11 mo. ago • 88%

Can a Five Year Old Phone Compete Today? How Far has Android Come Since the LG V50?

Well sure, a 5 year old phone will lose most of these performance comparisons against modern phones, but will it lose badly enough for consumers to care?

48 comments

I wish my old phones would work that long. Performance usually isn't the problem. It's hardware degradation. Battery dying. Ports wearing out. Boot loops and crashing.

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- I'm still running my Galaxy s4 with LineageOS. It's on it's third battery but works good otherwise. Doesn't have the power of newer phones but all I need is a phone/email/text system, and the IR blaster is nice for controlling my tv/amp. I plan to run this thing until either it dies or I do.
  
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- My Pixel 4a is still going strong!
  
  ...Google has unfortunately ended software support for it...
  
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  You can put a custom ROM on it and get the latest version of android
  
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According to my earliest photo taken, I got my current phone about 5,5 years ago. It still runs perfectly fine and I have yet to encounter performance problems on any app I have used. Haven't even used up more than 50% of its memory. The battery still holds the entire day. Why would I ever get another phone until it breaks? Granted, I don't play any games besides the occasional handheld emulation on long train rides and I'm on an outdated android version, that's not supported anymore I believe.

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I have a few old phones that still work great. Yes Google might pull their support on the phone because it has an old version of android but you can always use fdroid or side load apps.

I have a couple of old phones here. A 10 year old phone that is used as a bedside alarm and flashlight when needed. The other is a 6 year old phone that is used as a practice device of loading custom ROMs and jail breaking purposes.

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- I use an old phone as a camera for my 3d printer as well. They can also be used to run octopi provided they have otg usb
  
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The problem is vendor support. As soon as a device stop receiving OS and baseband security patches, it becomes potentially insecure.

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- I'll extend that to parts support. Beyond accidents, batteries in typical daily use wear out beyond usable after 3-4 years. So vendor software and parts support.
  
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Phones were already far more powerful than what most people needed back then so I'm not surprised that, performance wise, they still hold up.

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- How much speed do you need to read lemmy?
  
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  Depends on the community /s
  
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Juan is that really you? 🤩

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- It is 😊
  
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  You've just made my day!
  
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Still using a 6.5 years old iPhone 7. Can't fine a downside, still runs perfectly well. The only thing that needed a replacement is its battery. I hope it holds for another 4.5 years (with battery replacements).

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Currently using a 4-year-old galaxy note 10 and I love it.

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- 10+ here as well, and I bought mine on swappa used. Works just fine for me...why the hell do I want to carry around a 1k+ device in my pocket... especially one that's pretty fragile.
  
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  I use it because I broke my S22U and I'm too lazy to get if fixed :p
  
  But rooted Lineage is soooo much better than oneUI
  
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My oneplus 7 Pro is almost 5 years old and it's still snappy and works just fine with what I want to do on it.

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- I've gone back to using my 7 Pro this week as the Fold 4 I upgraded to needs to be repaired only a year after I got it. It works perfectly fine still, and the popup camera is still popping up 4 years later. I had to flash Lineage OS on it to get Android 13 though since the last update OnePlus pushed out was Android 12 and I really disliked their new skin.
  
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I'm still using a 4 year old Xiaomi Mi Max 3...

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I'm using a v60 and really don't want to give it up. I'll probably try a battery swap before buying any of the new crap on the market.

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My Samsung s9+ with Evolver Android 13 custom rom (and duo sim) is still a very good phone. Amoled screen, good camera and battery life still over a day when setting the brightness not too high. Not a scratch on it too. I don't use it daily though as it is a very big phone, but I take it when going out or on holiday because the camera on my iPhone SE is crap and as you mention for gaming.

I have been repairing tons of these phones here in the Netherlands and it is just a very solid phone that is very easy to repair. The s10 for instance comes with a single board instead of sub and mainboard like the s8 and s9 series, so when something is wrong with a USB, like not charging or connecting to PC or the mic doesn't work the board get's scrapped for usable components and these components come back on refurfed boards that we get back from Samsung (those are often a pain in the ass prone to not pass the quality checks after repair).

I still use an iPad 2 for making music and as MIDI controller for the Home Studio, I just dislike to throw away perfectly good hardware, as is my s9+

Thanks for posting.

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My daily driver handset was released in 2014...

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My current phone is 4 years and 3 months, remind me in 9 months and I'll tell you if it's still cool.

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Laughs in LG v10...

Maybe it IS time for a new phone!

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Consumers will buy what they're told.

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Great video Juan. Your last point about lazy reviewers is why you're the only phone reviewer (he does way more than review phones people) in my subscriptions. And as far as android content goes, it's only Android Faithful & In Depth Tech Reviews. It's frustrating seeing reviewers increasingly go the pay to play route and often not even disclosing the fact their "review" is really just a commercial.

I was hoping to see more recommendations in the comments but I'm sure that'll come in time.

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I was using my samsung S7 until the power button fell off a year and a half ago. Yes I would still be using it today if that didn't happen. I was still using it for like 6 months after too.

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I made the mistake of buying an international V20 model at the beginning of 2018, which didn't have VoLTE capability. When they started shutting down 3g networks here it could no longer make phone calls. :( If it weren't for that I'd still be rocking it

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I'm using an LG K9 right now. Works ok, but I'd prefer a smaller screen

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