Who's accessing Freetrade on the worst/oldest phone or tablet?

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Who’s accessing Freetrade on the worst/oldest phone?

or, as I prefer to phrase it - who’s maximising the economic value and environmental footprint of their handset by running it for as long as possible until it’s literally falling apart in their hand?

I’ll go first and to be clear, I’m not tight, I’m frugal!

I’m on a ZUK Z2 from mid 2016. It’s an import from India of a Chinese handset that I bought 2nd hand on eBay. It’s been dropped and submerged in water so many times and just refuses to die. I’m currently on the 3rd battery (all replaced by me) and running LineageOS just so that I can keep it on the latest version of Android. The camera is bad but the phone still gets good Antutu scores and burns through World Community Grid tasks quite happily.

As far as I can remember, official support ended with Android 7 but thanks to Lineage I’m on Android 10 right now and I wouldn’t be surprised to see 1 or 2 more big updates down the line.

Some apps are fussy and won’t work - NHS Blood Donation, Co-Operative Bank - but other banking and credit card apps either just don’t know or don’t care about how rickety and risky my custom ROM handset is.

I can’t emphasis enough how relaxing it is to have a phone that’s nearly worthless. I wouldn’t panic if it got smashed, stolen by a gibbon or fell into the sea. Like I said earlier though - and I must be getting old - because I’m bored of faffing and fighting just to keep the thing running - screw Google, iPhone here I come.

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Only thing you miss is firmware updates, but this is less of an issue than ensuring the OS is up to date. Though it’s understandable that for most people 3rd party OS’ aren’t a thing they want to deal with or know how.

I have an iPhone, first one I’ve ever had, couple years now and it’s good for a long while yet. I do a lot of computing in it though so I don’t mind spending a little more on a more powerful phone. Total cost of ownership is about £260 a year including battery replacement assuming 5 years of ownership which is about the current average for how long they support the phones.

This honestly doesn’t bother me that much. All my data is backed up, and in the case of a total loss, insurance covers it. And in the case of a minor issue, Apple store fixes it right up.

I broke my screen accidentally (the digitiser not the glass) while I was away on an island for a few days, I booked a slot in the Apple store that was on the drive home in the morning and they had it fixed (for free) in 45 minutes.

That interaction has quite possibly made me an apple user for the foreseeable future

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