Almost every paragraph is it’s own, self-sufficient, malignant cancer. How did this even get published?
I would definitely try it, but all the phones I’ve been looking at recently don’t have any support whatsoever for any of those types of custom OS’s. No Lineage, no anything. All because they’re not flagship models and are more budget friendly phones (and have what I’m looking for: headphone jack and SD slot).
Can someone help me understand why headphone jacks and SD card slots are so important to people? All new phones have audio connections built into the USB-C port, and have enough onboard storage not to require any amount of expansion.
Is the lack of these features really a dealbreaker? I have a Pixel, with custom ROM, and consider myself a power user, and never miss those features at all.
SD cards were nice back when phones had like 16GB of onboard storage and you needed more space for apps and media, but with 512GB onboard storage and the ability to use cloud storage at Wifi 7 speeds, I couldn’t imagine needing more.
Integrated headphone jacks were nice before the vast majority of people used Bluetooth headphones. Even then, a tiny adapter lets me connect any of my old wired headphones or aux cables up no problem.
We’re 18 years into the smartphone age. When the first smartphones came out in 2006, microsd cards were only 2 years old. Now they’re 20 years old. Are we really surprised that this feature is no longer standard?
The 3.5mm headphone jack has been around since the 1950’s, and adapters have been required for tons of audio applications for even longer than that. Do we really need a 70-year-old port integrated into new phones?
If you have 512gb of storage I think you likely paid more for your phone than I have for my last 3 phones combined going back 5 or 6 years.
Decent wired earbuds are $20. Bluetooth earbuds in that price range are terrible and uncomfortable.
Some of us can’t or won’t spend lots of money on disposable tech like phones.
You consider yourself a power user, I’m just a guy who needs a phone to phone, text and do a few internet tasks like casual games for work downtime.
I don’t have anything against people who like having the latest and greatest tech but I don’t have that urge or see the need in some cases. I generally don’t like being pushed into spending more money with no appreciable gain in functionality.
I guess if you’re just using your phone for a few tiny things, the lack of an SD card should be no problem. What good is tons of storage if you’re just “texting and doing a few internet tasks like casual games”?
And dedicated headphone port or not, you can always plug wired headphones in with an adapter. The port is still there, it’s just a modern port, not one from the 50’s.
Still waiting on a real answer to why these dated features matter so much. Sure, my flagship phone may be more powerful than anything you need, but that doesn’t fit the narrative that these phones are missing critical features that you apparently need, especially not in terms of storage capacity or accessory compatibility.
[ confirmation bias at play. you have switched to bluetooth. it meets or exceeds all your needs. you don’t see much public indication to the contrary. you figure bluetooth is the best. ]
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simplicity the cable just works. no configuration. no pairing .un pairing, figuring why it worked yesterday
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Audio quality - bluetooth is lossy. we just were given AptX lossless in 2021 ( another confirmation bias ) “Sounds great to me” “I can’t hear the difference”.
2 things are both possibly true though: I can’t hear the difference. Other people hear a big difference. this seems impossible to some people. As if their senses are the apogee of human sense. -
lag. new codecs lower latency, but lag lag lag. You couldn’t possibly use your device as a synth/music instrument and ‘play’ the lag is far to great. Same with games.
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whats the big deal. This is a bias for the plug users - would it hurt to keep it? we’ve always had it. The work is already done. Its already baked in the cake, why you gotta take it out?
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Investment - I have really good headphones. I have really good earbuds. Yes there are adapters but they are finicky exactly when you want them to just work. They inevitably break. They often downgrade the sound - I have 3 usb to audio adapters for android that all hiss for no reason.
The issue is that when the marketers are selling us a ‘clean vision of the future’ they purposefully gloss over the things they are taking away. Then they paint the people who feel pain because of the change as neanderthals who wouldn’t know better if it bit them. When they do know better. They had better (for them) and progress made it worse (for them). To which the marketers generally say - you should be someone else.
Lol @ this barely coherent drivel being up voted.
Lol harder at the butthurt 3.5mm fetishists who downvote simple answers to their unbelievably petty and stupid criticisms.
