Over the last three or four years, I’ve had a battered Samsung SM-A520F (a5y17lte) I bought for less than 50 euros here in France. First I installed LineageOS on it, but once I discovered /e/OS, this became my OS of choice. I’m not a hardware nerd and I don’t need the latest and greatest.
Some time ago my phone became obsolete. I got it an extension by installing an unofficial ROM I found here in that forum, but now it looks like that’s it. My banking app doesn’t work anymore, and there are no more up-to-date versions /e/OS for my hardware.
I don’t know much about phones, so I’m asking for your advice. Ideally I’d look for an old phone a bit like my Samsung that still supports recent versions of /e/OS and will do so for the foreseeable future. I don’t mind having to install /e/OS manually, because that’s how I did it on mine. Installing TWRP and then /e/OS using adb sideload was more or less straightforward.
Is there any cheap Samsung model that fits my criteria ? Or is there some other “generic” brand/model combination that would be a good fit ? Preferably a model that doesn’t make me jump through burning loops to install /e/OS ?
Speaking as one who made the “wrong choice” at least three times I am still inclined to believe in the advanced Search features of Smartphone Selector. I believe the A3 offered a good opportunity (for both of us as it happens) to learn the ups and downs of manipulating Android.
Maybe taking a chance on any low “second hand cost” phone one would learn whether to invest in something more expensively specific ?? I am on that road myself this month. No big bucks will be consumed.
any Xiaomi, Motorola, Sony, Oneplus, Pixel from ~3ish years ago: a midrange Qualcomm SoC or aftermarket highend (despite Mediatek getting better). If you do not want to port your telephony number to a voip softphone, you’d need to stay clear of Samsung. Haven’t experienced the Xiaomi unlock process yet, but they do sell qualcomms cheaply.
If it’s on the LineageOS device roster for Android 16 or 17, it will come to /e/OS
Investigate beforehand whether any specific model of phone you’re considering is confirmed to be VoLTE-CAPABLE on your network (or on another network that you could switch to).
That disqualifies ALL SAMSUNGS currently.
(Search “Samsung VoLTE” in these forums.)
