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[#] Thu Dec 17 2020 12:09:59 EST from Nurb432

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Just because your phone no longer gets updates does not mean it dies the next day. App support lasts even longer. I have a couple of tablets that have not seen OS updates in many years, they still do the job they were doing 10 years ago.  Even get app updates still.. 

And if you are lucky might find a 3rd party OS that is compatible with your device. ( ones based on ASOP, not a true 3rd party 'something else entirely' ). One of my tablets kept current that way, until they dropped it there too. But the thing still works. All the stuff i used, i still can, and it keeps getting app updates all the freaking time like new versions of the OS does.



[#] Thu Dec 17 2020 12:32:43 EST from ParanoidDelusions

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But the truth is - once official support dies - it can mean a lot more user effort to keep things running - and newer features and benefits are unlikely to arrive. 

You're basically retro-mobile computing at that point. You can do it, but it becomes a labor of love or defiance to do so. 

 

Thu Dec 17 2020 12:09:59 EST from Nurb432

Just because your phone no longer gets updates does not mean it dies the next day. App support lasts even longer. I have a couple of tablets that have not seen OS updates in many years, they still do the job they were doing 10 years ago.  Even get app updates still.. 

 

 



[#] Thu Dec 17 2020 14:28:29 EST from zooer

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Thu Dec 17 2020 12:09:59 PM EST from Nurb432

Just because your phone no longer gets updates does not mean it dies the next day. App support lasts even longer. I have a couple of tablets that have not seen OS updates in many years, they still do the job they were doing 10 years ago.  Even get app updates still.. 

 

I know that, it was just time to upgrade.  I had my Galaxy S3 until the S7 came out.  I have a tablet that is no longer getting upgrades.  I just felt it was time to upgrade.  



[#] Thu Dec 17 2020 15:29:18 EST from Nurb432

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I haven't really found that to be the case for me. My older stuff runs just as well as new and not yet found an app that i use that didnt work. I'm sure at SOME point it becomes a problem to get new apps, but i have been up to 4 versions behind, and not a blip. Sure, i dont get new OS features, but honestly, rarely do i care about them anyway, for a device like that.  

Well, other than batteries that slowly stop keeping a charge, but that is not an OS problem.

Only reason i tend to upgrade is for more storage, or a nicer display ( especially on tablets ). And with the last 2 phones i got, they have plenty of both to last me forever.  So ill be using them until the hardware dies or my carrier kicks me off. So far i have never actually 'broken' a mobile device..( most likely ill die before the carrier drops me, as i dont see 4G being phased out anytime in the foreseeable future )

 

This is android, IOS users: YMMV

Thu Dec 17 2020 12:32:43 EST from ParanoidDelusions

But the truth is - once official support dies - it can mean a lot more user effort to keep things running - and newer features and benefits are unlikely to arrive. 

You're basically retro-mobile computing at that point. You can do it, but it becomes a labor of love or defiance to do so. 

 



[#] Thu Dec 17 2020 16:09:54 EST from zooer

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My main reason for getting a new phone was the poor battery life on the old phone. After the November software update the battery wouldn't last 20 hours.  I wouldn't want to say it was by design to get me to buy a new phone...

I would fully charge the phone, before going to bed I would unplug the phone, put it on the counter for the morning.  Six hours later in the morning the phone was down to 85% life.  As I used the phone during the day the battery drained very quickly.

Today I powered up the old phone up, it said an update was available, the final update.  I thought I should get one last update in the beginning of December, when I checked the update screen it displayed that the phone would not receive any more updates.

They pushed through the final update I should have received.  Perhaps this last update fixed the battery drain problem. 

 



[#] Thu Dec 17 2020 17:09:32 EST from Nurb432

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I have only seen that in one of my phones. It was due to a bug in how BT was handled. I dont think it was done intentionally to obsolete the phone. Just a stupid code error/design flaw.

Turn off BT and ti ran fine, turn it on, it would never stop scanning and inserting records into a db file. Eventually crashing the BT process totally.    Only at work tho, where we had 100's of BT devices screaming 'look at me' all day long. In that case, no more updates so it was never fixed.  ( sort of forgot about that one .. its been a few years )

 

Any other battery problem was truly the battery was giving out, and a replacement fixed it.



