Welcome to Xiaomi officially costlier than Samsung

Do you happen to feel out-of-date with Android modding at times? It happens to me quite often, and until recently, the two topics I really wanted to tackle were SafetyNet and microG. Guidance on the internet can often be unclear due to changes between Android versions, ROMs and Google's backend, so it feels quite awesome to have a working setup. The short guide I wrote very likely applies to your own device too, but make sure to have signature spoofing support in your ROM.

Noteworthy fact and something unexpected from Xiaomi: you only gotta pay just 600 CNY (a bit under 100$!) to move from 8/256GB config to 16GB/1TB one. I believe that demand for high storage configurations could be artificially low due to typically high margins set by the phone OEMs on any non-basic and especially highest configurations.

https://blog.mollywhite.net/is-acceptably-non-dystopian-self-sovereign-identity-even-possible/

As Worldcoin is kinda trending again (and offered as a solution to high quality AI spam), here's a very relevant post regarding it.

News are saying that supposedly Gen Z is into feature phones now to limit their screen time. I won't elongate this message, but it's worth remembering that with a feature phone, the security risks of ancient devices and obvious/less obvious schemes of monetizing the user on newer feature phones are a real thing (including outright malware lending your phone number on sketchy brands). The latter may additionally get you poor build quality and software that runs slower than you'd expect.

Buy a first gen iPhone SE. It'll probably keep getting patches for zero click exploits once in a while, while the form factor was already insufficient to consider it a full fledged smartphone at the moment of release. :)

Additionally, you'll probably never run out of replacement parts for this phone. Apple is an ecological choice not really because of their own will, but because of the humongous volume of the few models they sell. For a third party component maker, making parts for an iPhone is an obvious choice, as long as they're not DRM-ed to extreme levels.

Ah, I'd forget. To be secured against 2G and its issues, you practically need LTE and VoLTE, as high chance your country is already phasing out 3G, while we all know how calls and SMS work on VoLTE-less devices, right? They switch to 2G/3G, whichever is available.

Slight disclaimer, as corrected by a friend:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/72043231/is-sms-over-ims-that-important

Some (if not most) carriers will let you get an SMS on LTE without reliance on IMS, but the original point stands, unless you're confident in not needing to receive a call and your device lets you be LTE-only despite absence of VoLTE.

Impressed to see an informative teardown for something as "simple" as a charger:
https://www.chargerlab.com/teardown-of-original-125w-gan-charger-for-motorola-edge-30-ultra-mc-1258/

A relevant thing to say: it isn't fast chargers making your device unnecessarily hot, it's your device asking for brutal amounts of wattage. The protocols are good enough, but chargers just provide what they're asked to provide by device. Implementing user controllable charging speed is on OEMs.

I wouldn't want to hurt the economy of niche Android OEMs nor the idea of long term device reliability, both as an end user and someone who'd want to participate in the market. But there's a topic that felt off to me for a while.

You've bought a Fairphone 3 in 2019 for 450€. In 2023, before buying Fairphone 4:
- You have a 4 years old 3000 mAh battery (unless you spent 30€ on a spare one)
- You're running Android 11, unless you're on Android 13 beta or it's June, when stable build is meant to be released
- The device size compared to screen size feels wrong whenever you look around on devices of mortals around you
- Your camera is 1/2.55" format IMX363, unless you spent 60€ on 1/2.25" format S5KGM1 (which is a budget sensor) from FP3+
- Your warranty expired in 2021
- Your storage is 64GB of eMMC and your RAM is 4GB of LPDDR3

What would happen if instead you decided to buy two mainstream phones to use during the same timespan? Let's see:

You've bought a Moto G8 Plus in 2019 for 270€. Comparing to FP3 in 2021, before buying Moto G60:
- You have a better SoC
- You have a bigger battery
- You have a modern form factor
- You have a more interesting camera setup
- Your warranty ends, you can probably sell the device around 100€, 120€ doesn't sound impossible

So, in 2021, you buy a Motorola G60 for 300€. In 2023, before buying a next device of your choice:
- You get a much modern SoC than FP3 and 128GB of UFS storage
- You get an even newer form factor
- You get a 120 Hz display
- You get a bigger battery again
- You're on Android 12, it didn't omit you
- Your warranty is ending, but FP3 one was lost two years ago


All of that is a scenario limited to a rather sensible OEM, not known from being worse than Fairphone when it comes to user experience. Stuff like worker wages and mineral sourcing matters, but Fairphone isn't transparent enough about it, their consumers have to rely on trust that it isn't just greenwashing. In the end, one can make a few conclusions:
- The time they support their devices for looks alright, but they need to be faster, especially when SoC isn't EOL-ed yet by the vendor
- As much as their extended warranty on FP4 impacts the example above, the questionable decision of minijack removal forces an accessory change on the user
- The per unit price margin they operate on may need to be lowered to always permit sourcing of the components with longest availability and longest vendor support
- If the above is already done, an end user price that can better compete with two phones, half the price scenario seems necessary – FP4 is currently at 580€, and it's likely to fail even more in this kind of comparison

Image credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/fairphone/48858510338/

Do you remember the days when sliding on an address bar or a different slim text input didn't cause instant cursor movement and you didn't have to stretch your thumb to the edge of display to simply scroll the text? Turns out using cmd device_config put widget CursorControlFeature__enable_cursor_drag_from_anywhere false in an adb/root shell brings back the pre-R behavior without needing a source patch. Credit goes to @nift4 :)

Ever dreamed of clean recents whenever you exit an app by using back button? Consider LMODroid at https://libremobileos.com/lmodroid.

Ad funded by my love towards the feature.

Basically, it brings back the pre-S behavior of finishing an activity when using back button (so you're not "stuck" in the same place all the time as if you used home button), and cleans the app from recents on top. All background processes are unaffected and it won't "kill" an app you don't intend to kill. Your incognito tabs are safe.