Hi,
A friend wants to degoogle his phone, so I suggested the OS I’m currently using. The one we can’t talk about… He wants a small/compact phone, so I suggested pixel 4a (not buying second hand though), but I’m afraid that planned obsolescence may kill the phone rather soon. What’s your opinion?
Cheers and thank you for your help,
It goes for like $80-120 in my country. For the price it’s an interesting deal but it’s extremely old so GrapheneOS won’t support it. I think you can still find something like LineageOS or crDroid but tbh it’s too old for a new daily driver. Lack of firmware updates will kill custom ROMs due to incompatibility with new Android versions eventually (and most likely very soon).
Compact phones are dead now and the last ones don’t even seem to support degoogled custom ROMs. You’re out of lack with that.
Dude it’s less than four years old lol I get what you are saying but Q3 2020 is not that long ago.
It’s extremely old for a new daily driver phone you want to buy and for Android updates.
I know what you meant but unless you’re gaming there’s nothing you can do with a Pixel 8 that can’t be done with the 4a (though I usually reccomend the P5 because for a few dollars more you can get wireless charging and significantly better battery life).
Firmware updates.
a four year old phone should absolutely still be getting updates
Say that to capitalists.
if only they would listen
The new Pixel phones get 7 years now. Things are improving
The XZ2 Compact still has LineageOS and DivestOS support and there are ongoing unofficial iodéOS builds for the XZ1 Compact (which I am using). The S10e has decent support too, although it’s a bit larger. But yes, modern compacts are dead in the traditional form factor - it’s now flips or a niche micro-brand phone like the Unihertz Jelly series.
These are older than Pixel 4A lol.
Sorry if I’ve misunderstood what you were trying to say. I interpreted that quote from you as suggesting the last true compact Android phones (the Xperia Compacts and, to a lesser extent, the S10e) don’t have custom ROM support. If you were instead saying the most recently released “compact” phones (which are really just medium-sized phones) don’t have custom ROM support, then that would also be partially incorrect since the Pixel A series is widely supported and the Xperia 5 III has official LineageOS support.
The only “new” compact phones I know are iPhone Mini and some Asus Zenphone. Neither have custom ROM support afaik and both don’t seem to be in production anymore. Medium size phones (6-6.4 inches) are not compacts.
The Jelly Star is even smaller and released last year. Not that I would recommend it to anyone concerned with updates or custom ROM support, because it probably won’t get any lol
Is that a Russian website?
Unihertz is a Chinese company.