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.
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.
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.
Limiting myself to Android One, and around 200 - 250 bucks, what phones are out there? Are the Motorola ones any good?
My phone has worked great ever since.
If you like your phone, I would recommend you take a look before replacing it.
Considering the fast charging, like 20 minutes for 50% when charging through the laptop, I can even live with shorter-than-ideal battery life! Thanks!
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.
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].
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.
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.
[1] https://twitter.com/thepine64/status/1346582145557524488
EDIT: Android 11
Maybe you are talking about android 11?
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.
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.