Google Pixel 5a (2022)
Selecting a Budget Phone

I was curious about the 175 LineageOS (LOS) images available: what kinds of phones are being supported? This report is phrased as a mock selection for a family on a budget replacing their cellphones. I'm biasing the selection towards lower priced phones, and am avoiding putting a lot of work into evaluating each one. Information is being collected on 2022-05-06.

Requirements

• Limited budget. Target is USD $400 each; anything over $700 is excluded because there's no chance we will spend that much. We're not going to get tangled up with a carrier subsidized phone.

• The limit on inception is 3 years past (2019-05-xx).

• 99.9% of use will be in the USA. But international roaming is a plus.

• Procurement from USA sources. Amazon is our preferred reseller but phones available only from other resellers will not be rejected.

• Refurbished equipment can be considered but this evaluation will be on new ones.

• 5G capability is hoped for. 4G (LTE) is required. A phone limited to 3G is rejected because carriers are junking 3G in our area. Many phones' international models, including both surviving candidates in this list, have an unexplained incompatibility with particular carriers that prevents them from attempting VoLTE (voice over LTE), forcing them into voice over 3G, but a reviewer reports that with the right combination of hacks and carrier, VoLTE works fine. There are similar issues, with the same carriers, when an international model attempts 5G.

• It must have a LineageOS build. We're not going to rely on the carrier for belated or nonexistent system updates and we prefer some features in AOSP (Android Open Source Project) over OEMs' or carriers' heavy-handed attempts at product differentiation. Chinese brands will come with Chinese censorship and surveillance software, which we will not tolerate.

• Open ecosystem is required, no vendor lock. This excludes the Apple iPhone product line. So do the price, and the LOS requirement.

• Most likely, in each OEM's offering we'll evaluate the most recent one with LOS. We'll only evaluate an older version if it's clearly good and isn't beyond our age limit.

• Kids will be using these phones. A good IP rating counts for a lot. Rugged construction is important.

Phones to Consider

Looking at phones with LOS images and that meet the other criteria. Unfeasible ones (e.g. not sold in the USA) are in an appendix. It turns out that only four phone models meet criteria and only two are priced within our range.

Notes:

• The SOC in all four is a Qualcomm Snapdragon. Model number is shown, and the number of cores in the CPU component.
• The GPU component of the SOC is a Qualcomm Adreno, model number is shown.
• The number of rear cameras is reported. All have one front camera. Details of the cameras are not shown because capabilities of the cameras are not going to drive this selection; all cameras will be excellent for our purpose.
• Both the Xiaomi Poco X3 Pro and the Google Pixel 5a (international versions) have issues with VoLTE on particular carriers, making it fall back to voice over 3G, if the carrier hasn't discontinued it yet. Amazon reviewer Brendan shares a hack for the Xiaomi Poco X3 Pro that got VoLTE working with his carrier. AT&T is frequently mentioned as having this problem, and T-Mobile isn't. The CDMA carriers Verizon and Sprint (now owned by T-Mobile) are off limits for the international models of both phones. A USA Pixel 5a is available in the Google Store, but I have my doubts that a USA model of the Xiaomi Poco X3 Pro even exists.

Conclusion

The ASUS ZenFone 8 and the OnePlus 9 are too expensive for this scenario. The Google Pixel 5a gives you a lot of phone for the price. The Xiaomi Poco X3 Pro also gives a lot of value for the price, but one step downward: no 5G. The purchaser needs to make very sure that either of these phones will work on their preferred carrier's net. The author has personal experience that the Pixel 5a (USA version) can do VoLTE and 5G on T-Mobile, whereas quite a number of Amazon reviewers can't make the international version work on AT&T and related virtual network operators, and similarly for many other phones including the Xiaomi Poco X3 Pro. While LTE data works, both VoLTE and 5G are affected.

Ancient or Unavailable Phones

These OEMs have issues so that their offerings could not be considered. A major goal of LineageOS is to provide a modern Android operating system for once-popular phones no longer supported by their vendors, including security patches. However, it's a fact of life that for each product OEMs pick a kernel version with long term support, and never upgrade. LTS kernels get backported security fixes (as long as LTS lasts) and LOS includes them.