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Ask HN: Stock Android phone free of bloatware?

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Re: Ask HN: Stock Android phone free of bloatware?

#21

Post by echelon »

Daegalus wrote: post #10

The Pixel is the closest. The reason you don't see long term support on Android is because of Qualcomm. Qualcomm wants manufacturers to build on new chips, so they deprecate older chips and stop support. Most manufacturers don't want to hire kernel and hardware devs. Samsung can pull off longer support because of Exynos and they have a lot of inhouse expertise to extend support on old Qualcomm chips. It's all money.…

Awful perverse incentives, vendor lock in, and control everywhere you look.

I hate mobile computing. It's a pale shadow of what I imagine it could have been.

Re: Ask HN: Stock Android phone free of bloatware?

#25

Post by _trackno5 »

Your best bet is probably a Pixel with something like GrapheneOS or CalyxOS on it.

Android manufacturers suck in terms of long term support.

Samsung offers the longest support, but their phones are full of bloat. and they recently passed some ToC updates that prevent you from suing them which I find a super anti-consumer move.

If you can compromise on long term support and don’t care much about photos, the Asus Zenfone 10 is probably your best bet

Re: Ask HN: Stock Android phone free of bloatware?

#26

Post by cwalv »

echelon wrote: post #21
Daegalus wrote: post #10

The Pixel is the closest. The reason you don't see long term support on Android is because of Qualcomm. Qualcomm wants manufacturers to build on new chips, so they deprecate older chips and stop support. Most manufacturers don't want to hire kernel and hardware devs. Samsung can pull off longer support because of Exynos and they have a lot of inhouse expertise to extend support on old Qualcomm chips. It's all money.…

Awful perverse incentives, vendor lock in, and control everywhere you look. I hate mobile computing. It's a pale shadow of what I imagine it could have been.

I'm optimistic that "what it could have been" is what it will eventually be. Originally there was just Apple, and their lock-in driven business model. Competitors could emulate them and still get away with it for a while, but it will get commoditized to the same level PCs are at some point.

Re: Ask HN: Stock Android phone free of bloatware?

#27

Post by bboygravity »

tinytuna wrote: post #2

Why not simply installing lineageos or AOSP instead?

Because it is a lot of work, not all phones support/allow rooting, you need to hide root for apps manually for them to work and there's no way to take full backups on Android phone, rooted or not (adb backup is deprecated and never actually worked at all anyway).

Meaning: every time you screw up (or get a new phone) you have to start all over, without the ability to restore a backup.

This can easily take many days worth of man-hours.

Source: I've tried.

Re: Ask HN: Stock Android phone free of bloatware?

#29

Post by DANmode »

Maro wrote: post #15
stuckinadrawer wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the latest Pixel phones they guarantee 5 years of support by now.

For the latest Pixel 6 and 7s, they guarantee 3 yrs of Android OS updates and 5 yrs of security updates: https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/4457705?hl=en#z...

Hasn't compatibility mostly stayed the same since Android 4.4?

Re: Ask HN: Stock Android phone free of bloatware?

#30

Post by DANmode »

DANmode wrote: post #29
Maro wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the latest Pixel 6 and 7s, they guarantee 3 yrs of Android OS updates and 5 yrs of security updates: https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/4457705?hl=en#z...

Hasn't compatibility mostly stayed the same since Android 4.4?

Anyway, my point is: aren't the security patches enough?
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