[#] Thu Dec 17 2020 18:23:36 EST from zooer

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I looked at the update page, it is still showing the same software, I swear it said it was going to perform some type of upgrade.  The battery drain is still strong.

It might not get the final upgrade, it is no longer assigned to a carrier.  



[#] Thu Dec 17 2020 19:57:57 EST from ParanoidDelusions

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There are some nuances in this discussion/debate. 

I managed to hang on to a pair of Nexus 7 tablets until the Thanksgiving before last, when I gave them to my niece and nephew. Battery life was still good. 

What I found was that they didn't have enough power to do anything that has evolved since that time - so... they didn't make a good Retroarch emulator device, for example. 

Also - there are apps that the older versions are depreciated - they no longer work - and the newer versions require a more recent version of Android than the Nexus 7 will support. 

Now... there is an argument I could have rooted and used an underground ROM image and possibly gotten more horsepower and done some sideloading of apps that would have done what I was looking for... 

But we get into that - "for the average user" thing. But yeah - for my niece and nephew, basic games - video and music... those things all still work. Facebook and Twitter... but... I bet there are newer apps they might want that are a no-go because there aren't versions for that old of a version of Android. 

Often - I guess that is the problem. The "must have apps" require newer versions of Android - and there simply isn't an old version, because that must-have app wasn't AROUND back then - or has evolved so significantly that the old version can't really connect to whatever it is dishing up, today. 

And... ARM hardware does tend to have radical leaps in performance every few years now. 

 

Thu Dec 17 2020 15:29:18 EST from Nurb432

I haven't really found that to be the case for me. My older stuff runs just as well as new and not yet found an app that i use that didnt work. I'm sure at SOME point it becomes a problem to get new apps, but i have been up to 4 versions behind, and not a blip. Sure, i dont get new OS features, but honestly, rarely do i care about them anyway, for a device like that.  

Well, other than batteries that slowly stop keeping a charge, but that is not an OS problem.

Only reason i tend to upgrade is for more storage, or a nicer display ( especially on tablets ). And with the last 2 phones i got, they have plenty of both to last me forever.  So ill be using them until the hardware dies or my carrier kicks me off. So far i have never actually 'broken' a mobile device..( most likely ill die before the carrier drops me, as i dont see 4G being phased out anytime in the foreseeable future )

 

This is android, IOS users: YMMV

 


 



[#] Fri Dec 18 2020 09:45:02 EST from Nurb432

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No denying that.  They are still in the middle of Moore's law.  x86, pretty much has topped out.

Right after Debian announced full support in bullseye alpha 3, ( GPU support yay! ) Rockchip just announced an upgrade to my beloved RK3399..   now 8 core and an AI core... ooooo  

 

Thu Dec 17 2020 19:57:57 EST from ParanoidDelusions

And... ARM hardware does tend to have radical leaps in performance every few years now. 

 


[#] Fri Dec 18 2020 12:05:21 EST from Nurb432

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Carrier status should not matter, else most tablets would never get updates...

Thu Dec 17 2020 18:23:36 EST from zooer

I looked at the update page, it is still showing the same software, I swear it said it was going to perform some type of upgrade.  The battery drain is still strong.

It might not get the final upgrade, it is no longer assigned to a carrier.  



 



[#] Fri Dec 18 2020 21:26:42 EST from zooer

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A wifi connected device and a mobile connected device are different. Most carriers have their own version of Android installed on the mobile device and the carrier is the one that takes the latest release of android, compiles it to the carriers specs and sends it to the device. 

The wifi connected device gets it from the manufacture.  



[#] Fri Dec 18 2020 22:33:27 EST from ParanoidDelusions

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Is there a practical difference for the experience of the end user? 


Fri Dec 18 2020 21:26:42 EST from zooer

A wifi connected device and a mobile connected device are different. Most carriers have their own version of Android installed on the mobile device and the carrier is the one that takes the latest release of android, compiles it to the carriers specs and sends it to the device. 

