What phone you use as your daily driver? And, a discussion of them.

[Dr. Dro]

I have the Snapdragon variant.
Is the Exynos variant really like the meme of Moto e4? (2017)
The Moto e4, was a slow-tacular phone and mine had the problem with the touch screen randomly selecting things. Boots terribly slowly, like I would expect Windows 10 to on a potato with 320 GB 7K HDD from 2008!

For daily use? It's about average. Not going to say it's annoyingly sluggish, but it's no speed demon, particularly apparent when you get to use the SD865 S20 next to it. I don't think the SD855 is much slower than the 865 at all, so there's that. If one is used to it, they're probably not going to think it's an unusable phone unless they like games.

But it doesn't compare to the Snapdragon model at all, might have been close enough in tests when they were new, but especially for graphics heavy applications it doesn't hold up. Model with the Samsung chip aged much worse.

NieR Reincarnation runs so incredibly laggy on it even at medium settings (which is half resolution and 30 fps limit), that's mostly what I run on it these days. Works enough to idle it I guess.

 

[wNotyarD]

I have the Snapdragon variant.
Is the Exynos variant really like the meme of Moto e4? (2017)
The Moto e4, was a slow-tacular phone and mine had the problem with the touch screen randomly selecting things.
Boots extremely slow, like I would expect Windows 10 to on a potato with a 320 GB 7K RPM HDD from 2008!

Issue with the Exynos-equipped S/Note phones is their GPU and battery management. Some would argue they take worse photos than their SD brothers, but for common use they aren't all that bad.

If Motorola ever released a modern version of the following, I'd be in 7th heaven!!

Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE XT897 - Full phone specifications

www.gsmarena.com

This was my favorite phone ever!
View attachment 295997
Do you hear me Motorola? I want one of these again, but with modern specs!!
5.7" 1920x1200 IPS screen, Snapdragon 845, 3 or 4 GB of RAM, 32 or 64 GB of storage, 3.5mm audio jack, USBC, 3500mah REMOVEABLE battery, unlockable/rootable recent version of Android? Oh yeah.
Thank You in advance!

This reminds me of the BACKFLIP I once had. If you ever wanted to see a wacky built phone, that was it.

 

[NSX05]

True for Galaxy S5, especially. Made in 2014, support cut off in 2017. The latest official updates would be in 2017.

Would have been true for the HTC One S as well, but I (with the help of thousands of others) managed to persuade HTC to give one last update with a petition.

 

[Dr. Dro]

Sony dropped the Xperia Z2 (S5 competitor) in May 2016. LG dropped it a little earlier, I believe in January or so. All of them on some variant of Android 6 though.

Those were definitely not the golden days of Android support, but I can't say much has changed since that. With Samsung's commitment to 3 years for midrange and 4 years for the high end, things might turn out a little better - but Apple still supports the iPhone 8 and the iPhone X, both of which received iOS 16, and reportedly will receive iOS 17 as well. These phones were released in 2017 alongside the Galaxy S8, now an elderly device which was completely abandoned by Samsung on Android 9 many years ago.

 

[emothxughts]

Poco X3 NFC, Poco being a Xiaomi sub brand. It's a potent phone for a low price point when I bought it back in 2021, and it's still serving me more or less well. More or less, because the MIUI OS is a terrible adware garbage of an OS, I get frigging ads on the stock video player, file explorer and cleaner app ffs

 

[tabascosauz]

Poco X3 NFC, Poco being a Xiaomi sub brand. It's a potent phone for a low price point when I bought it back in 2021, and it's still serving me more or less well. More or less, because the MIUI OS is a terrible adware garbage of an OS, I get frigging ads on the stock video player, file explorer and cleaner app ffs

Plenty of good ROM support for surya: PixelOS, crDroid, ArrowOS.........exclusively using MIUI on Xiaomi phones is just voluntary torture.

Even if you aren't ready to start flashing, the EU stock ROMs are lighter on the bloat garbage. I guess because of regulations.

 

[Dragam1337]

It doesn't feel like it until you place it right next to a phone with a newer or better SoC - if you put my S10+ next to the S20 FE 4G (with Snapdragon 865) I bought my mom a couple of years ago, you will see precisely why I'm calling it trash. If you compare it to a modern Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 or 8 Gen 2 device, you'll be blown away at how bad the S10+ has aged. Of course, this is strictly regarding the Exynos version, I can't speak for the Snapdragon 855 variant version sold in the United States and I can imagine it's not that bad, but the global Exynos 9820 model belongs in the garbage especially if you want to play any sort of games on it. The GPU is so ridiculously bad.

