3w ago

How often do I have to buy a new pixel if I fully degoogle with GrapheneOS? A support question

still deciding to fully degoogle with GOS or muddling through with what I have (proprietary, data grabbing and bloated).

To understand the question, compare with my main hardware with debian on it: a regular notebook I bought in 2016 and I've used heavily for all kinds of stuff: working, writing papers, downloading and playing media including AV1, editing audio, torrenting...

One of the best investments I ever made, considering what I paid and how prices nowadays are. Debian offers regular upgrades and I don't have to check if my hardware is going to support the software on a level comparable with android devices (GOS only runs on pixels, other open-source, privacy focused Android operating systems have similar hardware restrictions).

I want this kind of ROI for the device I buy and the software I use, but I don't know if that's possible:

GOS drops support for older pixels but I don't know how many years any particular device is supported by GOS: 3 years? not enough. There's no way I'm buying a new pixel every 3 years. I'd even consider 6 years restrictive.

34 comments

GrapheneOS supports a phone model for as long as Google officially does. You can see the support lifetime of each model here: https://endoflife.date/pixel
If you want to keep an updated phone constantly, you'd have to upgrade every 7 years.
- This link is also important.
  https://grapheneos.org/faq#device-lifetime
  Generally speaking, the answer is 7-15 years by combining these two sources.
  
  There's nothing in that link to indicate 15 years. OEM support means Google's support, not graphene's. GrapheneOS does usually offer a few harm reduction releases beyond the official support timeline, but that's a few months of extra time, not years.
  
  7-15 years by combining these two sources
  What? How are you getting to the 15 year number?
- Just an FYI for those who think like this. I DID TOO.
  Your cellular chip and network carrier will often phase out your frequency bands 2 to 3 years before the 7 year mark. Thus your service (internet/data) will not work long before your device loses updates. You will get fed up with your device and buy another pixel roughly every 3 generations to keep with reliable internet connectivity.
  
  This has not been my experience, at least on a 4G device. My internet/data still work fine on a 5 year old device.
  
  Not a pixel owner but I have a one plus 7 (so 6 years old phone) and I don't experience any problem with internet or data. Why would the frequency band change so often ?
  
  Nope. 8 years after release, mine still has network service and still works well.
  
  The US? I'm using my Redmi 4x (2017 model).
Imho pixels fucking suck. Repairability is really bad, so as soon as anything has issues you need a need phone. I would say the answer to your question heavily depends on your daily battery life requirements. If you wanna stretch the phones overall life, set a 70-80% charging limit to damage the cells less. (If that is even possible with the new models idk, you didnt specify yours...) If you treat it well and turn off all the battery sucking toggles to extend the time before needing to charge, then 4-5 years might be doable.
I tried Graphene for a bit but ultimately couldnt put up with pixel devices anymore and went to calyxos on a fairphone. Not having a swappable battery or extendable storage is just not fun. If you want a 10 year phone get a fairphone. The 6 just came out and is very well priced in the EU.
- https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/24134-devices-lacking-standard-privacysecurity-patches-and-protections-arent-private
  
  Some of the mentioned things are real issues, but normal users dont care about physical security. If your physical security is threatened, then your failure point will be a pipe wrench.
  
  Yeah, this is so sad that most phones do not follow good security practices.
Not on Graphene, but on Lineage i keep my devices around 7 - 8 years. Then they are too behind to care for a cracked screen.
GOS is limited by upstream support. Newer devices can be up to 6 years.
The biggest problem will be that depending on the country you live in, you simply won't find the battery to replace it and there is simply no reliable parallel brand for the Google Pixel. iFixit sells the original battery but does not ship to any country
imho lineageos is ok enough for privacy and older android versions still remain usable. so I still have a 2013 phone that does everything I need.
sure it might be insecure but I just do less with it.
- Well, divestos was cool while it lasted. Now I have to use lineage.

34 comments