I have a Pixel 4a (with Calyx) for a few years already (start of 2021) and it’s still going great. The battery is okay. Everything works nice. It’s smooth. It runs everything perfectly fine.
This makes me glad to see that hardware wise this phone was really built to last, I can’t even count how many times I dropped it so hard that I was scared to see the damage (which was always either nothing or a broken screen protector)
But software wise I’m screwed as security updates are already gone from Google and I only get the extended support from Calyx which will also end soon.
Now I’m forced to choose between having a phone that is insecure or buying a new one.
So thanks Google for the high quality hardware, but what’s up with this software planned obsolescence??
I know this isn’t exactly right to repair, but it also kind of is because if Google decided to ditch the 4a, they should be forced to open source the software so that the public can actually repair it.
I’m sure that some of their latest updates can be modified slightly to work for the 4a, but they don’t care and for them this is a win-win since they don’t have to maintian support and they get new customers who would otherwise be satisfied with an “old” phone.
What happened to the days when an old phone meant a phone that was already crumbling to pieces, and not a fully functional computer that is slightly older then a toddler?
Sure. But running an unmaintained operating system also is an huge security issue. I mean the proper choice is quite obvious: get rid of the phone and buy a new one that’s supported by Calyx or Graphene. But since I’m not willing to do that, I have to choose what’s more important to me.
And with security, it always depends on the specific threat model. I’m not sure if I need secure boot that badly. Can people steal my phone, flash a different OS and access the cryptographic key to my storage? Because that’d be one of the things I worry about. If not, I don’t think I care about secure boot that much… YMMV