Speaking of bad things, I booked an appointment at the closest Samsung Store tomorrow afternoon to get the PET film on my Z Flip 3 replaced. Thing peeled off to the middle of the fold at this point, it's seriously annoying. Will likely sell the phone afterwards, if it requires servicing every 6 months due to the PET film on the foldable screen coming off, then it's not a phone for me, no matter how much I enjoyed it.

I had the exynos s10e right next to the s23 - it was fine. But then again, i don't "game" on phones - because why would i.

But yes, especially the exynos chip of that time was significantly slower than the crapple counterpart, but that was already a well known fact back then.

With the s23, only the iphone 14 pro is a little faster. But it's a particularly big upgrade for europe, which was the only region that got shafted with the subpar exynos variant with s22. Massive improvements across the line for eu users with s23 for that reason, in particular the improved battery live is noticeable.

 

[Bobmitmen]

I dropped my LG v35 ThinQ a week or so back and severely cracked the screen. Did a lot of research on a certain pricepoint and was able to pick up a Google Pixel 7 on special...really like the phone. Super happy with the performance and the battery life (after making my adjustments) is about two days...

 

[Remeca]

It's been a year and a half, and the iPhone 11 is at 84% battery health, and has screen burn in. May be good for another year, but I'm not sold on getting another iPhone. My old phone, an S9, still has a pristine screen and pretty good battery life, and is still used daily after 4 years.

 

[NSX05]

With the s23, only the iphone 14 pro is a little faster. But it's a particularly big upgrade for europe, which was the only region that got shafted with the subpar exynos variant with s22. Massive improvements across the line for eu users with s23 for that reason, in particular the improved battery live is noticeable.

Coming from an S9 to the S22 Ultra, I don't really care that the AMD-based Exynos chip performs 10–15% worse. I'm never going to notice that since the Exynos chip still plays every game you can throw at it. Not that I play games on my phone...

 

[Dr. Dro]

It's been a year and a half, and the iPhone 11 is at 84% battery health, and has screen burn in. May be good for another year, but I'm not sold on getting another iPhone. My old phone, an S9, still has a pristine screen and pretty good battery life, and is still used daily after 4 years.

The battery aged as expected for a 4 year old device, and a year and a half charging every day translates to around 500 cycles so it's time to have it serviced.

My S10+ has zero burn in. I'm surprised because I'd have expected that a phone I've been heavily using for years on end to show some degradation on the screen but surprisingly amongst the many complaints I have about the device this isn't one of them.

Coming from an S9 to the S22 Ultra, I don't really care that the AMD-based Exynos chip performs 10–15% worse. I'm never going to notice that since the Exynos chip still plays every game you can throw at it. Not that I play games on my phone...

That's only the new Exynos which has mobile RDNA IP, the 9820 used in the S10+ has an ARM Mali design

 

[NSX05]

That's only the new Exynos which has mobile RDNA IP, the 9820 used in the S10+ has an ARM Mali design

That's what I'm saying. The S22 Ultra uses it. I would never know that I'm lacking 10% performance compared to the Snapdragon version, based on how my S22 Ultra performs. It already does everything just fine.

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

Would have been true for the HTC One S as well, but I (with the help of thousands of others) managed to persuade HTC to give one last update with a petition.

The Galaxy S5, for the final Android version, got Marshmallow, IIRC. (Android 6, IIRC)

 

[tabascosauz]

It's been a year and a half, and the iPhone 11 is at 84% battery health, and has screen burn in. May be good for another year, but I'm not sold on getting another iPhone. My old phone, an S9, still has a pristine screen and pretty good battery life, and is still used daily after 4 years.

Where is the burn-in located though?

If it's just statusbar icons that's pretty normal after a year or two especially if you regularly read stuff on your phone. Every single OLED phone I have ever used eventually develops burn-in on the statusbar within 2 years, though still relatively faint. Maybe if you use Android and aggressively hide statusbar at all times, and only use low brightness at at all times you might be able to completely avoid burn-in. Or avoid dark mode like the plague lol

 

[Remeca]

Where is the burn-in located though?

If it's just statusbar icons that's pretty normal after a year or two especially if you regularly read stuff on your phone. Every single OLED phone I have ever used eventually develops burn-in on the statusbar within 2 years, though still relatively faint. Maybe if you use Android and aggressively hide statusbar at all times, and only use low brightness at at all times you might be able to completely avoid burn-in. Or avoid dark mode like the plague lol

It starts at the bottom left corner of the dock, but goes up maybe a third of the whole screen. Hard to tell, it fades as it goes up. I rarely go over about 30% brightness, and I never leave it just sitting on the home screen. And I do use dark mode on everything I can, but my wallpaper isn't black. And the screen is an LCD.

