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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 10th, 2023

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  • Sure, modding the device will always have a niche interest, and people doing it just because they can, but if the price point of such a device is comparable to a Switch (easily hackable) or even a Steam Deck (outright open for you to do whatever with no barriers in place), would this device have any practical benefit for that kind of stuff over the alternatives?

    I think it will continue to have some niche benefit, especially if modding the device still retains its presumably “first party, easy” path to streaming games from a local PlayStation, and for people who would want to keep the presumably better-quality and 1080p display over what’s found in the Switch and Steam Deck, but I think someone looking to get something to primarily use with Steam Link or other such services have better (incl. first-party) options for that use case.



  • We still don’t know the price of the device. I think this device has to really target a low, potentially subsidized, price point in order to be worth it over existing handheld devices capable of streaming (or even running games locally), and if that’s the case, it may suffer from the Amazon Fire problem of being incredibly locked down and not seeing as large a development community as would be necessary to achieve a “no restrictions” Android setup. If Sony is subsidizing the device, they would really prefer it if consumers stay within their media ecosystem rather than having the ability to go out and use and/or pay for services that don’t allow Sony to recuperate their losses.

    It is also possible that the device seen here is just running Android for testing purposes, and the final device will ship with something more locked-down. This seems unlikely due to being far more effort than just using common tablet hardware and shipping Android, but Sony may prefer to do that to achieve more control over the device.



  • Unless LOS or a different custom ROM can re-enable the “old” work profile behavior, having access to the latest version of Android might be a detriment compared to an older version that still at least receives security updates (as I assume the Pixel mentioned here does).

    I run LineageOS myself, and while I don’t think this change is enough of a dealbreaker to prevent me from ever updating past LOS20 if this change isn’t addressed somehow in either AOSP or LOS, it will make me less enthusiastic about immediately jumping to LOS21 the moment it’s made available to my device.



  • I’m also using a OnePlus 5T (with LineageOS from day 1), and plan to replace it with a Fairphone should it die and there’s a good model available with US bands. I’m fine with importing the newest Fairphone should it release by that time, but the Fairphone 4 is also available directly in the US as well.

    I think what’s impressive here is the first party, OEM support for feature updates on Android lasting as long as it has for this phone. That’s really not something you tend to see even on Google’s flagships (though security updates are still regular and better than what the Fairphone sees officially).

    IMO, smartphones have basically plateaued in the past at least five years - a flagship model from 2015 should be sufficient for basic usage today, assuming the battery and modem hardware was somehow kept up to date and software updates were provided as well, and flagship models from like 2018 onwards were a better deal than today’s flagships, providing comparable real-world functionality at a lower price even if the spec sheet pales by comparison. I don’t think most other OEMs have the incentives to provide that kind of long-term support on older but still usable hardware, but Fairphone absolutely is.