New(er) phone with long-term support? Custom ROMs? LineageOS?

esuhl

I'm currently using a Samsung Galaxy SII phone (from 2011).

Official support and updates stopped long ago, so I installed LineageOS (a custom ROM) to keep it usable. But the phone is just too slow now, so I'm looking for a new one to last another 8 years.

My ideal phone would be fairly small, with a 3.5mm audio socket, and a replaceable battery. And, presumably, I'll need to find a custom ROM for long-term support.

I'm not sure where to begin. Only certain phones are supported by LineageOS. Are there any other custom ROMs I should look at?

Has anyone got any tips to help me find a good cheap(ish) but good(ish) phone that will be last me for many years to come...?

Neil_Jones

The only phones really that have any guarantee of updates long term are probably the Google Pixels (about as close to stock Android as you can get and are usually first in the queue for updates) and Apple devices.

Beyond that you are at the whim of the phone manufacturers as to whether they want to push any more updates out...

d123

esuhl wrote: »

I'm currently using a Samsung Galaxy SII phone (from 2011).

Official support and updates stopped long ago, so I installed LineageOS (a custom ROM) to keep it usable. But the phone is just too slow now, so I'm looking for a new one to last another 8 years.

My ideal phone would be fairly small, with a 3.5mm audio socket, and a replaceable battery. And, presumably, I'll need to find a custom ROM for long-term support.

I'm not sure where to begin. Only certain phones are supported by LineageOS. Are there any other custom ROMs I should look at?

Has anyone got any tips to help me find a good cheap(ish) but good(ish) phone that will be last me for many years to come...?

If you’re wanting a future proof phone going for a smartphone you have to root to install a non-official OS is becoming a bad idea, there’s a lot of apps that won’t run on a rooted phone and with things like the new online payment rules (now coming next year) it’ll be beneficial to be able to load your banking app on your phone.

esuhl

d123 wrote: »

If you’re wanting a future proof phone going for a smartphone you have to root to install a non-official OS is becoming a bad idea, there’s a lot of apps that won’t run on a rooted phone and with things like the new online payment rules (now coming next year) it’ll be beneficial to be able to load your banking app on your phone.

Thanks. But I think I'm a bit of an unusual case.

I don't use my phone for things like banking, and I need root access for other apps, anyway.

As well as LineageOS, I've just discovered the Pixel Experience and AOSP Extended custom ROMs...

match2match

The pocophone F1 would be a good choice, Probably the best price to performance ratio, full lineage OS support and it was a smash hit with a huge volume sold so it should continue support for a very long time, a oneplus 6 is also a good choice

JJ_Egan

Basic OP question is what phones are going to be supported by custom roms for the next 8 years.
Simply that is going to be up to the developers of such roms .

[Deleted User]

JJ_Egan wrote: »

Basic OP question is what phones are going to be supported by custom roms for the next 8 years.
Simply that is going to be up to the developers of such roms .

Yep, there is literally nobody who can guarantee that.

The best chance of it would be to buy a high end, newly released phone that is already supported by a custom ROM now as there's more chance that the hardware would still be good enough for whatever the software demands at that time.

Personally if I had the same requirements I'd go for a mid range model (the Pocophone F1 & Oneplus 6 are good shouts) in the hope that I'd get 4 years at least out of them.

chib

Like others have said - you want something with high end specs that have a good development community behind them. My top choice would be the OnePlus 6 previously suggested, or move on from the headphone jack and pick up a OnePlus 7 or 7 Pro. Phones won't have headphone jacks at all in the near future - I don't like it but have accepted it.

The recently released Xiaomi Redmi K20 Pro looks like a great option also, that will have a Lineage ROM soon if it doesn't already.

All phones have a replaceable battery, just the back cover doesn't come off as easily.

Cisco001

The main problem is you want a fairly small phone.
There are not many small phone at the moment.

Personally would either go for Poco F1 for its micro sd slot or OnePlus 6 for its NFC

esuhl

Cisco001 wrote: »

The main problem is you want a fairly small phone.
There are not many small phone at the moment.

Yes, that and the uncertainty of long-term support. :-/

Anyway, thanks for the great suggestions, everyone! The phones mentioned are roughly what I'm looking for, and a great starting point.

Any thoughts on the Samsung Galaxy S8? (Aside from the current lack of Lineage support.)