Hey folks, looking at getting a new phone. My current one is a Pixel 3a XL. Love the phone but it's starting to show its age and most importantly, has not had a security update for a long time.
My priorities:
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Long software support. I want to get as long as possible out of this next one.
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Decent cameras. Mainly for landscape shots when hiking or whatever. The astrophotography mode on my pixel is also pretty neat and is like to have that option.
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Price. Ideally I don't want to spend much over $600 US. I'm fine getting a return or even used in hood condition phone off eBay, but I can't stomach paying over $1000 for a phone.
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I'm interested in running a custom ROM. Graphene, Lineage, /e/is, anything. Not a deal breaker if I can't.
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Finally, probably the hardest one to find with am of the above; a headphone jack. I greatly value the ability to plug into any car, speaker system, etc without dongles or bluetooth (ew).
My candidates so far:
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Asus Zenfone 11: Meets most of my desires except Asus software support is reportedly awful, and of promise feature updates for 2 years and security updates for 4. Being a year old already that greatly reduces an already short window. Also probably has a locked bootloader and limited support with ROMs. Has a headphone jack and a decent set of cameras, and I've seen refurbs on eBay for $600.
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Pixel 9(pro?) Has everything I want (updates, cameras, grapheneos, price is ok) except no headphone jack. Might be able to DIY a case with an adapter built in so I can charge and use the jack at the same time? If anyone has experience with that I'm super interested in hearing about it. Have a 3d printer.
I know some of the budget Samsung phones have jacks, and the Moto G power, but I'm leery of getting something too budget when I want to use it for years to come.
I've seen Sony phones mentioned. Very expensive. How's the software on those? Cameras good?
Anyways, thanks for you're time if you read this. Going to be doing more reading. Really wish Asus had better software policies, otherwise that would be an easy pick.
Edit: Thanks for the thoughts, folks! I'm leaning heavily towards getting a newer pixel, either the 9a or 9 pro XL (refurbished). Probably will wait until after this year's is announced for any price drops or whatever.
Sony is even worse than ASUS in regards to length of software and security updates. It hasn't been a deal breaker for me, but I have a Xperia 5 III and at only 3.5 years I am beginning to have issues with my fingerprint reader.
Apparently it's a fairly widespread issue that moisture can get in the edges and degrade the backing, and they are still to this day using the same fingerprint reader design. I'm pretty irritated about it. I feel like I could get at least another year out of this phone otherwise, but it's surprisingly annoying to have to go back to passwords for app logins.
Xperia 5ii here, fingerprint sensor slowly died. i still absolutely think it is a software issue that Sony intentionally put in there for planned obsolescence because Sony sometimes just re-enables it randomly after a restart, and multiple other phones have a similar side fingerprint sensor without the issue at all.
Some people have said a factory reset fixes it for a while too, which lends more credibility to it being an intentional software block.
Mine so far seems to be hardware as it fails when the phone gets hot, and works if I restart once it's cooled off
My daughter's Motorola has the fingerprint sensor on the power button. It drives me nuts 😅