- Unlock bootloader (depending on vendor, you have to do an online verification),
- flash a recovery.img,
- load into recovery mode (which, depending on the phone, might need extra work)
- wipe some caches,
- select new os/rom image,
- pray it doesn’t brick your phone.
You’d think someone would’ve learned a thing or two from the easy graphical installations linux and even windows have been offering since the late 2000s.
That doesn’t really make sense. Every paragraph, except the 2nd, also applies to PCs, yet you can install a different OS.
The reason is quite simple: more money from users.
Well, PCs have been quite non changing compared to phones over the decades (not saying they don’t change but way way less).
Linux didn’t become user friendly very quickly.
PCs aren’t phones -They have different expectations and histories.
Would you ever consider buying individual parts, and building your own gaming phone?
The end result is still the same: Less consumer power,.
Absofuckinglutely yes I would.
The big phone manufacturers banded together to extinguish that modular phone startup because it would have been too good for consumers. Then they made it harder to swap out phone batteries to punish us for dreaming.
Edit for sources:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonebloks
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Ara
I assumed the non swappable batteries was to improve the waterproofing.
“Yes of course. We’re crushing orphans in our machine for their own good, because we care about orphans.”
It was to reduce the cost of making phones water resistant.
Probably similar to how manufacturers tell you it’s for your own safety and “think of children!”
The modular phone was a nice dream but IMO a fairytale dream, even Apple have had problems fitting all the needed stuff together so good luck with a Lego phone except if it’s the size of a brick.
Now it’s probably the time for a linux/free/foss phone, as IMO they start to be both standardised and actually quite enough for the moment;
My old Xiaomi 9 pro that goes used for 80€ used in mint condition has 6GB RAM 128GB storage, SD card, octo core CPU etc. That’s close to my penultimate PC. The next next next version (Xiaomi 12Pro) has about the same specs except the camera stuff.
That’s when FOSS people can start to dig into stuff, not when specs changes crazily every year.
Yes! Such a phone (that’s also sufficiently mainstream and modern) is a dream come true. I want no selfie camera, I have no use for that. I want a decent camera that’s totally inside the body (no bump, no need for 5+ cameras). I want a newest Snapdragon. I want a physical fingerprint reader. And literally no major phone manufacturer is gonna make such a phone.
Especially the Snapdragon one is pretty much incompatible with all the other things - newest Snapdragon equals whatever else is trendy, which means under screen fingerprint reader, 5+ cameras with a huge bump on the back and the tiniest possible selfie camera on the front which makes the display look uglier (I think I’ll be okay with under screen selfie cameras once they hit the mainstream).
If I got the option to buy a modular phone where all this would be as optional modules, it would be so great! I wouldn’t have to spend $1000 every time I want the newest Snapdragon and get all the other cool things I have no use for.
We would like to do that - lime we do with PCs - because we’re nerds. It would be a veeeery small market, just like people who build PCs
But then everyone’s pc was built somewhere by someone. Smartphones could use the same model. It would improve competition between specialised parts manufacture, premade units could be priced according to the sum and performance of their parts, ewaste reduction when people can upgrade only the part they want. There is a lot of consumer upside whether you build or buy premade.