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Comment by throwaway2037 | Hacker News Reader

throwaway2037

    > My Samsung Galaxy S8 died at 7 years.

Yikes, that is a long time! How many times did you fix it (screen or battery)?

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I just replaced my OnePlus 5 a couple of months ago at over 8.5 years old. No repairs needed, battery was a bit crippled in active use, especially making calls, but fine for a mostly idling phone. In idle it still lasts longer than a 1.5 year old iPhone 15. I still use it for by backup phone number SIM, as it slowly gets to ~9 years old.

The bigger issue was no more OS updates since 2020, and no Play updates since 2023. The battery can be replaced but getting a fully updated OS is more involved.

OnePlus 5 runs great with custom ROMs, including potentially ones based on mainline Linux as opposed to AOSP. (The Linux support is not as good as OP 6/6T but getting there pretty nicely.)

Too bad they have these long lists of "this doesn't work so well" and I'm too time constrained to troubleshoot for too long or dig for solutions. And I'd also need to replace the battery. It's an option for when I actually have some time.

The device integrity is a bigger deal, this is also a backup for some banking apps so if they don't work it kind of defeats the purpose. I removed all other apps to minimize the attacks surface.

If you're using it as backup for banking apps and the like I totally get not running a custom ROM on it! But you could also set that backup on something even cheaper, any one of the random not-bootloader-unlockable brands, and be left with the OP5 as a Linux phone. You're also right that the Linux support on OP5 is not up to standard yet, this is more of a question for the future if that support improves.

What's cheaper than an already existing phone that would otherwise stay unused or end up in the landfill (recycling center)? It could also be a great experimentation platform, play with Linux on the phone, but the time I have available now leaves little room for this kind of play.

The goal is not "experimentation" but having it eventually as an always up-to-date daily driver once the support for it matures. You're quite right that we're still a bit far from that, though.

Never. I am very gentle to my phones. Thing has one small dot of a scratch on the screen. Never been opened.

I have never broken a phone screen, not sure why some people think that's normal. The USB charging ports on the other hand...

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