 

[Dr. Dro]

It starts at the bottom left corner of the dock, but goes up maybe a third of the whole screen. Hard to tell, it fades as it goes up. I rarely go over about 30% brightness, and I never leave it just sitting on the home screen. And I do use dark mode on everything I can, but my wallpaper isn't black. And the screen is an LCD.

Yeah that's what I was thinking. You said iPhone 11 but I assumed it was the 11 Pro because LCDs should not have permanent image retention issues. Kinda lost here now

Anyways: a follow up on my Z Flip 3's case, I went to the Samsung store today. Upon arriving I was told my phone qualified for premium concierge service with high priority. Manager told me that they receive around 5 to 6 Galaxy Z devices every day with the same problem, almost all of which have around the same age as mine - 6 months or so of use before the screen film begins to peel off at the fold. Thing is, my phone was exceptionally well cared for, and the problem manifested at 6 months on the clock. Nope, I'm not becoming a regular at a Samsung service center to ensure my phone has a pristine screen.

It was all solved in around 20 minutes from the time I walked into the store, quite easy and bureaucracy free - they ran the diagnostics battery on the device, made sure it was updated (it already was) and replaced the PET film. It's not perfect, as there's still a tiny dot of visible UV glue again at the hinge that I was told would go away with use, but they've repaired my phone for free under warranty. It looks almost as good as it did when it was new now.

I don't think I will be keeping it, though. I'm gonna end up taking a loss on this device's cost and try to sell it for about half the price I paid on it and keep on using my old S10+ for the time being. Maybe in the future I'll grab an iPhone 15, let's wait for iOS 17 and see if it's sideloading-enabled. If not, I'll likely see if Motorola has released a successor to the G200 (Snapdragon 888+), perhaps with a 8 Gen 2 SoC.

I genuinely loved and enjoyed my time with the Flip, but my long-term review is: don't buy one unless it's purely intended to be a disposable plaything (and at its price, I wish I could say it was and that I had the job or wealth of anyone who can consider one a disposable plaything). It's still a prototype, unproven form factor, and the internal foldable display is VERY fragile. Will need to drop by my carrier's shop tomorrow or sometime this week and ask them to transfer my eSIM into a physical chip so I can use it with my old phone again. On the upside, I guess my OLED upgrade comes sooner than expected

 

[JustBenching]

I have a zenphone 9 and an experia 5 IV. Mostly using the experia, the battery on that thing is absurd. Normal use (a lot of browsing, wifi, 4g, phone calls) it can last you an actual full 2 days. Most weekends it goes like this, I charge it to 80% Friday morning, Sunday afternoon it's at around 25-30%.

It's also able to drive my earphones really well, no other phone I tried can properly drive them, so I don't have to use my dedicated player aymore or carry it with me.

 

[lexluthermiester]

True for Galaxy S5, especially. Made in 2014, support cut off in 2017. The latest official updates would be in 2017.

Official, yes... Community supported(which is often as good or better), well... see for yourself;

LineageOS Downloads

download.lineageos.org

LineageOS Downloads

download.lineageos.org

LineageOS Downloads

download.lineageos.org

LineageOS Downloads

download.lineageos.org

LineageOS Downloads

download.lineageos.org

LineageOS Downloads

download.lineageos.org

All of those models of the S5 have updates for security/bug/glitch fixes this year, the oldest being in March. So, yeah, if you have a Samsung Galaxy S5, you can still use it because it's still getting love.
Granted, it's Android 11(LineageOS 18.1 is based on AOSP11), but that's ok. Android 11 has had very few problems or security issues.

For reference, my two phones were updated just a few days ago;
Motorola G7

Info about river | LineageOS Wiki

wiki.lineageos.org

Motorola G7 Power

Info about ocean | LineageOS Wiki

wiki.lineageos.org

LineageOS is fricken amazing!

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

Official, yes... Community supported(which is often as good or better), well... see for yourself;

LineageOS Downloads

download.lineageos.org

LineageOS Downloads

download.lineageos.org

LineageOS Downloads

download.lineageos.org

LineageOS Downloads

download.lineageos.org

LineageOS Downloads

download.lineageos.org

LineageOS Downloads

download.lineageos.org

All of those models of the S5 have updates for security/bug/glitch fixes this year, the oldest being in March. So, yeah, if you have a Samsung Galaxy S5, you can still use it because it's still getting love.

