I have been using xiaomi phones for a long time now, for most of them the (xda) community eventually had great ROMs that (eventually) worked without problems or with very little.
Though these days I need a working phone so I didn’t bother with my (Mediatek) Note 8 Pro - last time I looked phones with these chips were a lot harder and more dangerous to flash then the Qualcomms I had before (loved my Xiaomi A1 for that tinkering with Ressurection Remix).
So I am looking for an investment - a device I won’t have to replace for another ~6+ years but I really want my device to do mostly what I would expect, without any snooping or other privacy shenannigans - I know xiaomi is probably the worse choice for this but their hardware specs were always the best for the price and were generally easy to flash.
I don’t like pixels - they are too expensive for the hardware it offers, at least in my country.
Thank you for any tips in advance.
Update: iPhone is a no go for me because of the walled garden - I am a software developer by trade and hobbyist, I like to have the possibility of cracking the device open, both HW and SW wise. I am willing to trade the longevity of the device for this.
a device I won’t have to replace for another ~6+ years
This is why you buy a Pixel phone. It’s not for specs on a page, it’s for reliability, the most ROM compatiblity, and 7 years of security updates
I would say pixel 8 pro, likely the best phone you can get that will have support for 8 years plus. Flash graphineOS or lineage if you don’t care about high security and want Android auto
I know you don’t want to hear it, but if you want a phone that’s (relatively) privacy respecting, reliable as hell, well constructed so it won’t break after just a couple of years, and supported for a long time… you just described an iPhone. You could be the 2022 SE today for $400ish and use it for 3+ years before you have to do anything to it, and even then you’d just have to pay $69 or so for a battery swap. You could also buy a 13 Mini or a 12 Pro for close to the same price and get an OLED screen and a better camera.
The Pixel series is probably your best bet in terms of specs and theoretical support. But I would be very surprised if you were able to use a Pixel for 3+ years without developing a hardware issue. Maybe you’ll be lucky, but I wouldn’t bet on it, personally. My partner’s 4a isn’t even 3 years old yet and it’s clear that Google does not backtest any of their software updates on older hardware either. Hopefully that changes going forward, but Google has a pretty shit record with long-term support. They’ve promised to make replacement parts available for the 8 year lifespace of the 8 series phones, but the phones are glued together and hard to repair, so unless you’re hardcore about DIY, it’s unlikely that you’ll bother with it. Instead you’ll likely end up going to a repair shop, which you could also do with older Pixels today. And both Pixels and their replacement parts are iPhone-level expensive unless you’re playing the carrier incentive game.
I’m not sure why others are shitting on the Fairphone’s hardware. I think it’s incredibly dumb that they killed the aux jack, and the phone is way too big for my liking… but it’s literally built to be easy to repair. And Fairphone has a proven track record of support for their phones. It isn’t perfect, but I’m much more likely to believe that you’d use a Fairphone for 5+ years than a Pixel. If you’re concerned about part availability down the road, just buy a couple of spare batteries, a spare screen, a spare camera module, and a spare USB-C port today.
Fairphone
Ah, I would like to support the brand/idea but the specs are simply sub-par for the price, though it is definitely better with the replace-ability then pixels.
If you’re planning to keep your phone for 6+ years, it will have sub-par specs compared to others during 4+ of those years.
Is what you do on your phone really limited by processing power?
I know you say you don’t want a Pixel, but Google is the only company that I know of that offers long term support for their devices. I think with the Pixel 8 they’re offering 6 or 7 years of updates. That’s why I got my Pixel 6 Pro… Then I cracked the screen twice in a year and got it replaced. Then it fell out of my pocket and into the car as I was getting out of a Lyft ride. I have a Galaxy S23 Ultra now.
Fairphone 5 might work. Software support till 2031 and all the components are “easily” replaceable.
You have two options for a phone that will last 6+ years and really it’s only one as tensor won’t last that long
Iphone and pixel.
For 5 years you can go Samsung and potentially OnePlus though that’s also chinese.
If your willing to rely on the community Poco f5 or f5 pro is probably your best bet .
But honestly iphone is gonna have the most longevity both in terms of software support, replacement parts availability and process being able to keep up for that long (a series chips are by far the fastest.)
Furthermore I think it’s quite delusional to think a phone will last that long just due to sheer usage dropping etc but that’s my two cents .
I’m using the Redmi Note 10 Pro and it has great rom support.
The upcoming Note 13 Pro looks promising.
I was in the same boat about a month ago. Pixels battery life wasn’t as good and the processor heating made me not consider it.
My previous phone was a Redmi which I had updated to android 13 with custom roms so I ended up getting a poco f5. I have to say that this is probably good enough for me. It doesn’t have NFC but that’s about the only complaint from me. Battery life is solid and the cameras, even though not excellent, are decent and get the job done.
I still haven’t moved to a custom rom yet as I wanted to give the official rom a try but there are a few roms already available which I’ll try later.
Definitely worth the money spent.
