I have a seven-year-old phone (LG V20, still the best phone with a replaceable battery) and a lot of stuff that worked well then doesn’t work nearly as well now. Google Maps is the worst offender - it’s quite slow and unresponsive. Reception is terrible too, with no signal even in the middle of a big city sometimes. I don’t care about new features; I just want 2016 functionality on my 2016 phone but for some reason the software has gotten worse over time.
I actually have one of those enormous replacement batteries that require replacing the back of the case and make the phone three times thicker than it used to be. I have experienced exactly zero inconvenience from having a thick phone, so I’m not sure why making them thinner is such a big deal to people. (I can’t do tap-to-pay with my phone since the antenna for that was on the original case back, but I don’t do tap-to-pay anyway.) The giant battery is nice, but despite what the Amazon listing said, I think it wasn’t manufactured recently so it doesn’t hold as much charge as it would if it had been.
I work in tech and I’m disappointed because over the last two years, exactly zero people have asked me why I have such a thick phone. Maybe if I solder an external antenna to it, I’ll get both the reception and the hipster pride that I crave.
My pixel 2 is still going strong, released in 2017, only 5 years old… the lack of security updates makes it unsuitable for daily use. It’s my take to the pool and leave on my towel while swimming phone now.
I actually only bought my V20 new-in-box a couple of years ago, to replace my Pixel 2. This Pixel 2 was in perfect condition except that its battery wouldn’t hold a charge anymore. Since it was the second phone I was replacing for that reason, I decided that I would be stubborn and refuse to buy any phone without a replaceable battery. So here I am…
With lineage os getting updates, it’s the hardware device drivers that are at risk… I can’t tell you how unsecure they are, I can just tell you no product ever created is perfectly secure, and with more time exploits are found. This applies to phones as well. Not to mention the chip manufacturers tend to use the same cores on multiple devices. So there’s many researchers looking at those different cores to find exploit
I have a seven-year-old phone (LG V20, still the best phone with a replaceable battery) and a lot of stuff that worked well then doesn’t work nearly as well now. Google Maps is the worst offender - it’s quite slow and unresponsive. Reception is terrible too, with no signal even in the middle of a big city sometimes. I don’t care about new features; I just want 2016 functionality on my 2016 phone but for some reason the software has gotten worse over time.
The V20 is such a tank. How’s the battery holding up? If it’s degraded, you might get some performance back with a replacement… If those still exist?
I actually have one of those enormous replacement batteries that require replacing the back of the case and make the phone three times thicker than it used to be. I have experienced exactly zero inconvenience from having a thick phone, so I’m not sure why making them thinner is such a big deal to people. (I can’t do tap-to-pay with my phone since the antenna for that was on the original case back, but I don’t do tap-to-pay anyway.) The giant battery is nice, but despite what the Amazon listing said, I think it wasn’t manufactured recently so it doesn’t hold as much charge as it would if it had been.
I work in tech and I’m disappointed because over the last two years, exactly zero people have asked me why I have such a thick phone. Maybe if I solder an external antenna to it, I’ll get both the reception and the hipster pride that I crave.
Flaunt it if you got it. 👍
My pixel 2 is still going strong, released in 2017, only 5 years old… the lack of security updates makes it unsuitable for daily use. It’s my take to the pool and leave on my towel while swimming phone now.
I actually only bought my V20 new-in-box a couple of years ago, to replace my Pixel 2. This Pixel 2 was in perfect condition except that its battery wouldn’t hold a charge anymore. Since it was the second phone I was replacing for that reason, I decided that I would be stubborn and refuse to buy any phone without a replaceable battery. So here I am…
(How unsecure is an old Android phone, anyway?)
With lineage os getting updates, it’s the hardware device drivers that are at risk… I can’t tell you how unsecure they are, I can just tell you no product ever created is perfectly secure, and with more time exploits are found. This applies to phones as well. Not to mention the chip manufacturers tend to use the same cores on multiple devices. So there’s many researchers looking at those different cores to find exploit
I.e.
https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2023/03/multiple-internet-to-baseband-remote-rce.html
I can’t use Lineage on my V20 since it doesn’t work with the proprietary drivers for the only antenna on the thing that Verizon still supports.
i own a fairphone 4 for performance mainly. but i hope this thing lasts me at least 5 years, owned it since august of 2022.
i have made my own Charger, so battery life isn’t going to be a problem for a long time.