blocklist (which it isn’t always possible to add them in any easy way, because “think different”)/the app hosts ad content directly.
I'm not aware if you can do it the way you mention, but you can used NextDNS and it pretty much cleans most of the ads (I actually haven't seen an ad in a very long time).
I am pretty active in the blocklist community, co-maintain a FOSS network monitor and firewall for Android, was a contributor to AOSP, and run a public DoH/DoT resolver; to me, the writing has been on the wall for the past few years. Plugins like uBlockOrigin, alt web-based front-ends like Invidious, and reverse-engineered apps like YouTube ReVanced will most likely be the only options left in the not so distant future.
It could double as a Ferrari and still wouldn't replace a primary function I want in a phone/personal computer: trusted privacy and confidentiality with auditable configuration by the owner, me.
The reason you don't see long term support on Android is the same reason Linux failed in the desktop: the Linux kernel developers want everything mainlined and are not interested in keeping a stable kernel API for drivers, but in the real world, drivers are closed source.
That is not why Linux "failed"(1). It is because essential software for the average PC user like MS Office and the Adobe suite is not available. For games the situation has quite improved thanks to Valve.
(1) Linux didn't fail, the desktop is already a joy to use imho. It is just waiting till it reaches critical mass, then the Year of the Linux Desktop will be nigh.
Oh right, it's those open source kernel guys. Has nothing to do with incentives to sell phones being aligned with business/profit (i.e. avoiding a phone to be usable well across the 5+ years mark).
This is the reason I want Arch Linux on my phone. I have my option of mobile interfaces (Plasma Mobile is still a thing, right?) or I could literally roll my own (there are i3 mods that allow using touch screens).
I'd love to be able to run a mainline Linux kernel on a standard handset. It would enable a bunch of goofy things, like using old phones as IP wifi security cameras.
I sure miss that "real world" with its blue screens of death from unmaintained binary drivers thrown over the wall by lowest bidders, running with kernel privileges doing who-knows-what behind the scenes. I shudder to think about what that has devolved to today, with the widespread prevalence of shameless user surveillance and all. Meanwhile in the free world, hardware is well documented.
And that’s a problem that needs fixed. Out of any piece of software, the one that connects my hardware to my OS is probably one of the most important.
Although I find it dubious this alone is why Linux historically has failed at desktop. It certainly sucks to deal with, but at least people attempted to use Linux. Personally I would argue that people’s innate fear of change is the bigger problem, in my experience.
I really wish there were more options than the Pixel. Ever since they removed the headphone jack it became obvious that there needs to be more device diversity in the longer-supported space.
> Most manufacturers don't want to hire kernel and hardware devs.
I don't think this is particularly relevant. IIRC Qualcomm hardware support includes a handful of binary blobs with restrictive licenses. So if there is a vulnerability in one of those OEMs can't fix it without Qualcomm's support. So it is impossible to promise longer support than Qualcomm will provide. In practice they may be able to support the device longer if they can work around security issues from outside the blob or if no security issues are found, but they can't guarantee it (and without a guarantee there is also less incentive to actually do it).
We are finally seeing Apple, Google and Samsung creating their own SOC with longer software support, hopefully that is enough to disrupt Qualcomm's shitty practices here.
> The reason you don't see long term support on Android is because of Qualcomm. Qualcomm wants manufacturers to build on new chips
Apple and Google make money off you for as long as you use your phone. Qualcomm only makes money when you buy it. Thus, Qualcomm has little incentive to maintain old chips for long. Not because they are evil, that would be another conversation, but because they only make money off newly sold phones.
Qualcomm actually started offering LTS (long-term support) BSP (board support packages) to device manufacturers for a fee. This is why some vendors like Samsung and Microsoft started providing updates for phones with older SoCs for longer than usual: they're paying the additional per-product license fee for being allowed to ship updated firmware.
I'm optimistic that "what it could have been" is what it will eventually be. Originally there was just Apple, and their lock-in driven business model. Competitors could emulate them and still get away with it for a while, but it will get commoditized to the same level PCs are at some point.
Funnily enough, originally people thought it was Apple who commoditized mobile computing and software development by getting it from the clutches of telecom providers
I will say, at least after Apple introduced the smartphone to the masses we did eventually get some amount of commoditization and control as consumers. Not from them, mind you, but they successfully killed the old giants in their bid to take their place, allowing Android to rise and give some amount of control to the people.
I had a buddy who was working on a Linux base for Motorola phones back around 2004/2005. I mentioned this to a EE I worked with back then, who had spent a long time working for Motorola, and he said the carriers "would never allow it."
