Uh, no. I had no idea that the phone had issues. You are the kind of person I’m alluding to in the post.

They were the only option for a smaller phone for a long time as well, but sadly not available here… :(

I’ve been running custom ROMs since 2015, I am well aware.

So far this is the only thing I can actually find, so it might have to be what I go with if I insist on not getting a Pixel again. My last Samsung was a pain to flash, but I’ve heard that Odin is a thing of the past so hopefully it’ll be easier this time.

Listen, I didn’t remember to take my medication this morning because my phone didn’t remind me to do it. I have to schedule my entire life with reminders in order to function; manually backing up twice a year when I’ve never had to before is pretty freaking good. The storage medium isn’t the problem. I have plenty of disk space on my computer. I need an AUTOMATIC solution that doesn’t rely on my plugging in something, and that doesn’t rely on a cloud subscription. Preferably not on having a data connection at all, because I often don’t have one.

I don’t need official LineageOS support. I mentioned in the post that I was looking at phones without it. I’ve had one on a community LOS build before and I was happy enough with it.

SD cards have worked for me for over a decade. I don’t have any of the problems you mention.

I get that I’m going to come across as rude for these comments, but I really don’t think I’m asking for too much here. I’m asking for two basic features that I need for accessibility reasons, one of which used to be ubiquitous. I’m willing to pay a pretty high price for a phone, but I need it to last. I’ve thrown away too much money over the last three years on a revolving door of phones that failed again and again for reasons beyond my control. I’m at my wit’s end, here. I used to buy a 2-year-old flagship for half of its original MSRP, throw LOS on it, and have no issues for 4 years or so. Now I can barely find a phone that can run LOS, and it fails within the year. I’m tired. Every time I have to set up a new phone it’s a huge ordeal. I’m disabled. I don’t have the energy to do this every 6 months for the rest of my life.

LineageOS works just fine for me, thank you.

I do back up to my computer. But not every day, like I can with an SD card. I’ve never had an SD card fail on me, and having one has saved me when my Note 4 memory died. Having one makes it easier to transfer data between phones.

I’ve already given up removable batteries and headphone jacks. Why do I have to give up every single feature that used to be considered a basic necessity? Why should I spend so much money upfront for storage that I may not need, when I could easily expand it with an SD card if I need for much cheaper down the line?

I already tried a phone without an SD card slot and look where it got me. Installing the custom ROM was a pain. Transferring my data was a pain. The motherboard died with no warning, and now I’ve lost 2 months worth of data. I’m not doing this again.

I got it on eBay and I will be trying to get the warranty to cover it, but I don’t want this to happen again if they send another Pixel 5a. I already lost enough data from this.

Not interested in GrapheneOS.

They haven’t been sold in Canada for years, and when I went looking for them on eBay the prices were ridiculous, if they were available at all. Most of the time I look for a model, there simply aren’t any listings.

Source for it not being added.

It’s grey, not black. LineageOS has this option. Google removed it (of course) because now, after ten years of having it, all of a sudden they think that having white text on a black background causes “smearing” when you scroll, and they need to save users from this. Nevermind that some of us want the option.

This is basically what I’ve been doing. But every time I find something that seems like a decent option, it’s unavailable to purchase. I was interested in the Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro despite them being a bit older until I couldn’t actually find one. I can find the Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro and newer, and of course they aren’t supported. It’s just so frustrating.

And the Pixels don’t have an SD slot and seem to have bad problems with dying randomly based on discussion I saw on Reddit, so I’m not excited to try them again.

My old go-to was the Moto line, but they’re so expensive now for what you get. $450 + shipping + import fees, for a Moto G from two years ago? When I bought a brand new one on release day in 2015 for $200? I just can’t bring myself to do it, not when it only has 4GB of RAM. The Pixel 5a had 6GB and already had lag even running a very lean ROM.

Sadly Murena only sells two models in Canada, one of which is the Pixel 5.

I tried GrapheneOS. They don’t have a black theme, and they refuse to add it as an option. I immediately flashed LOS over it.

I usually right click the window in the app bar and choose the “stay on top” option. This issue only happens in Wayland, also. in X11 it stays on top as expected.

I highly recommend configuring qBittorrent to only connect to the VPN interface, so if your VPN is off it will simply not connect to the internet at all.

We’re all broke.

https://voiceinput.futo.org/

I use it and it works very well.

Rnote is currently the best for handwritten notes in my opinion, but its organization is minimal. I have never found a 1:1 replacement for OneNote, but luckily I no longer need it desperately like I did a decade ago.

That doesn’t work for the workflow of sending articles to my Kindle with a bookmarklet.