There was a report, at least in the past, that the custom OSes make the camera unusable!

And, there's my new avatar, because of the new tick hazards!

 

[lexluthermiester]

There was a report, at least in the past, that the custom OSes make the camera unusable!

That may have been true for a brief time, but I greatly doubt it's still a thing.

 

[tabascosauz]

Those were definitely not the golden days of Android support, but I can't say much has changed since that. With Samsung's commitment to 3 years for midrange and 4 years for the high end, things might turn out a little better - but Apple still supports the iPhone 8 and the iPhone X, both of which received iOS 16, and reportedly will receive iOS 17 as well. These phones were released in 2017 alongside the Galaxy S8, now an elderly device which was completely abandoned by Samsung on Android 9 many years ago.

It looks to me like Samsung has been the only real bright spot for software commitments in years.

It's only been so long since I was last looking at phones but the current state of some of these manufacturers is pretty mind-boggling. Seems like Oneplus after snuggling up to Oppo did a complete 180 and went in the absolute shitter, absolutely no custom ROMs for 10 Pro/10T/11 due to lack of dev tools. Sad knowing their formerly friendly reputation only a few years ago.

So far I am anything but impressed with the Pixel 7A's battery life. Might have to keep it though, the more I look the angrier I get:

• Oneplus is all locked into bastardized OxygenOS 13 with an identity crisis, and no custom ROMs ever again.
• Moto Edge+ 2022 is incredible value right now, $500......but new Moto is as bad as 2010 Moto at delivering on feature update promises, and not enough popularity so dev scene is dead
• F5 and F5 Pro have even worse support for Canadian bands than F3 did. Otherwise both F5 and F5 Pro both would be the perfect upgrade, F5 is still sitting at the exact same price as the F3 ($550cad).
• Sony has a huge gap in their lineup between the 1 V and 10 V, and all of them are laughably expensive
• I can get a China version (9010) of the S22 for $800......maybe??

 

[Dr. Dro]

Keep it a few days longer, the battery life might improve if it's anything like newer Galaxy phones, they have really bad battery life at first and then the OS "settles" and learns your usage patterns, the battery life should improve. Disabling 5G should also greatly improve power consumption in general.

I agree with the lack of updates from Motorola, that's what stopped me getting a Moto G200 or something like that. My dad's got a Moto G31 and it took practically 2 years for them to release Android 12 for it. No 13 in sight, probably will never receive it being a low-end phone.

 

[tabascosauz]

Keep it a few days longer, the battery life might improve if it's anything like newer Galaxy phones, they have really bad battery life at first and then the OS "settles" and learns your usage patterns, the battery life should improve. Disabling 5G should also greatly improve power consumption in general.

I agree with the lack of updates from Motorola, that's what stopped me getting a Moto G200 or something like that. My dad's got a Moto G31 and it took practically 2 years for them to release Android 12 for it. No 13 in sight, probably will never receive it being a low-end phone.

Hope so. I've spent the past few days pulling out all the stops: being extremely strict about apps battery and data use, disabling NR, disabling various Google always-on bullshit, no keeping data on when wifi is connected, etc. Nothing seems to have helped except disabling Adaptive Battery (god what a broken "feature"). Even at standby with significant proportion of deep sleep I can still see the battery just trickling away for no good reason, noticeably faster than the Poco. Meanwhile the reviewers all rave about how nice the 7 and 7a battery life is......am I living on a different planet?

Reading about Moto's update schedule was just disappointing. It feels like nothing has changed from the old Motorola. Motorola promising 3 years of feature updates for flagships, well, if they take 2 years to release a single update that still counts...right?

 

[tabascosauz]

Keep it a few days longer, the battery life might improve if it's anything like newer Galaxy phones, they have really bad battery life at first and then the OS "settles" and learns your usage patterns, the battery life should improve. Disabling 5G should also greatly improve power consumption in general.

This was the right call, it seems; screen off current draw finally started coming down today. With adaptive battery off.

 

[Dr. Dro]

That's awesome. I recall reading somewhere that the poor battery life at first is caused by the phone running some machine learning algorithm to optimize to the owner's usage patterns, and that once Android finishes running all of these subroutines and clears the background app optimization schedule, the battery life would achieve its expected value. It was in some pitch about neural network acceleration capabilities in one of these phones' SoC marketing papers, but it does kind of make sense.

I purchased AccuBattery Pro last year or so, great app. Only have one phone it doesn't work with, an old LG G3 where it reports probably 10x+ the actual battery statistics for some reason.