As someone that worked at an OEM, updating used to be a huge hassle and required a lot of R&D work. Project Treble definitely simplified this effort and I'm glad this is enabling and making life better for users.
Stock Android and constant updates are the main reasons I dumped Samsung for a Nexus back the day. I stuck with Pixels and Nexuses ever since.
Android One is changing that. Now, some mid-range Nokia phones are at the very top of the list. Why? I just looked up what kind of Nikon cameras I could get, used, for the difference between a Nokia 5.4 and a Pixel 4. That settled it, with the camera being the main difference for me.
I had the same journey. Nexus/Pixels then the pixel 4 was too expensive for me so I got myself and the wife Nokia 7s.
Suffice to say that both Nokia devices failed due hardware failures of the charge port. This happened 3 times to 2 devices. One device also just bricked itself out of the blue one day and needed to be returned. All this in about 18 months. Not great.
We have now gone back to Pixel 3a (wife) and 5 (me). Probably won't go back to Nokia anytime soon - the hardware quality is just not there.
I had that exact issue with my phone. Then I used very thin toothpicks and a needle to clean out all the lint that had gathered in the charging port. It required a lot more force than expected (broke several toothpicks), since I had compressed the lint so much by pushing the charger inside the port when trying to get the phone to start charging.
My phone has worked great ever since.
If you like your phone, I would recommend you take a look before replacing it.
pixel 4a is pretty good for $350. I just upgraded to one from my pixel 2 and I have no complaints so far (I had the same issue with the pixel 2 charging port lol).
if you bought your pixel 2 from google, there's a good chance you have a $100 google store credit sitting in your account. if so, that would bring the pixel 4a down to your price range. wanted to let you know just in case. I'm currently kicking myself because I forgot I had that credit and paid full price for the phone.
Well, it seems I have 100 € rebate fo the Pixel 4a 5G. Now that the charging works again, I'll just wait, no need to replace the perfectly fine phone I have for now.
Until the world sees an Android device get a kernel upgrade, imo, Android is a cruel cruel cruel joke, ecocide-al insanity.
The world can not afford to let high tech devices rot away like they do.
I too am excited to see something done. Abstracting over the entire kernel is a helluva Extend-Embrace-Extinguish policy, but at least some updates will come. I remain doubtful that we'll see kernel upgrades though. Even though the whole device driver architecture is now abstracted from the kernel, now offered by Treble, I still expect there'll be a lot of compliance cold-feet & general-low-ambitions to support less-than-current devices.
The whole idea of kicking out a pervasively connected communications device that has a hard wall for how supported it will be, that no one else can help maintain, is just corrupt & vile. It's sad to see such mal-use of Linux.
Post script: I don't blame Google per-se for this all. Trying to applicationize a computing device, turn it from a general purpose system where thing can go wrong into a product that works reliably & can be let onto cellular networks is a difficult challenge, and against the grain of the highly hierarchical systems of power that have flowed in the world. None the less, it is sad to see an un-upgradeable Linux where owners can't get root, their apps will lock them out if they do (Android SafetyNet), where bootloaders are usually locked, and where driver support is only for OEMs. It rather makes me think of the other dominating factor in computing, the de-generalization/specialization of computing as it effervesces into the cloud, an unfortunate juggernaut of a trend I wrote about earlier today[1].
How do we compromise the e-waste with the fact that a Pixel and Pixel 2 already have, comparatively speaking, insecure hardware to the latest secure phones?
There is improved physical security, but I'm not aware of any hardware errata out there that would make the a Pixel or other internet-communicator insecure to use as an internet device. If you can upgrade the kernel, you can get modern defenses against timing attacks (which mainly but not exclusively have appeared in x86 archs), &c.
There's no upstream firmware being patched by Google. The phone is effectively unpatched once the hardware manufacturer gives up on maintaining its security.
This is a fundamental misunderstanding for, I'd guess, well over half of the custom ROM/custom phone OS community. ie: Lineage is customizable, and helps certain activity be more private - but it shatters security.
Again I'd love to see some details, some CVE's, for what issues the hardware has. The computer itself is general purpose enough that I'm not afraid. The cellular stack is a shitshow though! Totally unsupportable garbage, as you say, beholden entirely to a bunch of dodgy punks with no incentive to keep the world running.
Which is very much why it's exciting to see Pine64 working on getting Linux running on the PinePhone modem[1]. Because this shit is bogus, 100% bogus full of shit crap. The firmware is all for the most part software, rebadged as firmware because none of us get the privilege of working with it or seeing it.
I still would like some evidence that any firmware on the Pixel or Pixel 2 is actually problematic. That the computer itself is at risk. Perhaps there are some DMA engines onboard that can not be locked down, that peripherals unfortunately just had too much unmediated access. I'd like to see some shred of evidence that insecure peripherals are a real threat to the general main computer though, before I agree that we can just start throwing these devices out.
I'd love to believe that, but I'm a OnePlus owner who bought in with the "promise" of major OS updates for 2 years, and security for 3. My device (a 6T) crossed the 2 year mark in November, with no sign of Android 11 in sight. Between the M1 mac & android getting progressively worse, I've never been closer to abandoning Linux & Android.
I'm in the same boat (same phone) but I don't really care anymore?
Back in the days of Android 1.5 to ~5 a new update meant a ton of new features and fixes. Now all we get are slight cosmetic tweaks that are not even always for the better.
My partner has a pixel which is on 11 and I don't see the difference when using her phone.
I also have a Oneplus 6T and it has been running android 10 for a year now. It also receives security updates frequently.
If you are talking about android 11, it is also in the works. Maybe in a few months the first beta will come out. They have confirmed that 6T will receive the update though.
Sorry, typo - it should have said Android 11. I agree that it MIGHT happen at some point, but it's an example (IMO) of how bad the Android ecosystem is, compared to apple. This phone really makes me believe OnePlus is definitely more interested in the next, new hardware, rather than supporting their existing.
Android One is changing that. Now, some mid-range Nokia phones are at the very top of the list. Why? I just looked up what kind of Nikon cameras I could get, used, for the difference between a Nokia 5.4 and a Pixel 4. That settled it, with the camera being the main difference for me.