I’ll start: printers.
I bought an HP in March 2020 when my job went remote and HP bricked it remotely after only 100 pages because I wouldn’t sign up for their subscription program. Ended up trashing a perfectly good printer.
Luckily my library’s close by and I can print there remotely.
Android phones. I mean, Google has been an advertising company the entire time (2008 to now) that Android has existed, but the enshittification has gotten worse and worse. I still like Android, though. I’m an Apple guy, but I haven’t forgotten wiping Android phones and flashing them with custom firmware, and getting the “AOSP-like” CyanogenMod, or the bone-stock “Google Play Edition” Android on an Android phone meant to slam 5 ads in your face every second. It was always a losing battle, but it was fun.
I still want a newer Android phone. I have a Galaxy S10. It’s still a good phone, but it should be the next phone I replace, before replacing my iPhone 16 Pro Max (which should last another 7-9 years).
As for printers, HP is always a losing bet. They suck. Their lasers aren’t bad at work, but they’re not great either. It’s always something with HP. I’ve heard Brother lasers are cheap enough and rock solid. I don’t really need a printer though. If I did, I’d get that one Brother laserjet everyone’s talking about. Just web search “that one brother printer” and look for the review that just says “stop worrying about printers and get that one brother printer.” Follow their link to Amazon to get the part number, and shop around.
Where are you seeing ads in Android? I have a pixel and I’ve never had ads shoved in my face. Well, not by Google. The producers or providers of apps, sure, but that’s not on Google is it?
They started adding ads all over that Google news feed when you swipe right from your homescreen last year, the one that’s built into the Pixel launcher.
Ohhh. I’ve never, ever used that except when I accidentally fatfinger my way to it. I forget it exists.
Dude I hope my 16 Pro Max lasts that long. I only got it after breaking my 13 Pro Max. I’d never cracked screen in my 15 years of smartphone ownership. That blue variant was gorgeous and it would have lasted another 3 years easily.
I’m sure you and I were on the same XDA forums back in the day. I still have my old LG G3 with Lineage OS on it. I’ll always miss that era of Android. Wacky new features all the time on ROM, only for Google to integrate them in the main OS down the line.
We’d have been on the same XDA forums if we had the same device. Otherwise we may not have met. I never owned an LG phone, though I was considering the LG G5. I also liked the one with the second screen, the grandfather of every “notched” phone (its second screen was “attached” to the main screen and to the right of the camera). V something? LG had some good ideas.
I had a Galaxy S3, and an HTC One M8. I do not recall what I went by on XDA. I use a new name every year or two. It’s entirely possible we crossed paths one way or another. I’ve been online a long time.
I cracked my 16PM screen the other day. Fortunately it was just the screen protector. I love how spoiled we are now. Wet wipe, dry wipe, dust sticker. Then this plastic applicator that holds the screen protector by these pins perfectly centred on the phone screen, and you pull this tab while pressing down and it applies perfectly every time. My old screen protector was up there almost 2 years, since I bought the 16PM in November '24. This is the second one, I have one more in the box.
I’ve cracked a few screen protectors but never screens.
Oh man I always wanted an HTC one M8, such a badass phone back in the day.
I was mainly on XDA for the HTC Incredible and then eventually the HTC Resound. It wasn’t until after I got a Pixel phone that I stopped flashing ROMs.
After seeing some comments on this thread about GraphineOS it has my interest piqued. It would be hard to leave Apple now that I am thoroughly entrenched in the ecosystem though. There really isn’t anything else like it. I remember I yearned for Google to get their ecosystem act together for years, but alas they kill more products than they keep.