Having the baseband firmware cordoned off was inevitable
notably the pixel has moved off qualcomm to google silicon and now has 5+ years of support.
if you want the _pure_ android experience, aosp support for pixel hardware has traditionally been very good. (google posts signed binary blobs for google hardware and with the move to google silicon those blobs have been getting smaller or may be completely eliminated now)
Are you saying that Pixel's abysmal long term support record is because Google can't afford to hire kernel and hardware devs? Or does Qualcomm lock them out even with those people after some number of years?
> Are you saying that Pixel's abysmal long term support record is because Google can't afford to hire kernel and hardware devs?
Not can’t, don’t want to.
If it‘s not going to save or make money, company isn’t going to bother. And Google is on a cost-cutting crusade right now so absent an external motivation it’s going to happen even less.
This is a marketing phrase that twists a negative into a positive. Its better to use more objective terms. Gardens give you a perceptions of flowers and fruits.
I like walled garden. Everything appears nice and flowery except for the fact they want to hold you in. You can admire its beauty but can't really trust anything in it due to its darker purpose. Reminds me of the Stepford Wives.
Oh, and what happens then? I’m mostly using Apple devices, but also have a Pixel as a backup phone and a laptop with Linux as a backup laptop. It’s not like I’m locked in the ecosystem entirely.
Quite not true. LOS does not need to hack kernal of all deprecated chips to update everything to much higher android ver. There are no reasons manufacturer can't do that. It's a choice made by manufacturer not Qualcomm.
Samsung is terrible, do not buy ever. They are the Apple of Android, big marketing budget, little care about performance or security.
I would recommend against Google phones, while 'they just work', they have been forcing users via dark patterns to use their services more and more. Its quite easy to get stuck with a google drive monthly fee or use their Maps app which is full of ads.
>"They are the Apple of Android, big marketing budget, little care about performance or security."
What are you on about? Every version of iOS I've used the past 11 years, on every iPhone I've used, has been a buttery smooth experience compared to most (not all; most) things Android, and on top of that I've gotten over 5 years of OS/security updates for each model which is practically unheard of with Android OEMs.
>"Doesnt matter what their security updates are. Those are after the fact."
Of course it matters. Whether you get 6 months, 1 year, or 5 years of updates is a huge deal. Their patches' timing don't differ from that of other vendors: most vulnerabilities are fixed before disclosure, few are exploitable, even fewer are found in the wild.
>"Bezos got his nudes leaked and Jamal Khashoggi was killed."
What stupid, arrogant and inflammatory rhetoric, suggesting that the reason someone died was because of their personal choice of an iPhone instead of an Android phone. Dumb toad.
Nothing ever leaned towards there actually being an iCloud system breach. Everything points to weak guessable passwords and a lack of 2FA being the common vector for these leaks, because if there were a system breach there would have been far more victims and far higher value/content besides celebrities and their private nudes.
I understand that you're feeling emotional because your favorite corporation experienced a security issue. It's important to recognize that many people develop a strong sense of identity and attachment to certain corporations or brands. This emotional connection often stems from the marketing strategies and manipulative tactics employed by these companies.
Corporations invest a significant amount of effort and resources into building their brand image and cultivating a loyal customer base. Through clever marketing techniques, they create narratives and associations that resonate with individuals on a personal level. These strategies aim to evoke emotions and forge a sense of identity tied to the corporation's values, products, or services.
By fostering this emotional bond, corporations hope to maintain customer loyalty and influence consumer behavior. They want you to feel personally connected to their success, so when negative events like a security leak occur, it's natural to feel disappointed or upset.
However, it's important to keep in mind that this emotional attachment is often a result of marketing and manipulation rather than a genuine reflection of the company's character or actions. Corporations are primarily profit-driven entities, and their marketing efforts are designed to maximize their bottom line.
In moments like this, it can be helpful to take a step back and evaluate the situation from a more objective perspective. Consider the actions and decisions of the corporation separate from your personal attachment. It's possible that the security leak was a result of internal shortcomings or external factors beyond the company's control.
While it's understandable to feel emotional about such events, it's also essential to remember that the corporation is not an extension of your identity. Your values, beliefs, and self-worth should not be solely determined by your association with any particular corporation. Instead, focus on evaluating the situation critically, demanding accountability, and considering alternative options that align with your values and needs.
By recognizing the influence of marketing and manipulation, you can maintain a healthier perspective, make more informed choices, and develop a more balanced relationship with corporations and brands.
How is the actual phone (not computing device) hardware on the Pixel?
The last time I had a Google phone was the 2012 Nexus, and I said never again. It had absolutely trash speakers and microphone. I couldn't be talking to someone when it was windy, I couldn't hear them. And when I tried recording a video at a sports stadium, the audio was completely distorted from the noise because the mic couldn't keep up with the noise.
Is the Pixel a good choice for people who spend the majority of their time on the road and not in a quiet office or home?
