Hey everyone,
So, for a bit of context I’ve used every smartphone I’ve owned until it was dead in the sense that the hardware wasn’t repairable anymore. The realme6 pro I’m using at the moment is currently on life support so it’s time to look for a replacement.
Here’s some criteria for what it’s important to me:
- I’m not a phone gamer, I don’t care how well it runs Genshin Impact or PUBG, but I do use emulators like Citra.
- I don’t really care about photography, any fancy camera is a bonus, it’s not something I normally would consider when comparing phones.
- Wireless charging would be nice since from experience charging ports are a common point of failure. It’s not necessarily a must however.
- A micro-sd and headphone jack would be nice to have, but I’m ready to sacrifice that if the phone has decent storage.
- Bloatware and weird proprietary forced, subscription/AI/ads bullshit baked into the default OS are a big no from me. I’m not as hardcore as some of the Lemmings I’ve met, but I do value privacy.
- Little extras such as an IR blaster, notification slider, or maybe some fun little gimmick like the glyph interface on Nothing phones is of medium importance to me. I like to tinker too, so any decent customization options is a plus.
I don’t need a top of the line flagship, I’m looking for a midrange phone that’s available in Canada. With that in mind, I had some ideas already:
- Nothing phone 2, this one seems fun and ticks most boxes for me. What’s holding me back is the 3-4 years of updates (but that seems standard enough nowadays) and the relatively high price. If you can ease my mind and tell me I’ll still be able to comfortably use this phone in 2028+ I might get this.
- One plus 12R, I like the specs and price on this one. What worries me is the bloat I’ve seen mentioned. Has anyone had experience with their android flavour? If so, is it feasible to remove/deactivate all useless apps?
- Pixel phones, I haven’t researched these enough to decide on a model though. I might give GrapheneOS a try if I end up using a Pixel, I’m impressed by the 7 years of Android updates too. What’s holding me back however, is the lack of “fun” compared to my other options, no IR blaster or distinguishing features makes it equal to my other options.
With all that said, any other recommendations are very welcome. Looking forward to reading your thoughts :)
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Yes, bloatware can be disabled easily with Universal Android Debloat
This fork is more up to date: https://github.com/Universal-Debloater-Alliance/universal-android-debloater-next-generation
Thanks Didn’t know that.
That’s great to know! Thanks
I second this.
Samsung galaxy A15 5G, Cheap phone (~180$), micro-sd, headphone jack, good software support (4 OS updates, 5 years security updates), good battery, 1080p amoled 90Hz 800 nits.
After checking out some reviews on this one in particular I think it’s a pretty nice value. Good to know there’s still affordable phones out there. I do have some extra budget lying around so I think I’ll look into something a bit fancier this time.
Then samsung galaxy a35.
Samsung phones nowadays are one of the best software support on every budget, starting with the A15 4G (~150€) with 5 years to the flagship, S24 ultra with 7 years.
Do beware, Samsung typically has a decent amount of bloat and not so privacy respecting services.
I think the Pixel line is great if you don’t like bloat, and they offer you lots of flexibility because you can replace the entire operating system without the hardware fighting you every step of the way. They are intended to be excellent development phones, and the aftermarket rims on these devices are very stable and well-maintained because they benefit from Google’s investment in maintaining the reference images.
The Pixel I had developed an issue where it didn’t maintain a stable cellular connection, but I still love the product line.
I do sense some conflict in your requirements, however. One man’s “fun feature” is another man’s bloat. I’m not saying that your process is flawed, rather, that it’s a very personal decision.
That’s true about “fun”, it’s very subjective but I’d say that bloat in my case strictly refers to software and not extra hardware, something like the difference between a ringtone store app and a couple of extra LEDs on the back.
On another note, I’ve seen a few reviews mentioning Pixels developing problems over time but nothing major AFAIK. Do you still use your Pixel? If not, what made you change it?
I’ve used a Pixel 4 and 6 and never had them develop problems over time. If anything they’ve gotten better; the 6 had a green tint to the screen that was fixed in a system update. (Before that I’d been using an app to adjust the time.)
How about a ruggedized industrial Android phone?
Cat S42 H+
Has:
- 3.5mm jack
- microSD card slot
- IP68
- MIL SPEC 810H
- Dual SIM
I see price on Amazon US is $168
If you want really fancy features, the higher end model has a FLIR thermal camera built into it.
It doesn’t support 5G and 3GB of RAM is not very future proof.
I remember a while ago I looked into this kind of phone and it did look pretty attractive to me. I might look for some more info on their performance thought.
Thanks for the suggestion :)
In Canada, probably a Pixel 8. You can find new ones for cheaper on Marketplace. The upcoming 8a might be a good deal too.
I have Fairphone 5 and it’s not bad. Little bit pricey and no wireless charging or headphone jack but it should last really long with spare parts for years and easy fix.
If you need a phone that last long you should get a base varient of Samsung S23/S24 with 256GB storage. It checks most of your boxes but the main reason for suggesting Samsung is the repair parts availability after 5+ years also getting a repair outside warranty won’t cost you a fortune. Just debloat it and you are good to go until you hard reset.
