It seems that the motherboard is dead, and that it’s a common issue with the 5a and I “should’ve known better,” despite it being impossible to find decent information on phones these days.
I got it because it was the last Pixel with a headphone jack, and because it had good official LineageOS support. But I compromised: giving up the SD slot was tough for me, and now that I’ve been burned by not having one (I typically auto-backup my Signal history and other things to the SD card) I don’t want to get another phone without it.
But the landscape seems bleak. The vast majority of phones that are officially supported by LineageOS are Pixels. It’s impossible to find easy information on which phones have non-official LOS ROMs. Search results are useless these days, and I also keep running into an issue where after researching a phone for half an hour I discover that it has some arcane process to unlock the bootloader that doesn’t always work, and the forum posters imply that the purchasers “should’ve known better.” I’m just at my wit’s end.
If anyone can suggest something that has decent deGoogled ROM support with the following features, I’d be very grateful:
- OLED screen (a must-have for my photosensitivity)
- SD card slot
- I am willing to give up the headphone jack in order to expand my options
I absolutely despise it when people say “should have known better” when companies mess up. Not everyone is going to spend weeks researching obscure information before buying a phone.
Ah yes, but it is the job of you, the consumer, to make sure you educate yourself about the products you buy. As the manufacturer, it’s not my job to tell you anything about my product; except what I am legally responsible for divulging. It’s your fault dear consumer, you didn’t do your due diligence. Now, let me sell you another. /S
You had me in the first half.
It’s like when I got a Moto G4 just to realise it didn’t have a compass
Wait, not every phone has compass hardware?
That’s what I thought too.
I would have never even thought of checking that. That’s very surprising.
Sounds like OP was aware the 5a had a known higher failure rate, ignored the reports and bought one anyway. Just doing a search for Pixel 5a comes up with results about motherboard failures. I’ve never seen that while searching for phones, so it must have been a significant issue with the 5a.
Someone looking for flashable phones is going to run into these results while choosing a device. I know everything about the phones I have - it’s part of choosing a device.
I wouldn’t buy a 5a knowing there’s a higher-than-usual failure rate.
I should’ve known better when I flashed a phone and bricked it by not following proper procedure - I knew the risk and ignored it, like OP.
Uh, no. I had no idea that the phone had issues. You are the kind of person I’m alluding to in the post.
As someone who thinks that “all” phones should have headphone jacks and that sustainability is a precious thing : https://www.sustaphones.com
- And not sure if this suits your needs but Murena sells new and refurbished DeGoogled phones : https://murena.com/products/smartphones/
Sadly Murena only sells two models in Canada, one of which is the Pixel 5.
As someone who has given up, I admire your patience and persistence.
Have you considered https://grapheneos.org/ ? A cursory look has me considering a jump back in to the de-googled world.
I tried GrapheneOS. They don’t have a black theme, and they refuse to add it as an option. I immediately flashed LOS over it.
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It’s grey, not black. LineageOS has this option. Google removed it (of course) because now, after ten years of having it, all of a sudden they think that having white text on a black background causes “smearing” when you scroll, and they need to save users from this. Nevermind that some of us want the option.
Sorry this doesn’t directly answer your question, but I start with the supported phone list at Lineage then use www.gsmarena.com and www.phonearena.com to compare specs and release date.
This goes into a spreadsheet so I can sort/filter by specific features (in your case, headphone, SD slot, etc). Makes comparing easier.
From what I’ve seen, generally the unlockable phones (other than Pixel) come from Motorola, Sony, Xperia (there are others, those just seem to be the most prolific).
I’m currently working with Pixel 5’s - I like the price point and size, and the simple flashing. Plus there’s an image from DivestOS (a version of Android based on Lineage that’s a little more security-minded, kind of between Lineage and Graphene).
How flashing is done could be a useful metric in your spreadsheet - some phones are rather straightforward (e.g. fastboot flashing unlock), while others require a separate app with (looking at you, Samsung).
This is basically what I’ve been doing. But every time I find something that seems like a decent option, it’s unavailable to purchase. I was interested in the Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro despite them being a bit older until I couldn’t actually find one. I can find the Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro and newer, and of course they aren’t supported. It’s just so frustrating.
And the Pixels don’t have an SD slot and seem to have bad problems with dying randomly based on discussion I saw on Reddit, so I’m not excited to try them again.
My old go-to was the Moto line, but they’re so expensive now for what you get. $450 + shipping + import fees, for a Moto G from two years ago? When I bought a brand new one on release day in 2015 for $200? I just can’t bring myself to do it, not when it only has 4GB of RAM. The Pixel 5a had 6GB and already had lag even running a very lean ROM.
Yea, I run into the same problem.
Pixel 5 has become my current choice, but dammit they’re hard to find.
