Otter: Portrait of Selen
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Google Pixel 5a (2022)
Selecting a Budget Phone

Jim Carter, 2022-04-17

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

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.

Mkt NameZenFone 8 Pixel 5a OnePlus 9 Poco X3 Pro
OEM ASUS Google OnePlus Xiaomi
Chassis sake barbet lemonade vayu
Inception2021-05-12 2021-08-xx 2021-03-26 2021-03-21
SOC x cores 888 x8 765G x8 888 x8 732G x8
GPU 660 620 660 640
Display AMOLED 150mmAMOLED 161mmAMOLED LCD 169mm
Size 1080x2400px 1080x2340px 1080x2400px
Cameras 2 2 3
Does 5G? Yes Yes No
SD card? Yes No Yes
Battery 4000mAh 4680mAh 5160mAh
Price $700 ASUS $449 Google $730 Amazon $306 Amazon

Notes:

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.

BQ Out of business in 2020.
Essential Out of business in 2020.
F(x)tec Pro1 runs Ubuntu Touch. Not much information about the phone.
Fairphone fp3 2019-09-xx, Qc 632 x8, Adreno 506, display 160mm 1080x2160?, 3060mAh. 439 euros, not sold in USA.
LeEco Chinese company, in financial trouble as of 2018.
Lenovo No new phones. Also owns ZUK and Motorola brands.
LG LG has killed its line of phones, around 2022-03-29.
Motorola The Motorola brand is currently(?) held by Lenovo; information is confused because of business deals involving this brand. The newest Moto phone with a LOS image is the Z3 Play Beckham, 2018-06-xx. Too old.
Nextbit Bought by Razer in 2017.
Nokia Information is hard to get; Nokia is no longer a major player.
Nubia Chinese company, LOS is available for the Mini 5G TP1803. Information is hard to get, like how old it is, but either this or a later model shows news around 2021-05-xx, with prices in Indian rupees.
Razer Razer Phone 2 aura is not available on Amazon; marketing seems to be targeted at India and Australia.
Samsung The Galaxy S10 series beyond0lte, beyond2lte, etc, announced on 2019-02-20, are the newest with LOS images. This is at our limit of ancientness. LOS builds for more recent Samsung phones seem to not be happening.
SHIFT German, not marketed in USA.
Sony The Sony Xperia product line seems to have dwindled out of existence in 2021-22.
ZUK Taken over by Lenovo.
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