The wifi connected device gets it from the manufacture.  



 



[#] Sat Dec 19 2020 08:41:01 EST from Nurb432

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Agreed, but that is not the *carrier*.. Your phone does not get its OS or play store updates from AT&T.  It gets its OS updates from Samsung, Motorola, or whoever. And play store apps from google.

Only the carrier crap gets updated by the carrier. And if you are off-network, you no longer care about them anyway.

Fri Dec 18 2020 21:26:42 EST from zooer

The wifi connected device gets it from the manufacture.  



 



[#] Sun Dec 20 2020 12:40:00 EST from zooer

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 -- There are several factors that affect the availability of a software update for Android phones
 -- and one such factor is mobile network carriers. Carriers tend to release updates once they
 -- conduct their own internal testing.


https://piunikaweb.com/2020/12/19/android-11-update-tmobile-verizon-sprint-att/



[#] Thu Dec 31 2020 12:32:09 EST from IGnatius T Foobar

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Hmm. I bought my son a new phone for Christmas, but this is the first time we've purchased one anywhere other than the T-Mobile store. It is one of the Google Pixel phones and I bought it at Best Buy (don't judge me, we were behind schedule). It's an "unlocked" phone and we didn't notify T-Mobile that we changed the phone, we just moved the SIM card and now the account portal says "unknown device". Soooooooo... I don't know where the updates from this phone will come from. Maybe direct from the manufacturer? Maybe not at all?

[#] Thu Dec 31 2020 14:19:32 EST from ParanoidDelusions

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Have you contacted T Mobile and let them know this? Maybe they just have to click a box in your user profile. 

Thu Dec 31 2020 12:32:09 EST from IGnatius T Foobar
 we just moved the SIM card and now the account portal says "unknown device". Soooooooo... I don't know where the updates from this phone will come from. Maybe direct from the manufacturer? Maybe not at all?

 



[#] Fri Jan 01 2021 02:16:58 EST from arabella

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In the UK, as far as I am aware, Unlocked devices get their updates from the software developer, and usually before locked devices, since the OS for locked units have to undergo extra testing for the Carrier Add-ons (bloatware) I imagine it will be at least similar in the US.

Source: Research for my next cell phone, which will likely be a Pixel 4a.



[#] Fri Jan 01 2021 10:41:30 EST from zooer

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Fri Jan 01 2021 02:16:58 AM EST from arabella

Source: Research for my next cell phone, which will likely be a Pixel 4a.

I just picked up a 4a 5G.  There is a difference between the 4a and the 4a 5G.  Two issues I noticed, one is the screen rotation, it seems to want to switch to landscape on its own when I open anything.  The second is I can't seem to use the two finger zoom to enlarge something on the screen.  It only works on some pages.  

Originally Pixels were great because it didn't come with extra bloatware, but Google has its own bloatware.  All sorts of crap I don't want. 

 

I tried Google Fi with my Pixel 2, as soon as the Android updates were released I had them.  No waiting for the carrier updates because the carrier was the point of release.

 

 



[#] Fri Jan 01 2021 12:03:33 EST from Nurb432

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Still less than other android vendors ( unless they are supplying android one ) + carrier garbage.

 

 

Fri Jan 01 2021 10:41:30 EST from zooer

 

Originally Pixels were great because it didn't come with extra bloatware, but Google has its own bloatware.  All sorts of crap I don't want. 

 

 

 



 



[#] Fri Jan 01 2021 12:40:17 EST from Nurb432

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Keep the WiFi on and i woudl assume you get updates from the google machine.

Thu Dec 31 2020 12:32:09 EST from IGnatius T Foobar
Hmm. I bought my son a new phone for Christmas, but this is the first time we've purchased one anywhere other than the T-Mobile store. It is one of the Google Pixel phones and I bought it at Best Buy (don't judge me, we were behind schedule). It's an "unlocked" phone and we didn't notify T-Mobile that we changed the phone, we just moved the SIM card and now the account portal says "unknown device". Soooooooo... I don't know where the updates from this phone will come from. Maybe direct from the manufacturer? Maybe not at all?

 



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