One thing that makes it more tolerable is to use Universal Android Debloater to get rid of the obscene amount of bloatware that some makers cram into their phones. But the era of unlocked bootloaders and rooted phones has come to an end, and these are basically just appliances now instead of universal computers. It's really sad how shitty and locked down everything has gotten. Ten years ago, I was rocking a Samsung Note 2 with custom firmware, and the world was your oyster, I could do anything I wanted on it. New phones are... they have nicer cameras, I guess. The CPUs are faster, but that only just barely keeps up with the insanely bloated software.
this post was submitted on 07 May 2024
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I'm amazed that anyone gets Google Pixels. It seems like every one has some sort of ridiculous design flaw.
Pixels are really the only thing supported by the custom ROM community anymore. At least phone available in the US.
Tensor has been nothing but trouble from what I can see. I'd love to wait for the Pixel 10 when Tensor goes fully custom w/ TSMC but idk if my 4a is gonna last that long
The new tensors seem really bad, the only nice thing is you can find good deals on them bc. But yeah, you'd really have to be into whatever ai photography stuff they're trying to sell to make it worth it. The older pixels were a no brainer for value
had a pixel 5 that was extremely buggy and when i smashed it would've cost the value of the phone to repair the screen
I like my Galaxy S22. It's one of the few small phones out there. I stopped fussing with custom UI and just get a refurbished, unlocked carrier ones off of Amazon or some other outlet, they're relatively cheap now. You have to read over descriptions carefully though, I've been sent locked carrier ones before.
The market pigeon holes you into having to make a compromise. I wish we could still get phones with removable batteries.
The market pigeon holes you into having to make a compromise.
But I thought free market magic invisible hand? How come no invisible hand?
one invisible hand is out there putting bloatware on your phone, the other adding complementary feces to your lettuce
I want something like the fair phone but they’re so overpriced and not sold in my region
I was going to link anandtech's guide but they haven't updated it in nearly three years 
Normal sized phone gang reporting in.
I’d really like a good telephoto camera option in a similar size range, but there’s not a lot to choose from.
Following.
Yeah I feel the same thing. It's such a shame that there is no normal, decent hardware. No bloatware, just functioning.
I can't and I won't lol
Its still a smartphone with all the baggage of that, so I'm not personally interested, but that actually seems like a pretty compelling featureset...
- headphone jack
- not enormous
- rear fingerprint reader (the natural place to have it)
- IR blaster
- dual sim or sd card
battery is the weak point really. If they used a weaker SoC and made it just a liiiiitle bit bigger (but still thicc) the battery could probably be a lot better.
What would be a good dumb phone contender?
Basically the only way to get a small screen size phone these days to get one of those ridiculous flip phones with a fully functional cover screen, like the latest Samsung Galaxy Z flip or Motorola Razr. All the other phones are just gigantic. And the flip phones, while cool, are ridiculously expensive and fragile.
Unihertz Jelly Star is flip phone sized, but a full smart phone
I've been using my OnePlus 9 which has been solid so far. I had to loose the headphone jack unfortunately which I really hate. Not sure what their new phones look like at the moment, but they're one of the Chinese manufacturers that at least had phones at cheaper than the flagship price point.
I have no idea on the bootloader side of things, but OnePlus has been good about the OS updates. I'm on Android 14 at the moment.
unfortunately they're all huge :(
I looked at some Xiaomi ones that are closer to normal size, but the Chinese makers seem to mostly be all about the ‘phablet’ market or whatever giant phones are called now.
Ive been using an old iPhone while I wait up the 6 months for a Motorola stylus g (2023) to be able to unlock. Nice thing is MetroPCS is dumb and you just have to pay for first month then you can cancel and sit on the phone for 5 more months. It's been a pretty decent device (I don't have any intensive needs for a phone).
Downside is that Motorola is p bad with updating their phones and I have no idea what the status of unlocking the bootloader/rooting is like
How about Xiaomi 14 at 6.36"? I haven't followed if they locked their bootloader or not.
I think you can unlock it but you have to have a certain account level on their forums? It's also $1k+ and not sold in the US so not looking so good there
I would suggest avoiding Xiaomi anyway. I've got a Mi 10t Lite 5g, and it's come to the end of the update cycle. I wanted to unlock the bootloader and flash a new ROM, but they try to force ads on you and take your data as much as they can.
It has a fair amount of ads by default, which you can disable, but you have to set up a Mi account to unlock the bootloader. Part of setting up the account is having to accept tracking cookies through their website, as well as sync your data to their servers from your phone. If you don't do these, you can't unlock the bootloader.
It just feels a bit scummy, and I don't trust them to delete my data when I'm done.
Same boat. I did get the zenfone 9, and did the bootloader unlock before they removed the tool, so I'm good for a while. I was looking at new phones, though, and seems like the only viable replacements are the Sony VI and whatever the next google pixel is.
Samsung A03s go for <$60 and do everything important if you don't game. Battery lasts me a week!
i am afraid the phone is simply too large for me
My phone's coming to the end of security updates but still works fine and is fast enough. I have the same issue, that there aren't any appealing phones out there really. I also still like headphone jacks.
My Xiaomi phone that doesn't have a good custom ROM that's still updated. I did the bootloader unlock, I had to make a Xiaomi account and ask them nicely to do it and wait a few months, but that was years ago and the process probably changed.
There's not any good camera apps for my phone on a custom ROM, they're all worse than the normal one on MIUI. Also other stuff I use like Google Wallet and android auto didn't work good.
yeah banking apps and associated stuff can be a big loss. have you tried a modded GCam apk? they're supposed to be pretty decent
I either lose the close-up macro lens or some other feature when using modded gcam. Tried a bunch of xmls and couldn't find a good one.
ANX camera is supposed to be as close as possible to stock Xiaomi camera app, but it was also a miss for me.
Next time I buy a phone I'll figure out how good the camera is first. Maybe I'll just buy the least flawed old pixel I can find and put graphene OS on it.
tried Xiaomi? I've got a Redmi Note 10S, have had it for probably 2-3 years now and it still runs fresh. Good battery life too. Very cheap.
It's 6.5 inch though, and the camera isn't great. Think their other versions are smaller.
Some say there's a lot of bloatware - I've thought that at points but it's like any other phone these days in that regard. It's probably easy to remove although I've never bothered.
EDIT: just checked, there's a Xiaomi 12 that is 6 inches.
EDIT 2: huh, apparently to unlock it you have to do a load of bullshit. Oh well.
I helped a friend with unlocking their newer Xiamoi device not too long ago and it wasn't that bad, all you have to do is link your device to your Xiaomi account and then download their Mi Unlocker program on your desktop and connect your phone, no more waiting.
I got a third party phone that I LOVE
BUT
Options for cases fucking suck if you don't have one of the 3 flagship phones. It's so bad.
I have a OnePlus 11 because it's similar to a Samsung Galaxy in specs and also it charges FAST as FUCK boi. 12 minutes from 0% to 50%, 15 more to hit full.
I gave up trying to get a smaller phone. Like you say, there's nothing on the market that is supported, not locked down and full of garbage, and not technically anemic.
Maybe someday 5" phones will make a comeback...
Zenfone can go fuck itself for pulling that. Loved my 9, was gonna get a 10, but went with the Unihertz Jelly Star because I can root it
I have several android things including a phone and an iphone. If I had to go down to just one, it would be the iphone.
Android phones have gotten worse and worse over the years. Consider jumping ship if you haven’t already.