Lol hardest at every dipshit who mentioned Bluetooth and didn’t like when the adapters were pointed out as the basic solution to their whining.
“We don’t want solutions we want to bitch”
simplicity the cable just works. no configuration. no pairing .un pairing, figuring why it worked yesterday
Use the adapter plug as mentioned. You can even just leave it on your normal headphones if you only use 1 pair!
whats the big deal. This is a bias for the plug users - would it hurt to keep it?
Hurts waterproofing, phone slimness and design, etc. again, you can just use an adapter to have all the stuff you’re whining about back.
Investment - I have really good headphones. I have really good earbuds. Yes there are adapters but they are finicky exactly when you want them to just work
No, you’re either talking out of your ass or buying the cheapest possible cord and being shocked when it doesn’t work right. My $8 adapter has worked for 4 years no problem driving over-ear headphones no issues.
they purposefully gloss over the things they are taking away
Nothing was taken away. It’s literally just combined with another port now.
If you want to be mad at anyone: be mad at the people making headphones with 3.5mm jacks rather than USB-C, as they’re the ones using an outdated port.
These are all great rebuttals to arguments I never made. Top tier strawmanning 🏆.
Anyway, there’s a headphone port built into your USB-C port. Use any headphones you want.
I personally love having extra storage that I can upgrade to whenever I want on a mobile device. Allows me to have things like all my music and text documents on a separate device so I don’t have to worry about most of my internal storage being taken up by these files (mostly music). Local music files are also pretty important to me because I don’t always like being connected to the Internet just to listen to my favorite songs.
Also, there isn’t a single online cloud storage solution that I know of that I trust. I’d set myself up my own, but I trust myself even less for things like that. Last thing I want is either me setting one up and getting my files deleted by random script kiddies finding a way in or for a pre-existing cloud storage provider to suddenly delete my files because they’re updating the service so people on lower tiers get less storage.
With headphones, I personally just love the ability to listen at any point without having to worry whether the headphones I’m using need charged. I personally don’t love the idea of getting a little dongle to connect to my phone just for plugging in wired headphones because that’s just another thing I could easily lose. Similar reason to why I hate short cords in general: easier for me to lose, as has happened plenty of times in the past.
enough onboard storage not to require any amount of expansion
This is just wrong, my man! 128GB are NOT enough to not need expansion! And sure, I can pay the manufacturer 50$ for an extra 128 gig, but for the same money I can buy a 500GB SD card online! And many phones don’t even have the option for this much storage. Why not offer more storage AND an SD card slot?
All new phones have audio connections built into the USB-C port
Yes they have, but now I can’t use my headphones without a shitty adapter anymore. An adapter that can easily get lost! What is the advantage of that?
I can tell you: it’s greed! We can sell you more storage at a premium. Your device storage ain’t enough? We offer cloud based storage for free! Oh, your free x amount of gigabytes is full? We sell you more storage as a subscription! Well, you don’t need storage anyways, because everyone streams their stuff today, don’t they? (Also subscription models)
Your phone doesn’t have a 3.5mm jack anymore and you can’t use your headphones anymore? Buy our adapters for very little money (but that’s basically 5$ in extra profit per sold phone). Or, you know, bluetooth headphones! They are more convenient anyways, because they are wireless. Oh, you just need to charge them every few hours and the batteries in them are dead after ~2 years, that means we can sell you another pair for 150$! And god forbid you lose one of the tiny suckers, that’s gone be 150$ to replace them.
FUCK THAT!!1!
SD cards are awesome, because a high quality 256GB SD card costs about $30, while a 256GB memory upgrade is at least $100 with no option to transfer when you get a new phone.
Cloud storage is pretty expensive and only as fast as your internet speed is, so for a lot of people that is not really that feasible. Especially considering that some have data caps as well.
3.5mm jack is just more comfortable to use for a lot of people, especially when they have multiple source devices and want to switch between them. I have BT headphones and it is way easier and more reliable to just replug the wire than to go through the BT disconnect reconnect dance.
