As far as I can tell, if you want timely security updates on your smartphone you can buy one of: iPhone XR, iPhone XS, Pixel 3, Pixel 3 XL. No headphone jacks on any of those. How's that for "choice in the marketplace"?
so, for whatever features you want, there is a phone. there are hundreds of phones. when you start combining them, you are personalizing a phone. products are made for target markets. that's why people customize cars.
get a phone with a jack, put your own android on it, update it when it's updated. done. If you want a large company to make something specifically for you, with the combination of exact features you want - they don't. same for cars. same for coffee makers.
Are security devices optional features for cars (and I am not talking about collection cars or similar niche items) ? They are not in first-world countries.
Security updates are, again unambiguously, an important feature. You might not care but plenty of people do, and there’s lots of well-documented reasons why that’s probably the saner choice.
Take two big, important features, and realise you can’t have both at the same time. One of those features used to be ubiquitous, and is still present in most devices, but is being phased out. You’re damned right people who care about both feel their device choices are crippled. I don’t blame them.
I think they've also ditched the headphone jack in their latest models though. For a while it seemed like they'd hold out against glass backs and dropping jacks. But no.
That was my first and last Android phone however. If you think Android is a decent OS try removing Google from it.
If you are ok with Android, Sony hardware is good. Was my second favorite phone vs my X. The screen was 4K and the audio was great for a phone. It was on the heavy side but well built. Lots of battery.
Actually that was one of my favorite things about my Xperia XZ1 Compact: running LineageOS without Google services. The battery life was insane, like 10-12 hours of screen-on time. I simply did not have to think about charging the thing; I'd charge it every 2-3 days.
Having a device that I could readily bootloader unlock that also has official AOSP support complete with device trees direct from Sony was such a refreshing change for me after years of hacking together homemade device trees for various LG devices.
I regret trading that phone for an LG G7, with its mediocre battery life, heavily bloated, laggy software, and precarious glass build -- also cannot ever be bootloader unlocked, and even if it could you'd have to rely on some community approximation for the device trees, forfeiting fully-functional camera support.
https://www.androidpit.com/sony-xperia-official-android-upda...
I've largely stopped bothering with Android system security updates due to soft-bricking and just concentrate on keeping browser / e-mail and other Internet apps updated.
Apple seems to be the only game in town for more than 3 years from date of launch.
Plan B is accept that Android is just second tier stuff and buy a $350 Poco and accept binning perfectly fine hardware because it's so cheap that the price works out.
Currently the iPhone 5s, 6, 6 plus, 6s, 6s plus and SE all are still getting security updates. The iPhone 5s was introduced in 2013.