Those prices for Moto are insane. I’m sure part of the problem is few phones meet your requirements (definitely my issue too). So there’ll be fewer available used.
Why not get a new pixel phone? They all support GrapheneOS
No microSD card slot
Fairphones then.
If anyone has other recommendations that don’t precisely match OP’s needs, I’ll also be in the market soon.
IMO pixel phones are still the best for security an degoogling with grepheneOS also you should look into the downsides of having a customOS like linage that unlock your bootloader and can root your phone. They are worse for security then a regular phone.
So I think newest pixel with graphene OS is the best option still as they are the only phones that use the titan chip
You already said you’re willing to give up the headphone jack. That’s a good start, since there’s fewer and fewer models being manufactured with it every year. May I recommend you give up the sd card slot as well?
Straight out the gate: sd cards suck and will betray you at the worst time. It’s not their fault, they’re possibly the only kind of storage you can still buy that doesn’t have a controller. Just raw doggin blocks through a set of spring contacts in a high vibration environment. Into a flash with no over provisioning capability.
But you’re using it as a backup. That’s no good! It’s like using a spinning hard drive as backup but then shaking it around and fucking with the cable while it’s doing its thing (it’s actually worse because the ata standard has a bunch of ways of dealing with that, the drive itself has a cache and the ability to say “woah there, hold up” to the host and is overprovisioned so it can silently automatically deal with bad or damaged blocks.)
If you can, back up to something else instead and verify your backups. If you got a computer you can use it, you could also use a cloud service or something. It still feels weird to call something as simple as sftp a cloud service but whatever.
Good luck.
I do back up to my computer. But not every day, like I can with an SD card. I’ve never had an SD card fail on me, and having one has saved me when my Note 4 memory died. Having one makes it easier to transfer data between phones.
I’ve already given up removable batteries and headphone jacks. Why do I have to give up every single feature that used to be considered a basic necessity? Why should I spend so much money upfront for storage that I may not need, when I could easily expand it with an SD card if I need for much cheaper down the line?
I already tried a phone without an SD card slot and look where it got me. Installing the custom ROM was a pain. Transferring my data was a pain. The motherboard died with no warning, and now I’ve lost 2 months worth of data. I’m not doing this again.
i swear i’m not saying this to chastise you, but not every day and two months is a big gap. if you don’t want to spend the cash for phones with sd cards that are supported by lineage and backing up to pc every couple of days isn’t feasible, why not use a usb storage doohicky to back it up? you can get an m2 usb enclosure cheap nowadays and they’re small enough to fit into a pocket.
those m2 drives have all the stuff that most sd cards don’t and they’re cheap as heck.
i hesitate to recommend a usb flash drive as a good backup option because they sometimes suffer from all the problems of sd and there’s been an identity crisis going on with them for the last few years.
another option is some kind of cloud backup. most people trying to degoogle are wary of cloud services but there is proton’s thing, others that i’m not really keeping up with and hosting your own, which could be as simple as sftp to your trusty computer at home with key based auth and a high port forwarded on the router.
you don’t have to give up every single feature that used to be considered a basic necessity. you are choosing to. between the sd, price, age and lineage support (and you want it to be good lineage support, not some one off mess), you have set a very high bar.
i know that you said sd never caused you a problem before. that’s great! it’s not a very good idea to rely on sd as a storage expansion though for all the reasons i already mentioned.
Listen, I didn’t remember to take my medication this morning because my phone didn’t remind me to do it. I have to schedule my entire life with reminders in order to function; manually backing up twice a year when I’ve never had to before is pretty freaking good. The storage medium isn’t the problem. I have plenty of disk space on my computer. I need an AUTOMATIC solution that doesn’t rely on my plugging in something, and that doesn’t rely on a cloud subscription. Preferably not on having a data connection at all, because I often don’t have one.
I don’t need official LineageOS support. I mentioned in the post that I was looking at phones without it. I’ve had one on a community LOS build before and I was happy enough with it.
SD cards have worked for me for over a decade. I don’t have any of the problems you mention.
I get that I’m going to come across as rude for these comments, but I really don’t think I’m asking for too much here. I’m asking for two basic features that I need for accessibility reasons, one of which used to be ubiquitous. I’m willing to pay a pretty high price for a phone, but I need it to last. I’ve thrown away too much money over the last three years on a revolving door of phones that failed again and again for reasons beyond my control. I’m at my wit’s end, here. I used to buy a 2-year-old flagship for half of its original MSRP, throw LOS on it, and have no issues for 4 years or so. Now I can barely find a phone that can run LOS, and it fails within the year. I’m tired. Every time I have to set up a new phone it’s a huge ordeal. I’m disabled. I don’t have the energy to do this every 6 months for the rest of my life.