The issue with dongles is that you’ll have to find the correct aux dongle, some phones support analog passthrough, others require active dongles and so on
The issue with dongles is that you’ll have to find the correct aux dongle, some phones support analog passthrough, others require active dongles and so on
This is a pretty easy to overcome issue. There really isn’t a “and so on” here, there are only two types of adapters: active and passive. Nearly every new phone without a 3.5mm port needs an active adapter (check the spec sheet), which has the DAC in it.
This is fine, you were going to use a DAC regardless, the only difference is that it exists outside of your phone instead of soldered to the main board.
Probably best to buy from your phone manufacturer to ensure you’re getting a quality DAC, but I am not aware of any counterfeiting, supply, or quality issues for DACs. Quality Cirruslogic DACs are plentiful and cost manufacturers $1-3/piece, so even the AliExpress adapters are probably just fine.
I feel like people never complain that cases and screen protectors only work on one make/model of phone, but then they get upset that they have to figure out which of two adapters they need. You’re already dealing with a lot of device-exclusivity owning any smartphone, the headphone adapter seems like a trivial detail.
I can’t speak to the sd card situation but I still prefer a headphone jack over Bluetooth. I would argue that the vast majority of people (as you put it) use Bluetooth headphones simply because they were forced into it.
Bluetooth is neat and all but it’s also super old (28 years!). It’s older than smart phones and sd cards. But age aside, it’s also not reliable. You cannot guarantee it will work everytime you need it. Whereas you could reasonably expect a headphone jack to work everytime. So replacing old reliable with old not-reliable doesn’t seem right from a logical perspective.
My only other concern is convenience. But wired and wireless both have pros and cons and I just consider them more or less equal.
I feel like everyone keeps arguing with me about “Wired vs. Bluetooth”, but that has not been my argument.
My argument is “what’s the big deal about using a USB-C to 3.5mm adapter?”
You still get wired headphones. I have a Pixel 7 Pro and use my Sennheisers on them. I do not understand the problem. The feature isn’t missing, and the adapter is like $5 and has no downsides. For a couple extra bucks I got a Power+Aux adapter, and now I can plug it into my sound system at home and play it wired while it charges.
Bluetooth also introduces significant latency (noticeable for gaming) and lower audio quality. What a bad deal.
Just wait until you find out some of us still want FM on our phones.
The thing with SD cards is that there’s a crapton of phones with 64/128 internals and still don’t have one. I for one wouldn’t really need one if I had 512, but to get to 512 you usually hace to pay a huge premium, because all major manufacturers have adopted the apple model of upcharging for storage. And frankly in the age of affordable 1tb SD cards I should’t have to pay hundreds to get a measly 256 or 512 gb of storage.
The jack is also a manufactured problem ( also pioneered by apple, iirc ). Why would I give up my existing wired headphones to replace them with expensive sub-standard battery operated ones. Its especially ironic for manufacturers who do a lot of greenwashing. The usb-c adapter is an ok compromise though, and I for one am coming around to that l because you can only find jacks on niche or crap phones these days.
I’m not sure why you brought the “tech is old” argument because frankly it doesn’t make sense for these two.
Why would I give up my existing wired headphones to replace them with expensive sub-standard battery operated ones
You don’t, you use an adapter and move on with life.
I seriously do not understand people who die on this hill. The 3.5 Jack is dead in electronics and the only people making the transition painful are the HEADPHONE manufacturers who refuse to wire a USB-C instead of a now-outded plug.
This happens every time an obsolete connector gets phased out: cheap manufacturers keep using it well beyond the reasonable time to swap out, leaving the end users who fear change to cling on even longer for no good reason
/e/OS is android lol. Yes it’s better than the version of android that ships with phones by default, but grapheneos is still way better than e/os (even though they’re all android)
Unfortunately the fact that NFC can’t be used on anything that’s rooted anymore is kind of a deal breaker. If I could use google pay and my normal banking apps with GrapheneOS I would switch to it today.
Sorry, I don’t understand the motivation here, you want to not let Google spy on you via their OS, but are perfectly happy to give them your entire payment record?
