EDIT: Getting a ton of great responses thanks everyone <3 Once this is up for 24 hours or so I’ll make another edit summarizing everyone’s recs for future reference. Keep ‘em coming!
TL;DR Have any recs for non-Apple phones/laptops that have lifespans of at least 5+ years?
Wanted to get everyone’s opinion on want brands/products have worked for them. I’m lightly techy and not afraid to put some effort in, but also don’t want to build everything from scratch. I think Apple’s products are often anti-consumer, anti-privacy, anti-yadda yadda yadda.
At the same time, with both phones and laptops, I’ve found my Apple products to have double or even triple the lifespan of any other brand. I did my research and bought a $1000+ HP laptop with Ryzen7 a little over two years ago, and due to a flaw in the hinge which is now subject to a class action lawsuit, the screen has cracked and it’s mostly unusable. Other purchase haven’t failed quite that dramatically but don’t tend to last as long. On the other hand, my or my partner’s old Macbooks and iPhones are easily seeing 5+ years of use in addition to software updates.
So let me know what’s worked for you!
I’m no apple shill, but every Samsung I’ve had felt great for a few months. And rapidly started to run like absolute shit. Then I swore off them for a couple of years, and came back when everyone was like “this one’s different, it’s not like the ones before” and then I had the same issue. So I got a Pixel, and that was so much better software wise. But that pixel 2 had a design defect that saw lots of devices having GPS problems and that was annoying as hell when I was trying to do Uber.
My past 2 phones have been iPhones. Not perfect, I miss lots of the customization and developer level control over stuff… but my phone works, reliably. I was pissed about throttlegate , I had one of those phones affected, but the phone was like 4/5 years old… and I decided that my experience with other phones was worse, and got another iPhone.
I’m feeling the need to upgrade again, and while I can’t endorse a lot of the anti-consumer shit apple does… I need a reliable phone. So, hopefully there’s another option out there for me.
Honestly I had a OnePlus 6T for 4 years and after that started feeling slightly slow and i need it for testing at work, I now have a Pixel 7. Both the 6T and the pixel are great phones. My only regret is my own fault, i want to have a telephoto camera but thought that it’s not worth buying the pixel 7 pro for… There’s many good options out there. But i admit they are harder to find. It’s not “buy iPhone” and be done with it.
But honestly every Apple device i’ve used in the past made me dislike Apples software more and more. It’s fine as long as you aren’t used to anything else and aren’t a Poweruser i guess. But there’s just so many weird decisions in the software. And it’s all locked down to hell.
I’ll have to look into the latest androids, but I’m sure the only one that’s really a contender will be the latest Pixel. I love the option to use Graphene OS also.
Just unlock the damn bootloader and install a custom ROM.
Samsungs (at least the ones I had) don’t have unlockable bootloaders. And the pixel, well custom Roms don’t fix hardware issues.
Samsungs have unlockable bootloaders, hell, I’m typing this from a SM-P610 running LineageOS 20.
Idk all the particulars, I just know my S7 is still not bootloader unlockable, and pretty sure previous galaxy phones weren’t either. That was my last Samsung. Not sure if this was a US thing, a T-Mobile/Sprint think (who I had back then), or a Samsung thing. But HTC and Pixel phones seemed to always be unlockable.
Older devices are harder to bootloader unlock, but nowadays they make it easier. My Verizon Note 3’s unlocked too. The carrier usually makes it harder.