Pretty sure samsung fails at his no bloat requirement. Samsungs android skin is so damn bloated.
Fairphone 5 stands alone as the phone that is most built to last. Its repairability rating on iFixIt is a perfect 10. They’ve committed to software updates until 2031.
Not sold in the US, unfortunately, but I think it has the correct 4G/5G bands for US networks if you want to import it.
You might also be interested in iFixIt’s repairability overview here: https://www.ifixit.com/repairability/smartphone-scores#smartphone-scores
I might give GrapheneOS a try
You definitely should. It’s pretty wonderful imo.
I use a OnePlus 12R. It has an IR blaster and a side slider.
The screen is fantastic, the camera is decent, the speakers are fine for a phone.
The OS is fine, there’s almost no bloat and I never log in to the OEM account on any phone. The proprietary bits I use are the photo gallery and the side bar, both of which tell you what they do and don’t do in terms of privacy. Neither admit to tracking but I’m ok with that.
I’m not a privacy fanatic and I think using any device and/or service these days is going to open you at least partly to some kind of visibility.
Aside from that, I like ColorOS. It’s not miles from stock and the options for tinkering are generally useful for getting a phone to work the way you like, without being a Samsung shit show.
The 12R is smooth and powerful. If you can still get them from the OnePlus website with the free Buds 2 Pro, worth £170, for me it’s a no brainer. I was also able to use PayPal credit of 4 months at 0% interest, around £200 pm.
The availability and custom ROM support sealed the deal for me but you may find it worthwhile even without some of the points I made.
Good luck!
Missing some of the stuff you want, but I’d also recommend the Pixel+GrapheneOS. The Graphene web installation is ridiculously easy and it’s rock solid in my experience. You get 7+ years of support from Graphene too. Pixel build quality is great. Great camera, solid storage (ymmv), plenty of RAM. In my experience, Google’s hardware support is really good. I’ve been using their phones since the Galaxy Nexus and any time I’ve had even a minor issue they’re just like, “it’s under warranty, do you want a new one?” basically no questions asked. My Pixel 6 is two years out of warranty. A few days ago the battery started to swell a bit. Reported it Sunday and I have a free replacement arriving today. All they asked for was a pic and my mailing address.
Last summer, my nephew managed to grab my phone, take it out of its case, and drop it in the street where it was run over by an SUV. The only damage it took was some serious scratches on the back glass. My old Pixel 3 survived two years in my pocket working on an organic farm and it’s still kicking as my temporary replacement. I’ve found their phones shockingly durable.
The death of almost all my phones has been the phone carriers withdrawing support for the phone modems. 2G to 3G to half-assed LTE, so I finally got a relatively cheap 5G phone and that will hopefully do me for a while. That said, the LTE phone (Moto 4G) lasted 5+ years before it became near unusable, again because of carrier support, but also because web bloat had slowed the browser to a crawl.
I think, basically, that you can get sufficiently good phones pretty cheap now, and it’s not worth spending $500 on a 4 year phone when you can spend $150 each on two 2-year phones. Beyond 4 years I think you can’t count on anything.
I’ve been using Moto G series if that matters. The hardware value for money is very good, almost everyone agrees. They have notoriously short lived software support. I don’t know how much I care. My G4 that I got in 2017 was still running Android 7 when I retired it late last year. I might attempt to run LineageOS on it, but really, the thing is slow and the hardware (Micro USB port and volume buttons basically) are now flaky, and again there is the carrier support issue, so it’s basically not worth it.
See: https://www.motorola.com/us/smartphones-moto-g-family
The most interesting ones imho are the 2023 G Stylus 5G (the one I have, $250), or the 2024 G Play or 2023 G Stylus (4G) (both are $129). All of these run Android 13 and will supposedly get an upgrade to 14. There are also some new models with 14 already, that cost a bit more. All have microSD slots except for the 2024 G play. All have headphone jacks and I consider that important. I think some of the new ones might have wireless charging, but otoh I think that may make it harder to replace the battery.
I have been using a galaxy s21 for almost 3 years with nova launcher. Still works perfect other than the battery not holding charge as long .
Currently I buy a 100ish bucks Chinese smartphone around every 2 years and I sell locally the previous for around 2/3 of the original value, if you bought it from overseas sometimes you still recover 100% of the value after the 2 years of use.
So my advice will be buying a 150-200 bucks phone overseas and do like me sell it locally after the 2 years of use and then buy another 150-200 bucks again.
I buy 100ish cos it’s enough to run my online business but if you need something better it’s up to you.
The key it’s into buying it directly from China just be advised of the tax local regulations, if you keep the budget you can eventually didn’t pay any tax.
Good luck.
Edit: my point it’s it didn’t matter which phone you will buy what actually matters it’s to juice it for two years and then resell it and recover a good amount of the original value, that way if you make more money with it basically you will pay nothing for the phone.
That’s not a bad strategy lol. However from my experience with buying tech from China (a paper screen tablet for handwritten note taking and stuff) is somewhat troublesome and import taxes and other shipping costs, do add a non negligible amount to the final cost.
I don’t see myself doing this anytime soon, but maybe it will give someone else an idea, thanks :)
Good luck mate 🙏🤞…