I have a pixel 6 pro, works great
Never had problems with the microphones, and calls are extra clear because they do some ai nonsense to upscale the audio coming into the phone
My 2 main gripes are:
The modem, I have issues with reception in the strangest locations, I can have direct line of sight to 3 different cell towers and still get stuck on edge till I hit the "Fix connectivity" button in settings, but when it is working (which it does 95% of the time), works great
The camera, amazing photo quality, videos look great, I have nothing against image quality. But the videos this thing takes are MASSIVE, even with HVEC on, a 50 second video can weigh over 300mb. Not sure what's up with that.
Oh also the main shooter camera is mechanically separated from the rest of the phone, so if you shake the phone or whip pan it too hard, you can hear it rattle.
Overall 9/10 though!
I hear the pixel 7 has a better modem
There is the Google Pixel. But it has limited updates and proprietary software for things like the camera. That camera is really nice though and it's as close as the Android experience Google intended to ship because this basically is Google's version of Android. I have the Pixel 6 and it's fine.
Nokia stays close to that but ships their own camera app. It too has limited updates that run out after a few years. Other than the camera software, it's basically "stock android". I'm not sure there even is a stock version for the camera at this point. There are plenty of alternative camera apps though. I always had a weak spot for open camera, which is nice. My previous phone was a Nokia 7 plus. The camera was not great but otherwise a fine phone.
The fairphone is probably the closest to what you want. But you are buying older hardware and at a premium. And fairphone OS is based on an older version of Android and also limited in time for updates. The updates run out at some point though they are pretty good at keeping the security patches going. Repairability is great though.
In short, long term support is hard to get. No-one seems to be willing/capable of doing that. At best you have phones that become unsupported at some point but at least allow you to install alternative firmware (without any promises or support).
I agree with everything you said about Fairphone, but their software support is decent when it comes for security updates (major Android versions upgrades are not guaranteed). They offer 5 years which is way better than average.
Their track record is also good I would say. Fairphone 2 started with Android 5 and it currently offered Android 10 upgrade.
I've been exclusively on Fairphones since Fairphone 1.
Recently switched from FairphoneOS (the stripped, bloatfree, google-free Android) back to stock Android¹
Its updates are fast, steady and consistently good (and improving). The FP1 is ten years old, and still works (though android there is EOL and old, and spare parts no longer available), my FP2 and an FP3 work fine, I can still get parts and Android isn't too old. The hardware is slow, and old, though (e.g. no 5G, power hungry BT, puny camera by current standards).
The FP4 is top notch. Spare parts are cheap (e.g. Replaceable battery only €29, new screen only €80), android 12 good enough. But it does have stuff like Google Meet or TV that I would like to remove but cannot.
¹I'm diabetic. Monitoring and Pump control is moving from dedicated electronics to native apps. And they often require Google Android, cannot or will not run on degoogled android. Same for banking and payment apps.
/e/OS is currently 7 months behind security updates for the browser/webview for the second time in a row and has a PDF viewer not updated since 2016 yet considers itself the "state of the art" in security. See my full list of issues with it here: https://divestos.org/misc/e.txt
Ok thanks for sharing, this was all new to me. Honestly it was just such a good user experience for me with their app store and just installing all apps seamlessly. It all just worked. Not sure if other custom ROMs have similar experiences since that's the only one I tried
The only reason I sold my FP4 and went back to samsung and their android experience was that everybod kept complaininh about mic quality during calls and I couldn't seem to fix it. Seemed like others also had similar issues
iodeOS just recently had a 3 month long gap where they didn't publish their source code. See my full list of issues here: https://divestos.org/misc/i.txt
I did. I didn't like it. Many apps lacking or couldn't run. Non of my diabetes monitoring apps would run. Many other apps lacked features or crashen on using these features, like push notifications.
I'm pragmatic though, I think Googles services (some, certainly not all) are just so good that I think paying with my data is OK. Like Google Maps. Even though I contribute to OSM, I think all the OSM apps range from "completely suck" to "fancy, but not on par".
I use both android stock photo app and openphoto (more to tweak).
I think the pictures are good. I'm also old-school in that I think composition, focus, cutout, subject matters far more than pixel quality.
My wife, also FP4 user, sold her canon DSLR 800 (I think?), used for product images in her webshops, because the FP4 made pictures that were just as good or better, without all the hassle.
As long as you don't consider Play services bloatware, yes Pixel is quite clean. I'm still happy with a Pixel 5a. Camera is good enough even with that older model.
I like Android though because compared to others I know with iPhones, there seems to be more ways to customize Android. Termux is one obvious example -- with a BT keyboard, feels like a pocket Linux device. I also use a different launcher as well as different browser and search engine.
> But it has limited updates and proprietary software for things like the camera
It gets as many updates as other Android phones, and there is no blotware whatsoever. Not sure what your comments here are about the camera app. It's just an improved version to use the features of the pixel camera.
