I've been looking at phones to replace my Pixel 4a as the battery goes and it becomes increasingly silly to get it replaced instead of getting something new. I don't like huge phones, which i consider to be anything over ~6.2". Everything under that is either:
- A Google Pixel with poor efficiency, thermals, and call reliability
- A Samsung Galaxy S with a high price, locked bootloader, dodgy privacy, and bloatware
- A miscellaneous brand with abysmal software support lifespan, variable bootloader lock status, and little to no custom rom support
the ASUS Zenfone 10 would have been honestly perfect for me - sub-6" screen, headphone jack, good performance. But they just haaad to remove bootloader unlocking despite promises to the contrary so now you have to settle for one more OS update and three more years of security updates for something that costs $600+. blurgh.
Someone convince me not to be the modern Zoolander.
I can't and I won't lol
Its still a smartphone with all the baggage of that, so I'm not personally interested, but that actually seems like a pretty compelling featureset...
battery is the weak point really. If they used a weaker SoC and made it just a liiiiitle bit bigger (but still thicc) the battery could probably be a lot better.
What would be a good dumb phone contender?
https://www.sevarg.net/2023/12/30/more-flip-phone-sonim-xp3-plus/ This had me interested