DPReview.com is closing April 10th - Find out more

I love my phone, but ….

Started Jun 28, 2021 | Discussions thread
I2K4
I2K4 Senior Member • Posts: 1,441
Re: I love my phone, but ….
3

My experience has been that Google and third-party apps are supported in the Play Store for about five years from the release of an Android version. A "Lollipop" Android 5.1 phone I use for sat/nav in the car (spares main phone battery) is still getting updates for all the apps on it. Android functions perfectly on it. Meanwhile an old "Jellybean" Android 4.3 tablet used as a bookshelf clock and photo display has lost most app support. My criterion for replacing good devices has been a) the battery craps out and is too expensive to replace, and b) Play Store support for apps I actually use dries up.

Security vulnerabilities in Android have nearly all been malware from bad apps installed from bad places - version updates are highly over-hyped as a matter of security (that said, since I side-load some APKs I always run a well-ranked malware scanner, currently BitDefender free.)

It's worth noting that some Android "upgrades" have been real dogs, while others have been improvements. Android K unforgivably tried to murder microSD functionality, that was gradually restored in later versions. Android O neatly reduced the bloated footprint of Android N by a full Gigabyte of internal storage and sped up the system, but then Android P took it from around 6GB to over 11GB, with very little noticeable functional change.  So be careful what's wished for, in case you get it.

Keyboard shortcuts:
FForum PPrevious NNext WNext unread UUpvote SSubscribe RReply QQuote BBookmark MMy threads
Color scheme? Blue / Yellow