Not my entire payment record but certainly everything I use my phone to pay for. I’m willing to give Google some of my info as long as I’m in control of what info I’m giving them. Everything I do on my phone is too much. If a 3rd party offered a NFC payment app I’d happily use that over GPay, but until that exists GPay is the only option. Ultimately GPay is safer than using actual credit cards because it’s more resistant to skimming. The extra security outweighs the loss of privacy in this specific case. I’m not happy about that but there doesn’t seem to be a better alternative at this time.
not being able to use contactless pay does not equal “NFC can’t be used on anything”.
Technically you’re correct, but it’s effectively the same thing since I’ve literally never used NFC for anything besides contactless payment and initial phone setup when migrating from an older Android phone to a newer one. For most people NFC is synonymous with contactless payment.
Unfortunately the fact that NFC can’t be used on anything that’s rooted anymore is kind of a deal breaker.
NFC can be used on GOS, and they frown on rooting.
If I could use google pay and my normal banking apps with GrapheneOS I would switch to it today.
It’s due to PlayIntegrity API wanting a “Google certified OS,” which is ironically less secure than hardware attestation that GOS supports. I doubt Google would change their model, but your bank might. Some banks do support GOS, and they have changed at the request of their customers before. Send them the GOS documentation and you might get lucky.
https://grapheneos.org/articles/attestation-compatibility-guide
We need hardware requirements so that not just pixel phones can get grapheneOS. Giving into Google hardware to escape Google software is a step I don’t want to take. I’ll take calyxOS or divestOS until then.
We need hardware requirements so that not just pixel phones can get grapheneOS.
GOS has strict hardware requirements to increase security that currently only Pixels meet. They won’t, and shouldn’t, compromise their standards which would give you a weaker OS. Want GOS on other vendors? Convince those vendors to up their hardware game.
My main issue with Pixels is their price, even the Pixel A. They are completely unaffordable new, and only hit below $300 when they barely have any support yet (or are used). I don’t mind using an EOL phome because with short support like on phones it is unavoidable, but that would be after alreafdy overpaying.
My main issue with Pixels is their price, even the Pixel A
Have you priced out any comparable phones? They’re practically a steal at their discounted prices.
Honestly the short 5 year from original release till EOL thing really fucking annoys me, but it’s literally every phone on the market. I’ve looked, it’s impossible to find a phone that doesn’t force you to replace it every few years unless you go to a plain dumb phone that only supports voice calls and maybe basic SMS with no apps. That’s just a nonstarter in this day and age.
Even alternative Android firmware like GrapheneOS and /e/OS are dependent on the stock firmware releases by the phone manufacturer so when the manufacturer goes EOL and stops releasing updates your alternative installs also are effectively EOL.
The only solution to this problem I’ve seen that seems like it has a chance is Linux Phone OS, but it still has several problems that make it unusable for most people (biggest one probably being that it provides absolutely terrible battery life).
Requirements exist. It’s just that device manufacturers don’t seem to care.
I think it’s more reasonable to look at Linux phones than GrapheneOS supporting anything beyond Pixels. I was hoping to get a Linux phone this time around, but they just don’t support the basic features well enough. Hopefully my next phone will be a Linux phone, but we’ll see.
Giving into Google hardware to escape Google software is a step I don’t want to take
Yeah, it’s annoying. However, it’s important to note that Google is generally really good about security, so it’s not a surprise that their phones have a lot of cool security features.
I also didn’t want to give Google money, so I bought a used Pixel and saved a ton of money. I got a Pixel 8 in like-new condition for <$400 on eBay after a big discount from an eBay sale, and I can expect 6+ years of updates (not just security updates, but OS updates). I’m really enjoying GrapheneOS so far. I guess I tangentially helped them, but at least my dollars_ didn’t go to Google.
That said, CalyxOS and DivestOS are also fine projects, and I seriously considered using them instead.
Been using GrapheneOS for close to 2 years, love it. Not perfect, but it’s solid & does everything I need well enough. Even with the minor bugs, it’s a hell of a lot better than having Google’s or any other vendor’s proprietary bloatware stuck on there.