Been using a FP4 in Washington State USA under T-Mobile for about 6 months now. Bought it from a British reseller.
Very occasionally I need to bounce the cellular connection, I suspect because I land on an unsupported band/channel. Otherwise LineageOS runs on it like a charm.
I’d love to have a Fairphone as a dev test device but yep, they don’t sell in NA.
It seems to be a common thread with interesting phones… back when there was still some buzz around Sailfish you couldn’t get a device running that in NA either, which may have contributed to that project fizzling. There’s a lot of mobile devs with disposable income you’re opting out of by not selling in North America.
>There’s a lot of mobile devs with disposable income you’re opting out of by not selling in North America.
I'm not in this specific industry, but there are some generic trends with the USA
There could be a lot of non tariff trade barriers if you go to the USA.
And you get exposed to a lot of laws, like having to give up all of your data to uncle Sam, having to run specific programs in the company on top of what the EU wants you to do, and be exposed to the maybe not so independent DOJ.
Negociations for industrial products also seem to attract ears at the homeland security, because it's a national security risk when you sell cheaper than American companies.
Contracts are trickiest to write, because justice is based on what you write in the contract, and century of precedents (contracts in mainland Europe are much thinner because there are laws)
And nobody would want to have to report women who get an abortion out of state, nor to dispute the requests, nor to run several legal programs when you're a smallish company, nor to risk having your board held up in jail until you sell to GE (then charges can be dropped).
Also, there is the Buy American act, so you can't just sell in bulk to the government.
European car manufacturers no longer sell in NA, because meeting the weird standards would cost more than they would do by selling their little cars.
Fresh food like cheeses were sometimes suddenly bumped back to Europe.
Overall, if you're a small company, you avoid the USA to not be crushed.
Samsung's default Camera app is quite good for panoramas. I think you could probably grab the latest from one of the APK downloading websites and sideload it.
Honestly, the Pixel phones are probably the best compromise between your requirements. While Samsung gets slightly longer support, the bloatware, IMO, is just too much (depends on your definition of bloatware though). Plus the Pixels are first for latest Android and are generally well-supported with third-party ROMs (Lineage, Graphene, AOSP, etc). So my suggestion is the Pixels, (the "a" series for a less expensive choice).
This may just be the Stockholm Syndrome talking as a longtime Samsung Galaxy user, but I've found it relatively easy to disable most of Samsung's bloatware (and to simply ignore whatever I can't disable). Nova Launcher + Gboard + re-mapping the Bixby button makes a huge difference right off the bat.
Also things like the Edge Panel clipboard are a game changer for power users - ie save two pieces of information from first app, open second app, paste the two just like you were in a Mac with Alfred or similar. I miss that every week on iOS...
Yeah, I feel like I have only one complain (camera lag) otherwise a S-line Samsung is awesome (and better than iOS for me, though I'm using an iPhone at the moment because the camera is awesome).
People seem to forget how ugly it was in the Samsung S5 times...
Its a specific and simple "edge" case: your kids/pets photos never look sharp as your friends who carry iPhones. That lag, not the time to open the camera, not an issue for pictures of grown ups.
Motorola does a pretty good job. Their "bloatware" is mostly the Moto app, which provides really handy and reliable gestures like a double "chop" to toggle flashlight, twisting the phone a few times to enable the camera, three-finger screenshot trigger, etc.
Their phones are really solid but they do lag on OS updates, and their cameras are never good.
Came here to say pretty much exactly that. I've been on a series of moto G phones, from the 5 to my current G83. Good value, the moto app actually adds functionality without being a drag (or even mandatory to use).
Cameras are always sub-par (partner has pixels, and I'm light years behind), although the latest is the least bad in comparison with her current phone.
Current one has survived most of me building a home extension with little damage...previous one developed an intermittent screen touch issue, but only after I dropped it 12 feet onto a concrete floor,so I can't complain on reliability either.
Just want to mention that the moto camera is made FAR worse by the software.
E.g. video on my moto would always be blurry due to bad de-noising settings used by stock software. mcpro24fps allowed me to take dramatically better videos. The difference was HUGE.
Same with photos. Custom gcam roms, after a long time of trying different ones and tweaking, gave me dramatically higher quality photos. Again, night and day difference.
So the hardware is fine; they shoot themselves in the foot with the software.
Can you provide more details about your current setup? Firmware versions, diffs, settings, etc? Maybe tutorials you used to get your camera into good shape?
Tried loads of GCam versions, the one that worked best was LMC8.4R8. Camera and Night Sight work amazingly well, and all 3 cameras are supported.
For videos however I had to use mcpro24fps. I don't recall the details now, but basically videos from stock camera app looked far blurrier than the photos, suggesting a software issue. It turned out to be some denoising feature that is on by default with no option to switch it off. You can also try it out by installing Open Camera, enabling Camera2 API and disabling Noise Reduction in Processing settings.
