You can buy a decent condition second hand Android phone for just over £200 now. Amazing how much they depreciate, considering how the performance holds up.
I don’t expect I’ll get a new phone for at last another two years, as long as they keep the security updates coming.
Android’s lack of consistent updates from OEMs is holding the platform back.
What one?
OnePlus 5. They’ve promised two years, so probably still have a few months left until it’s abandonware…
No reason not to push the same security updates as the 5T. I believe they have identical hardware, beyond the screen and fingerprint sensor. Was going to see if the 5’s motherboard could fit in the 5T case, but the motherboards have slightly different layouts.
It’s one thing that kills android for me a bit. Updates are pitiful. Even Google isnt able to offer more than 3 years.
What makes it worse is that the Snapdragon 835, 845 and 850 aren’t wildly different SoCs, and are all massively common, so security updates shouldn’t be an issue on older devices.
Either legislators or Google need to force OEMs to push security updates for as long as the Android version is officially supported.
I’m assuming this is one of the reasons Apple make their own chips. Qualcomm get more praise than they deserve.
It is a problem with lots of Chinese chips though, they’ll push one out then dump support once the next version is out.
This was a thing.
Two years isn’t long enough. Google support Android versions for about two years. Normally, phones get updated a couple of versions, then don’t get any security updates after that two year period.
Ideally, they should be updated to the newest Android version, then have security updates for the next two(ish) years, until the version’s no longer officially supported.
That just means they need to push googles security patch. There’s still the 2 year limit, the fragmentation, etc.
Google this year seem to have barely reached the ability to give 3 years of security patches themselves.
If they’re going to be unsupported, then they should be unlocked when that happens.
Fair is fair.
This is all fine and good but useless for your average person, and still leaves you without any firmware or blob security updates.
Think my phone’s bootloader is unlocked. That’s all good for people like us who don’t mind messing with our things, but for the average person it’s just easier getting a new phone.
I just hate how incredibly wasteful it is. Billions of phones being made useless because they don’t get updated. Massive amount of e-waste.
The fragmentation issue won’t be solved unless Google goes full Oracle and tries to close the source of Android.
Or they could just penetrate companies butts viciously by closing down the play store unless they have the latest security patch… that will get people angry enough
Indeed. It’s shameful.
Google can also mandate, that companies must provide at least one Android One phone. That could be a thing…
I think they plan that with Fuchsia.
I mean the play store is already closed for Ice Cream Sandwich and Kit-kat since they aren’t supported anymore. I don’t see why they couldn’t do it with an update…
I’d be hard pressed to believe that a company like Samsung can’t push an update in a timely manner with the amount of resources they have.
They do… eventually. But they still have the 2 year limitation, plus they aren’t in control of the code.
As a Samsung owner, I can tell you that they are hardly ever on time. Some people got the October security patches in December. We do get two major updates, and the s7 got a security patch in October of 2018. So it seems like, for samsung at least, you get two major updates and at least 3 years of security patches.
Edit: the s6 got security updates until April 2018. Was released in 2015, so yeah, about 3 years.
I mean I feel like 2 years is reasonable though. I know people who are assmad that their 4 year old phone isn’t supported anymore. And it’s like yeah… It should be that way.