Ive been using a Chinese Umidigi Bison Pro for a few years now. Good camera, fast CPU, lots of memory. When I bought it, the prospect of regular security updates in firmware was pretty low. otherwise very happy.
A few years later on, and although the phone is still fine (battery dosen't last as long as it did) and has been in the sea, dropped numerous times and in all sorts of hot and cold environments. Can't ask any more really. But, the version of Android is getting a bit old to be secure. Lineage and other alternatives / generic images are hit and miss for this unusuallly unpopular phone. So new one!
Oukitel WP62. Bit faster, better camera, super battery life and Android 15. Great. Nice clean firmware with 'free' apps that came with it that can be deleted. Happy.
3 months later. A firmware update. then another one sson after. Then i saw a download in the background that I hadn't initiated. Phone full of ads and 'free' apps that can't be deleted or disabled. Why?? They already sold the phone, I don't want their apps, ads or the insecurity that comes with it.
Anyhow, I'm getting adept at using ADB Shell, MTK firmware hacks, local VPNs and general twatting about with Android phones now. After wasting a day of my life, I have it rolled back to the vanilla firmware (no unwanted garbage), have permanently disabled future updates from Oukitel, uninstalled anything I don't like the look of and am fairly confident to use it.
If an open-ish source image becomes available for it (like Lineage), then I'll be putting that on. If the phone annoys me again, I may try one of the generic Google images again.
20 years ago, software (and hardware) was yours. Now, Google, Microsoft and numerous other companies think they can own it all and do what they want, when they want. Thankfully a lot of people keep working against this. XDA Developers is a good starting point.
Rant concluded
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