Unfortunately, I have not found a way to record slow-motion (high-fps) videos without the noise-reduction blur.
> but only after I dropped it 12 feet onto a concrete floor
My brain went right to old Nokia phones and I thinking "Thank fuck it was a Motorola, back in the day you would have to had the foundations checked over if it had been an Nokia"
But yeah, Always been happy with Motorola G phones (bar the cvamera, but I'm not really a photo person anyway), I still have an old 2014 Moto G to test apps on old devices/Android.
Last two phones have been Moto G Powers. Multiday battery life, stock Android, SIM and MicroSD cards, and a headphone jack.
Camera's definitely terrible, but I don't really use my phone camera all that much. Biggest advantage, IMO, is the <$150 price tag. It means when I trip and toss my phone into traffic, or forget to take my phone out of my pocket when going snorkeling, or drop my phone off the balcony of my apartment, I can just order a new one on Amazon, swap the SIM, and carry on with my life.
Tangential but I really miss the gestures. I'm much happier with my Pixel 6a, but I had a run of Motorola phones beforehand. God the shake for flashlight and rotate for camera were godsends. Everyone got a kick out of it too, it was always funny to see people react to how great shake for flashlight was.
I wonder if there's an app that can do this now on any phone, but I hadn't thought to look until now.
The brief period I spent with a non Moto phone got me missing the gestures so much as well. It's actually kind of insane how useful the flashlight gesture is. I realized that I actually don't really have a concept of not being to see anymore: anytime I entered a room that was too dark for whatever reason, the muscle memory kicked in immediately. Crazy.
On the non Moto phone I tried replicating it with Tasker. It worked... Sometimes. But it was a really cheap random Redmi model so that might have been the issue, more than the app itself.
It's not exactly the same, but iOS has an accessibility feature where you can map double and triple tapping the back of the phone to things like turning the flashlight on and off.
It's nearly like shaking and uses the gyros because there's no touch interface there.
Moto phones are excellent value and generally sturdy. I find myself going further and further down market buying cheaper phones like Moto G because I haven't seen a flagship feature that looks really compelling in years. Unless foldables really take off (doubt it) my main concern is really just battery and the Moto G Power is the current king.
My main problem with Moto is I've had really bad luck with their charging ports. I had a G4 and a G6, and both had ports that were loose from day 1 (so much so that car charging was impossible because it would instantly fall out) and both become unusable towards the end. I have several family members who had the same experience.
I'll agree with Motorola, though pretty-much the first thing I did when I switched mine on was disable all the Moto app stuff. Once you have done that it does mostly stay completely out of your way, which is probably the closest you're going to get to a non-bloatware system.
One slight warning, and I'm not even sure if it's completely true, but my G8+ is only a few years old and it has slowed to an absolute crawl. My current understanding is that this is because the flash storage is running out of writes and slowing down. If true, it means they used a sub-standard part with an unacceptably short lifespan.
I always get a used phone (2-3 years old) that is officially supported by LineageOS. I've made good experiences with Motorola Moto G phones. A good alternative are Pixels or OnePlus. My current phone is a Motorola Moto G6 Plus, which was released in 2018, now running LineageOS 20 (Android 13) just fine.
I've always wanted to try LineageOS on one of my older devices. But I always end up getting a device that never has Lineage support. I have a Samsung Note 4, Note 8, and now Note 20 Ultra. Meanwhile, support is for Note 3, 9, and 10.
Does the camera work as well as with the stock OS?
I've used custom ROMs for years, but never used Graphene.
My current phone is a Xiaomi Mi9T. With a custom ROM, to properly make use of the camera you need to flash a magisk module.
Otherwise you are stuck with the stock android camera app which doesn't perform nearly as well.
This phone is on its last legs, the screen was smashed so I had to replace it with a cheaper LCD, which has affected battery life and sometimes is unresponsive.
Thinking about getting a used Pixel 6 and giving Graphene a go.
You can use the google camera app, but they are trying to make their own Camera app as good as the official App.
> Google Camera can take full advantage of the available cameras and image processing hardware as it can on the stock OS and does not require GSF or sandboxed Google Play on GrapheneOS. Direct TPU and GXP access by Google apps including Google Camera is controlled by a toggle added by GrapheneOS and doesn't provide them with any additional access to data. The toggle exists for attack surface reduction. Every app can use the TPU and GXP via standard APIs including the Android Neural Networks API and Camera2 API regardless.