I would say you should use GrapheneOS first, if you don’t have a Pixel, use DivestOS, if you can’t use that, use /e/. That’s the order I would put them in for security and privacy.
Iirc E/OS is based on Lineage, but takes a horrifying long time to patch in security updates on top of Lineage’s already somewhat laggy patches. If you choose to use it make sure you’re aware of that going in.
Also, like IIGxC said it’s a android. Maybe slightly more private that most stock versions on most phones. But that’s like saying [insert Linux distro] is better than Linux.
LineageOS will only patch Android. It will not patch hardware vulnerabilities after the device no longer has support from the manufacturer.
Both of these OSes are dangerous for privacy and security.
100% you are correct.
Shame on the down voters.
Running a phone without firmware and driver security patches is a huge risk, that goes up geometrically the longer the phone is out of support.
Lineageos is great for making older devices useful but they are not secure, and they shouldn’t be used for anything sensitive like money
For the down voters. Imagine I have a time machine and bring a precontact native American to present day. I know this is dangerous, so I make them read every modern medical textbook first. Chances are they are going to catch a fun modern disease rapidly and die. Not because they didn’t have the knowledge, but because their immune system didn’t co-evolve with the threats. Being stuck out of time is in anachronism, but that’s exactly what we’re asking our cell phones to do. We prevent them from co-evolving with current threats, and then expect them to match all the threats in the future…
Although using an up to date Android userspace is still less bad than stopping all the updates once the vendor jumps the ship.
It’s not going to stop a dedicated attacker, but having a somewhat secure webview that’s not going tu crumble under the first piece of malicious javascript goes a long way towards the peace of mind.
If a rootkit is hiding at the hardware level, it may not matter what operating system or web browser you’re using on your phone. A rootkit at this low level could potentially evade detection by the OS and modify files or memory without the operating system’s knowledge. It may also be able to disrupt secure boot processes and monitor radio transmissions like Bluetooth, WiFi, and NFC.
Once an exploit is found that works on a particular device model, and attackers know the device manufacturer will never release firmware updates again, they could start searching for any users of that phone model. A rootkit installed this way may remain on the phone permanently since firmware updates are no longer being provided. The phone user may be unaware their device has been compromised.
LineageOS does not employ a dedicated security engineer for each phone model. Maintainers with LineageOS typically take the latest firmware from the original device manufacturer and import it into their build process. But if the latest firmware release from the manufacturer is already three years old, it’s possible there may now be several undiscovered vulnerabilities in that outdated code.
What’s your suggestion for hardware patches after the manufacturer ends support?
Get a new phone the vendor does support.
Firmware patching is applying low-level firmware to the modem or baseband, similar to a BIOS update on a desktop or server. These binary libraries are (a) proprietary, and (b) opaque to the user (meaning they’re not documented like normal software)
Once a vendor drops support for a platform, that’s it, that’s the end of the line. The device will still work, but any, glitches, firmware vulnerabilities, or updates for network-side changes will no longer be addressed.
There is no option. There is too much variation in the various phone chips for the hardware hacking community to reverse engineer more than a bare handful. And as soon as the hardware has been reverse engineered, it will never be used again by a manufacturer making the exercise largely pointless.
Add to that, the fact that Qualcomm actively discourages long term support of their chips….
I love /e/OS, but it’s not better. I’ve had a lot of issues ranging from GPS being inaccurate, MMS not working, and most annoyingly : the play store alternative works (app lounge) works 1% of the time…
Which version and phone are you on ? I’m on “t” version on a Oneplus 7 et I have none of these issues.
I first installed the “s” version and got annoying bugs, then switched to the “t” one and everything was OK. I now all the version aren’t available on every devices, I hope you can switch on a more stable one.
Oh I see that there are “t” versions which are much more up to date! (2.1, latest in 2024-05). I didn’t know about these versions, thank you so much.
Can you confirm that I’ll need to wipe everything to switch from R to T? Or is there a way to bridge to that version without data loss?