You’re not coming across as rude. A lot of what you just said was kinda implied by your tone and description of the situation.
Tbh it sounded a lot like me about twelve years ago when my phone died and I had to restore from an older backup. Given, the backup was only a week old but I was running hot back then and lost a lot of conversations and stuff. So it’s not out of a need to chastise you but instead from recognition that that kind of thing sucks and a desire to help.
what you’re talking about sounds very familiar. I rely on notifications for everyday stuff too and you might not but I get distracted easily and forget to do important things.
I moved out of cell service range about a decade ago. I was able to get by before there was internet at the house with a cloud based backup system and relying on always stopping for a long morning coffee at a place with free WiFi that was in cell service range. Five years ago they put a tower up so I don’t have to do that any more.
My recommendation to figure out how to get away from sd was not just because it’s an awful storage medium that fails silently and leaves you in the lurch, but also because it’s not ever gonna get easier to find phones with sd support. You said yourself it’s getting harder and harder every time this happens and you need to prioritize reliability.
If you’re willing to figure out a different way of handling your automatic backups I think you can get a reliable phone, it’s only gonna get harder, more expensive and more frustrating otherwise.
If you want, and when you have time, I can help you figure out how to get to a situation where you don’t have to do this every couple years.
5a had an extended warranty because this is a known issue. I got a new replacement 6a for free from Google, when I contacted them about it. If the MB is fried, they should still replace it even though you rooted / degoogled, they won’t be able to turn it on to even see anyway. This was roughly a year ago. Might not still be a thing.
I share your pain… No solutions for you however, sorry
If you don’t mind getting an older used phone, then the Samsung A52s might be a good choice.
Its, OLED, has an SD slot, and has a headphone jack.
Also, apparently Lineage OS supports this device. https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/a52sxq/
The other option is to get another Pixel and install Graphese. Though they don’t come with an SD slot.
So far this is the only thing I can actually find, so it might have to be what I go with if I insist on not getting a Pixel again. My last Samsung was a pain to flash, but I’ve heard that Odin is a thing of the past so hopefully it’ll be easier this time.
Don’t buy Exyonos phones. They are full of weird incompatibilities and quirks. I’ve returned my A52 because once someone sent me a movie from their phone and I couldn’t play it because the hardware didn’t support some obvious codec.
The S10 line of phones might be something to look for as well. They do have a headphone jack and a SD card slot.
if they’re getting an S10, they should not get a US or Exynos chip versions. The US versions are bootloader locked and can’t be unlocked and the exynos version are bad perfomance wise. If they can get their hands on Chinese or Hong Kong released versions, those have snapdragon chips and can be unlocked.
Hm, that would probably be a challenge, might not be worth it.
I’m using an S10e with the Exynos chip since recently, and I think it runs great. The problem is that I was coming from a 5 and a half year old Huawei phone, and most phones offer a better experience than that so I’m not sure if I can really give a good performance estimate.
The Redmi Note 10 Pro has all you are asking for and is supported by custom roms.
I’m using crdroid on it.
Had a similar issue as did one of my friends with pixels, which is unfortunate as grapheneos is one hell of a operating system.
After having 2 different pixels break (planned obsolescence) I ended up settling for a fairphone (which I can easily repair and replace parts myself with e/os - but divestOS also looks promising.
Have you looked at what sony has to offer? They latest xperia had a headphone jack, sd card and I believe lineageOS support.
i installed lineageOS on an xperia 5 ii, so older model, and seems to be going strong. got latest update 1 week ago.
Are you talking about phones like the Xperia 5 IV?
They have unlockable bootloaders and AOSP ROM support?
Aye, they have unlockable bootloaders and sony also provides instructions and firmware needed to build your own AOSP if that’s your pleasure. I just went the lineageOS way.
That’s wonderful to hear. Do they support relockable bootloaders with self signed keys? If so, that makes em possible to use with projects like GrapheneOS, CalyxOS
I’ve no idea on the relockable bootloader support with self signed keys. Though I do remember reading at some point from some lad ranting about why it’s a bad idea to relock, and seemed to make sense, so I didn’t look further into the matter. The post was on the… ehm… other website.
Relocking is ideal for system integrity, you can have full verified boot support on ROMs like graphene
They haven’t been sold in Canada for years, and when I went looking for them on eBay the prices were ridiculous, if they were available at all. Most of the time I look for a model, there simply aren’t any listings.
That’s a damn shame. I really liked their phones, their only downside, I think, was the crap support - they only give 2 years of updates. But with lineage that is no longer an issue.
They were the only option for a smaller phone for a long time as well, but sadly not available here… :(
I was going to say the OnePlus Nord N200 because it has official lineage 20, but it’s only got an LCD display so that won’t work out for you.