> We aim to reduce the benefits of Google Camera compared to GrapheneOS Camera over time, especially on Pixels. Many features of Google Camera will end up being available for GrapheneOS Camera in the next year or so via CameraX extensions including more aggressive HDR+, Night Sight and Portrait. Video features such as slow motion and time lapse are likely further away than within the next year. These video features could potentially be provided via CameraX vendor extensions or could be implemented via our own post-processing of the video output. Panorama, Photo Sphere, Astrophotography, Motion Photos, Frequent Faces, Dual Exposure Controls, Google Lens, etc. aren't on the roadmap for GrapheneOS Camera. Video frame rate configuration and H.265 support should be available for GrapheneOS Camera in the near future via CameraX improvements along with DNG (RAW) support in the further future.
Google started a program back in 2014 to encourage other hardware vendors to build just such things. It is alas, now on hospice care, with death imminent:
I had the Mi A1 since its release until a couple months (fall in a water bucket and broke), and it was a perfect phone at that time:
Pure Android experience with no bloatware, 2 full days of battery with moderate usage, a decent screen, fast, confortable to use, and also was cheap.
Nowadays most Android phones have plenty of bloat and lack some specifications unless you spend some money. It's sad how a cheap phone that were usable was €150 to €200 and now the bracket is between €300 and €350.
I recently looked into this due to my old device breaking.
The best options are:
- Google Pixel
- Motorola
- Nokia
I ended up with a Google Pixel 7. The Motorola Edge 40 was a close contender, but I ended up axing it from the list due to the curved screen edge. My selection criteria were: cleanest Android possible; latest Android version; long-term support; wireless charging; decent IP rating.
My previous phones were a Moto G2 and Nokia 6.1, for comparison. The first one replaced due to the charging port dying and running out of storage, the second one having its screen destroyed by dropping it on a tile floor.
Your best bet is probably a Pixel with something like GrapheneOS or CalyxOS on it.
Android manufacturers suck in terms of long term support.
Samsung offers the longest support, but their phones are full of bloat. and they recently passed some ToC updates that prevent you from suing them which I find a super anti-consumer move.
If you can compromise on long term support and don’t care much about photos, the Asus Zenfone 10 is probably your best bet
Note that the particular device unit (not model) must have an unlockable bootloader (so, probably not a unit that was solid by a carrier that disables this):
I will back this up by saying that all the banking apps (plural) I run on GrapheneOS run perfectly fine. I don't even have Google Play Services installed, either.
Wow, thanks a million for that link. My banking app was not working but I found "Exploit protection compatibility mode" in the relevant thread, and now it works again.
Get a second hand phone with great LineageOS and give it a shot. It’s phenomenal how better a, let’s say, Motorola phone gets when you replace pre-installed Android with Google-free LineageOS one.
From what I know, Google typically provides support for Pixel phones for about 3 years, which is relatively shorter compared to the 5-year support period offered by Apple for iPhones. I wonder if there are better alternatives available.
The actual support for iPhone is actually more like 7 years BUT you should expect no more OS major update after 5 years (only security updates and hardware pieces).
We use Nokia and Motorola phones in our lab as they have the near stock Android experience. the bloatware can be quickly turned off.
Typically 2 years support is what I have seen.
I am not sure where you are located... I was on the Nothing Beta program and received a nothing 1 phone. I have been a longtime root-unjail-roll-your-own phone user. The Nothing is probably the most bloat-free in recent memory. Sure, the google apps (gmail, files, maps) are on it, and it comes with weather, but that seems to be it, and the rest you can easily uninstall without pain.
Does the Fairphone require a Google account, or can it be used like the traditional Android systems - airgapped, never connected to the Internet?
I understand that the latest Android systems require an account to initialize the device - they have disabled the "Skip" [connection to the Internet] button when you first turn them on.
I'm on the Pixel 7 Pro (had the 6 Pro previously). From my perspective, it's the Android experience intended by Google (it is their flagship phone after all). I'm very happy with it. But yes it does have some other Google servicey things you may or may not want.
A bit tangential: I was happy to learn about Android apps that can change the home screen, such as Lawnchair (thanks to whoever pointed that out to me, after I had posted an cranky comment that was understandably downvoted).
For example, it makes it easier to disable the search on the home screen, and many other tweaks. I also like being able to hide apps from the list of all apps, but they are still accessible using the search. It helps make the bloatware less visible (ex: I don't use the Youtube app, or most other pre-installed apps).
I use a Pixel 6 with very few features from Google, and happy with it. Long-term support is the only issue, although they do offer 5 years for security updates, which is better than previous Google models.
I've not seen any. There are growing collections of debloat scripts that use adb and do not require rooting the phone but it's hit and miss per model as to completeness and not breaking the OS startup. Some vendors lock down their bloat so that rooting is required and in my opinion those should get returned / refunded and the product reviews on sites such as Amazon should warn others rather than rooting the phone. I've returned a few. My uleFone had the least cruft on it and the least lockdown but still uses upwards of 4GB ram after my first pass so I still have a long way to go.
