I’m cross posting my own here, I hope it’s allowed. Maybe it will reach someone who has a similar problem.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/14292422

Hello!

So I’ve been using my trusty old OnePlus 5T until now, without any problems. I always followed the phone market for replacement but I simply didn’t see a phone that would fit me, so I just kept repairing and using the current one.

Recently, after 7 years, the glue inside the screen assembly started to loosen up, which caused a little gap between the OLED panel and touch panel. Moisture got in there, and the OLED panel started oxidizing, leaving a nice purple patch on the side of the screen, that is slowly growing as the panel is powered on. It was my fault ignoring the gap for so long, but here we are.

Regarding my new phone, I have a few “constraints” and preferences that I want to stick to, even they sound stupid or unreasonable. (This is why I simply didn’t bother buying another one yet)

MUST:

  • Be Android
  • Not be Samsung - had some before, don’t want to go back
  • Have headphone jack - yes, this will narrow the selection quite a bit
  • Have OLED screen - anything OLED, doesn’t matter which kind
  • Be similar size or smaller than OnePlus 5T - the ~160mm x ~70mm is sort of optimal for me.
  • Be under 200g, preferable under 180g
  • Dual SIM (2 physical cards)
  • Something released recently (2022-24), so it still has some support, accessories sold, has more chance to use it for another 7 years.
  • NFC
  • Be customizable: unlockable bootlooder, option for different ROMs, basically community support…

Preferable stuff:

  • Some reasonable camera. I don’t use it often, so definitely don’t need some Pixel level stuff.
  • High refresh rate screen - I don’t game on my phone, but general stuff looks nicer
  • No under screen fingerprint sensor - Not a big deal, but I know that it’s easy to fuck up the software side and calibration, so it can become a pain in the ass.
  • Wifi 6 or greater - “ac” Wifi is enough in the current 5T, so not a big deal just future proofing
  • IP rating - I take care of my phones but still, it would be nice to not worry about moisture or dropping it in wet stuff.
  • Expandable storage - Again, no big deal. I don’t use the camera often, so I don’t even fill up my current 128GB OnePlus. I usually backup and delete stuff from my phone yearly.
  • Extra programmable function button - Not a deal breaker again, but I got used to OnePlus alert slider and I would program a similar button to the same functionality (switching between normal, do not disturb and mute).

Of course it should have a reasonable price too, but I’m willing to pay for a phone that I will use for a long time.

So after all my unreasonable requirements and wishlist, GSM Arena’s phone finder comes up with 3 different phones that look interesting:

  1. Asus Zenfone 10 https://www.gsmarena.com/asus_zenfone_10-12380.php
  2. Xiaomi Redmi Note 13 Pro https://www.gsmarena.com/xiaomi_redmi_note_13_pro-12581.php
  3. OnePlus Nord CE 2 5G https://www.gsmarena.com/oneplus_nord_ce_2_5g-11269.php

1. The Zenfone

The Asus Zenfone series was my original choice as next device, I’ve been following the series for a few years, and I like the phones. Zenfones were unlockable by getting a device specific key from Asus’s servers and using that in fastboot mode. As far as I know, this was done by Asus’s unlocker app.

However, about a year ago, Asus decided to close this endpoint on the server, and removed the unlocker app from their website. This caused not only new Zenfones but older ones couldn’t get unlocked anymore either. You can google this drama if you’re interested, or just look at the threads on XDA Forums for Zenfone 10, Zenfone 9 or Zenfone 8. Right now, people are just waiting for someone to do something. Things are happening as I write this.

Besides all of this, Zenfone 10 is basically the perfect phone for me. People say that the software is also a plain Android with optimizations and you can turn off Asus features if you don’t like them. This is pretty much the same with OnePlus, and I liked using OxygenOS. But this unlocking bootloader drama is feels bad. Especially that Asus only provides 2 years of software support. I would be happier knowing that I can reflash my phone if I don’t like something.

2. The Xiaomi

Never had a Xiaomi before, but all my family and friends had one once in their life. I like the general quality and feature set of the phones and this looks nice just looking at the spec list.

The problem with this phone is it doesn’t even have a forum section on XDA, so I don’t know how active the community is behind it.

Second, slightly bigger problem: I don’t like Xiaomi’s OS. never liked the UI layout and custom functionality. I would 100% wipe the original OS from it and go with something else. But of course I don’t know if that option is available with this phone.

