Samsung Galaxy Note 4

My Galaxy Note 8 is still going as my main daily music player/backup phone. My Galaxy Note 4 still works. Had to sideload updated web certificates. My Galaxy S1 would still be going, but somebody got the charging port wet.

I do technically have a Google account, although all I use on it is Google Voice and Gmail, both of which I only access through IMAP, so they would be interchangeable with any service. I have a ten-year-old phone running Android 6 and use a seven-year-old version of K-9 Mail. I didn't expressly stop upgrading, but every time new hardware or software comes out, I compare features before upgrading. With a desktop computer running Linux or BSD, the hardware doesn't get worse, and the software rarely does, but it's easy to avoid the worse software, because it won't be the only option. With phones, both the hardware and software seems to have peeked in 2014, with newer versions being worse far more often than they are better. I've had to replace the battery in my phone a couple of times, and I've added more storage, but those updates only took a few seconds. My Note 4 has more features and a better screen than pretty much everything that came after, and with an unlocked bootloader, I could keep updating the kernel long after T-Mobile stopped releasing updates. (Although, the last update was more than six years after release.) Eventually the Kernel was too old to update, but by that point I was well into security-through-obscurity, by running a combination of Kernel and user space so obscure that nothing automated could gain access, even through known vulnerabilities. I stopped updating K-9 mail when Google started interfering with notifications, to coerce developers into th

I never had a problem with a Note 4. The way you could buy cases that replaced the back cover meant for a much thinner profile phone than the typical metal case wrapped in silicone. Replaceable batteries are glorious. I never plugged-in my phone, just flipped the battery with one from the charger when I left the house. Instant 100% battery. Travelling? Just take a few charged batteries at a fraction of the weight of a power-bank and much more convenient.

I now have a Samsung Note 4 phone. That stylus gets used all the time. Used to agree with Jobs, until I actually decided to seriously explore using a phone more. The note was a powerful enough device, including a great display, to warrant moving tasks from my laptop to it. The result is I use my laptop about a third less. Apple is right about the productivity case.