Can relate, I've been very happy with my Moto G 5G Plus. No bloatware, and with its included rubber shell it even survived an one story fall without any damage.
for my mother i installed /e/OS myself, but if she had to get a new phone while i am not around i'd point here to that website and tell her to get one of those.
/e/OS is currently 7 months behind security updates for the browser/webview for the second time in a row and has a PDF viewer not updated since 2016 yet considers itself the "state of the art" in security. See my full list of issues with it here: https://divestos.org/misc/e.txt
OnePlus is pretty close to stock. Very fast, very good battery. It's the only Android I've loved before switching to iPhone.
I have a Samsung and a OnePlus 5T bought in the same period (around 5 years ago). The OnePlus still rocks 1 day battery with medium usage, while the Samsung is dead in a couple of hours.
Same. I had the OP 3T, best phone I ever had. Moved to the OP 7T worst phone I ever had, slow updates, and every update brought it's own set of bugs. OnePlus went down the drain, avoid them like the plague.
But the headphone jack socket is basically unusable, because it is so worn, and I have similar issues with the USB-C socket, although that also depends on the cable.
Not sure what I'm gonna replace it with eventually, I'd just have a new battery if it was replaceable...
Pixel 6a/7 (not 7a) for me. I had the Pixel 2 running Graphene OS for about 5 years and got the 6a a while back and put Graphene OS on it. You can get Gapps with Sandboxed Google Play Services, privacy, security and bloatfree experience. Because we have Google chips in these you also get 5 years of security updates (huge bonus!).
The 7a has poorer battery life than the 6a/7 so its a poorer choice for my personal use case but ymmv. Otherwise the 6a runs about 3 days for me (got 4 out of it initially but I use my phone very little) or 2 days when driving and needing more usage out of it.
Agree, am on Sony as well. Just make sure to pick one that is widely used and thus have other distros available. Had that with my previous one, so didn't check with my current... AOSP available, but not great. I went back to a stock image and continued from there...
Because it is a lot of work, not all phones support/allow rooting, you need to hide root for apps manually for them to work and there's no way to take full backups on Android phone, rooted or not (adb backup is deprecated and never actually worked at all anyway).
Meaning: every time you screw up (or get a new phone) you have to start all over, without the ability to restore a backup.
This can easily take many days worth of man-hours.
A default LineageOS installation will not be rooted. There are really less and less reasons why you'd even want a rooted phone. The killer feature used to be ad-blocking, but most ad-blockers can work without root nowadays.
The backup problem is a notorious problem with any Android phone, I don't understand what it has to do with custom ROMs.
"A default LineageOS installation" as in "a device which is officially supported through https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/" is like that, indeed, and while most of the unofficial builds come with as -userdebug, no root, there's a high chance of encountering either a flaky build (permissive selinux) or having to fallback to a GSI build, some of them, and nowadays it means AndyCGYan's [0], come with optional root enabled.
As for backup: stock backup facilities (adb backup/restore) aren't exactly the best thing for sure, (rip Titanium Backup, Seedvault isn't even remotely there), and TWRP is broken on most of devices with modern encryption support (specifically, on Pixels). Coincidentally, Mediatek SoC based devices are the 'best' when talking about backup (as in: you can dump and clone all partitions through a built-in service mode [1]).
If you don't want root, then don't root it; that's separate from replacing the ROM.
> there's no way to take full backups on Android phone, rooted or not
Er, no? On the contrary, root is exactly how you get full backups on Android - with, I grant, the exception of whatever Android calls their secure element / TPM, which I've only ever seen affect 2FA apps.
yeah, good luck restoring full userdata and metadata partitions on a rooted pixel 4 and newer: you definitely can do that (and bypass TPM), but since there's no working twrp, there's no exactly easy way to dump/restore partition image with dd anymore.
? https://twrp.me/Devices/Google/ says there are official TWRP ports for pixel 4 and 5. I'm surprised at the lack of ports for newer versions; not sure what went wrong there. Yes, if you somehow get a phone without a working TWRP then you're going to have a bad time.
Yes, it's called an iPhone. There are no options for Android unless you flash it with your own ROM. Your best bet is a Pixel running GrapheneOS if you're adamant you want to be on Android.
If you are OK with spending a couple of hours, buy a Motorola phone that is supported by LineageOS[1] and install microg+ LineageOS(2) It can spoof Play services and so most Apps from Play store will work.
/e/OS is currently 7 months behind security updates for the browser/webview for the second time in a row and has a PDF viewer not updated since 2016 yet considers itself the "state of the art" in security. See my full list of issues with it here: https://divestos.org/misc/e.txt
I’m curious how do pixel phones and pixelbooks running ChromeOS compare with iPhone and MacBooks running macOS in terms of security?