3. The OnePlus

Nothing particularly bad with this one. I understand that this series is now OnePlus’s budget series, so I won’t get the fancy Snapdragons and it’s the oldest from the all. I think it still looks OKish, community is active, OnePlus allows unlocking so no concerns there.

It doesn’t have an alert slider like other OnePlus phones do. Meh, no big deal, but still wanted to mention it.

My biggest “first world problem” with this phone is it having a MediaTek CPU. I used phones with MediaTek CPUs before, they are OK in performance but so hard to work with… Every chip is different, with different drivers, random links for random shitty software, the partition map in a text file that you need specifically for you device to flash it… If you’ve tinkered with a MediaTek phone before, you know what I’m talking about.

4. Bonus: Nothing Phone

Yes, I know Nothing Phone doesn’t have a headphone jack. But it’s also kind of like the Zenfone, and I like the LED array on the back. My 5T still has the RGB notification LED and I would prefer something similar. Plus the phone has a community behind it. I also know about the Nothing drama with their messaging app. I don’t really care. I would not have used it anyway. And as I said, if I don’t like their software, I’ll just flash another one.

So, what do you think? Should I give up my headphone jack rule and cry whenever I need to use the adapter with my headphones? What if that little worthless shit breaks? What if I want to charge? I know very well why the headphone jack isn’t there on phones nowadays, and I try not to support that direction or products that do this, trying to “vote with my wallet”…

Or should I give up my freedom of choice and let Asus decide when my phone stops to work? Or wait to see what happens at the end of April with the “Asus’s statement regarding this issue”? Maybe wait for someone who may or may not find a method for unlocking Zenfones which may or may not get patched by Asus? Is the Zenfone series popular enough that the community can solve this issue? Maybe, maybe not…

Or stay with OnePlus, dive back into the MediaTek world with an already old phone?

Or go Xiaomi and pray for it to not be crap in the long term?

Or fuck it and go Pixel and flash one of the many ROMs out there and cry about the headphone jack?

Thank you for reading this far.

  • Lee O.@mastodon.social
    3·
    7 months ago

    @OpenStars @kivulallo I had an OP9 and it was okayish most of the time. I picked up a crazy good deal on a 9 Pro after the 10 came out and it was good, but not like 8T good. Now I have an 11 and Color OS is tolerable, but the 11 is crazy fast and makes the whole package right tasty. I tried 3rd party launchers, but ended up tweaking the OP launcher to get rid of the most annoying things. You can do a lot worse than OnePlus and I’m not sure about finding anything much better.

    • OpenStarsEnglish
      2·
      7 months ago

      That company will disappoint and make you feel actively and bitterly betrayed, one day, if the past is any indication, bc they seem to routinely do this every few years when it suits them. But until then, the phones are pretty good, yeah, some of the absolute best on the market. I too argued against people that said exactly this to me, citing how that was the past, but they hadn’t done anything like that for awhile at the time, and anyway I can always replace the OS and thus break my dependence upon the company. Then they sent out a literally infamous (for being HORRIBLY buggy) update to the 7T that made my phone get so hot that I legit thought that it might explode. I am convinced that it melted some internal shielding component bc it has never worked the same sense - it rapidly heats up and makes my hands hurt to hold it for even a few minutes at a time while running a heavy app such as a game. The update itself also made it perform really bad, so eventually I did replace the OS with the same older copy of the OS that I had left before the update, but while it went back to being buttery smooth, the heating issues never went away. They literally damaged my device! I will never trust that company again.:-(

      And I am far from the only one - the Reddit forums (for OnePlus and for the 7-series) used to be filled with us who absolutely loved our phones more than most people care about some purchased product. We were “fans”, “enthusiasts” even. But immediately after the update those forums were filled with people as bitterly disappointed as I was, until eventually they grew quiet as people just abandoned them, a year or two before the Reddit protests. Even then, I strongly considered as my next device a used OP7T or 7Pro or 7TPro and just immediately after purchase replace the OS so that a buggy update could not harm the device as their previous one had. So my beef with OnePlus has nothing to do with their hardware, which I agree is excellent, and everything to do with the company and how extraordinarily anti-loyal they are to their customer base - they have quite a long history of throwing us them under the bus, not often tbf as in less than yearly, more like as they shift to the next phase in their business plan, and it would just be inconvenient for them to honor their prior promises for stable updates, when they really would rather not and concentrate instead on whatever new business direction they desire to head into.

      So again, I am not saying to avoid their hardware, but do yourself a favor and never trust that company or you can end up being extremely disappointed, like all of us before who refused to listen to people saying exactly that in the past.