Hi everyone. I’m starting to feel a bit discouraged at this point. Other than the Google pixel, I don’t seem to see any new mobile being supported by custom ROMs in the US. Samsung devices are out of the question, not much from Motorola, OnePlus decided to retract their hard-brick reversal tool, same with ASUS, and even the FP5 wasn’t released here.
How is everyone just satisfied with the Pixel? It seems as if the community is OK with just the Pixels being the only device they can install custom ROMs on. I don’t even see much discussion in the community about this; I realise that mobiles like the Murena 2 exist, and someone can spend a lot of money to purchase the Librem mobiles, but let’s be honest here: do you really expect Google to allow people to keep unlocking their bootloader forever?
What happens when one day Google decides to not let people create custom ROMs for their devices? Will the custom ROM community just die? Are there no alternatives for those of us in the US?
Sorry for my phrasing, I just realised that I don’t have a real choice in the matter with how mobiles are these days.
A lot of Xiaomi phones have custom ROM support, I also got a Nothing Phone 1 recently and that has custom ROM support as well. Google Pixels are far from the only ones.
The EU has better options, including the FP5. I’m in the US though
There’s a difference?
Xiaomi mobiles are not available in the US. Neither are Huawei or Oppo. Our options are Google, Samsung, OnePlus and maybe some other phones.
Did the US ban all phones from China? I thought it was just Huawei.
The only ones I can see are OnePlus
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Only supported till 2026 though. They brought it here a bit too late
Only officially supported. Community handover may well take place here.
I mean what do you expect us to do? We have 0 power but to choose what’s available. I didn’t really choose pixel but after spending a week or 2 researching, it was obvious its the only choice available to me. I believe nothing also allow you to run custom ROM without voiding warranty but the latest model didn’t have any ROM I wanted.
Which mobile are you talking about when you say “the latest model”?
The problem as I see it, is the lack of discourse around the situation on Android forums (granted, I haven’t looked that far into obscure sources/boards). The vast majority just seems OK about relying on Google for this. What are we going to do when Google shuts us out?
Nothing being the name of the phone company, latest model referring to whatever their newest model is
Nothing is a phone company made by ex owner of oneplus with nothing phone 2 being their latest model. And for the other one, nothing as well. We cant do anything but suck it up when google says fuck u but with a such a significant user base buying it for the custom ROM its unlikely. If they still choose to do it for some reason we literally can’t do anything and they definitely don’t give a shot about what a small group of people shout at them from distance. And if u really want something else, you should be the one putting in some effort. You can’t just ask people to riot at a bunch of companies with no focus and sit by the sidelines but as I said, it will not get anywhere. It sucks but reality often is disappointing.
ASUS is getting out of phones though, not surprising they get crappier with support.
Wouldn’t community support always lag product releases?
Sorry for my phrasing, I just realised that I don’t have a real choice in the matter with how mobiles are these days.
Yes, it’s frustrating.
Is Sony available in the US? They issue unlock keys from their website based on the IMEI, and you can install any GSI ROM in theory. What they lack is a custom recovery, but you can work around it.
Yes, Sony mobiles are indeed available, however, I lament their pricing and their share of the market everyday. Also, very little custom ROM support.
Technically, if I had a way to install security patches alongside KernelSU, I’d just wait for a year and purchase the newest OnePlus with a kernel over 5.10. But I don’t know if that is possible.