I know in terms of privacy, Google is worse due to built in telemetry (and cloud based chromeos). If there is no security benefit either, then there doesn’t seem to be a major reason to prefer Google’s products over apple’s. Pixels aren’t much cheaper either (particularly considering the shorter support period).
I've been enjoying my Nothing Phone (1)a great deal. Very few pre-installed app - I believe just a reskinned version of the weather app; full Android experience and the updates have been very impressive so far.
Also, incredibly cost-effective.
I think nobody has mentioned the gaming phones like Infinix. I bought Infinix as a test device and was surprised with the affordable price and large storage. And importantly I haven't noticed any bloatware apps.
The 'Android One' line/programme. Phone has to be pretty stock, and commit to some number of years of updates and more of security updates in order to qualify.
Or of course a Pixel, though if you don't use all of Google's stuff you might consider they come with more 'pre-installed bloatware'. They'll also probably always be supported by Lineage, so you could install that when official updates dry up, or just from day one to avoid 'bloat'.
Everyone's talking about Pixels yet no one mentions how Pixels batteries are terrible and how 'their' Tensor G2 gets slaughtered by a $200 SD 7 device. Pixel is a big skip, camera clutches and NOTHING ELSE, software (ui/ux) looks and feels terrible.
Mostly just Signal, and a good maps app. TOPT apps I'd assume is readily available. The only other app I regularly use otherwise is ErgData from Concept2, but they offer the APK file for download.
I do have a local payment app, which would be nice to not lose, but it's not a hard requirement. The number of apps I use these days are surprisingly low.
I'm really interested in the Fairphone as my next phone, but which OS to go with. I'm currently on an older iPhone, because given the choice of the two, I trust Apple slightly more than Google.
You can load at least a few different alternative operating system, but finding one that will give me at the very least Signal is proving difficult.
For the asks you describe, the iPhone is the answer, except for the word “Android.”
No Android phone is going to give you the same level of long-term support. iPhones have zero bloatware and you can uninstall first party applications. You’ll get OS releases the day they come out regardless of your phone model.
You probably will understand me when you are expecting very important business call but your Android phone doesn't ring because the operating system decided to crash.
So why do you need the latest android version and why long term support?
If you are a nobody, there isn't a need to pay for the "latest and greatest". Security updates are a meme and just a way to add more bloat. Don't download apk's from unknown sources, use an adblocker and that's 99% of all attack vectors closed.
That only leaves pre-installed bloatware, a legitimate issue that can be solved with a few steps. The phone doesn't matter but get something android 10 or higher, their selective permissions are nice but you can go as low as android 6 without too many issues. But you might have app compatibility problems.
During phone setup, don't immediately connect to the internet.
If you can uninstall the apps do that. Otherwise, force stop and clear data of every installed app that you don't think you will ever use. As long as the apps don't open or take up ram or cpu cycles then the phone is functionally 'bloat free'
Remove all of the permissions that don't make sense. Your calendar doesn't need access to your microphone or even contacts.
Turn off all settings that even hint at telemetry including locations.
Once this is done, you can connect to the internet. Download fdroid through the browser and look for a local VPN that is capable of blocking access to apps and has a decent permissions menu. Get that configured and then you are good to go. The local vpn will almost certainly break things the first time you use it. But you can just tweak it and as long as you aren't installing any new apps very often you won't have any problems. Stick with open source apps as much as you can.
And only update Apps when they break or if there is a feature you really want. Don't actually do anything important on your phone like banking but if you have a browser with adblock then that's fine but keep it minimal.
I like this method because it's phone agnostic. I don't have to settle for a pixel or another phone that I need to get root on. If this sounds like too much and you don't want to flash a new OS, then just get an iphone.
I am and in general. I've bought and used android devices that haven't received updates for at least 3-7 years. It's a phone. If you can make calls and text, it's already doing it's job. If you have a device that regularly receives security updates then it's up to you to download it but the idea of getting rid of a functioning device just because its no longer receiving security updates is ridiculous. Especially since these devices often get sent to developing countries. The entire security theatre for consumer devices is incredibly overblown. Sure there was a time where viruses and malware ran rampant, but those times have passed but companies don't make money if they don't sell new devices so their incentives and yours don't align.
For computers, it depends but as long as you're not downloading sketchy shit and have an adblocker then you're fine.
And once again, all of this applies as long as you're a nobody, which is at least 70% of the population. Those who don't work in government, medical, aren't businesses etc.
The reason you don't see long term support on Android is because of Qualcomm. Qualcomm wants manufacturers to build on new chips, so they deprecate older chips and stop support. Most manufacturers don't want to hire kernel and hardware devs.
Samsung can pull off longer support because of Exynos and they have a lot of inhouse expertise to extend support on old Qualcomm chips.
It's all money. They don't want you keeping a phone for 5 years.
Apple can do it because they lock you into their walled garden where they can double and triple dip on getting your money.
They also build their own chips.