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The only problem with Asus phones in general, which is also apparent in their ROG phones, is the lack of updates. Their hardware is top-notch, literally; I've n
by cercatrova 4y ago
The only problem with Asus phones in general, which is also apparent in their ROG phones, is the lack of updates. Their hardware is top-notch, literally; I've never seen faster phones. But, they don't update them consistently enough, unlike Google and Samsung which have pledged multiple years of software support through Android releases.
- rjzzleep 4y agoBefore Xiaomi became mainstream they were quite supportive of the dev community. For example they sent a bunch of Poco phones to XDA developers before release. I feel like Asus would do so much better if they opened up the ecosystem a bit.
- commoner 4y agoAsus also participated in XDA's device seeding program with a few of their previous models. - Zenfone 6: https://www.xda-developers.com/asus-zenfone-6-custom-rom-twrp-lineageos/ https://www.xda-developers.com/asus-zenfone-6-custom-rom-twr... - ROG Phone II: https://www.xda-developers.com/asus-sending-rog-phone-ii-custom-rom-kernel-developers/ https://www.xda-developers.com/asus-sending-rog-phone-ii-cus... - ROG Phone 3: https://www.xda-developers.com/asus-rog-phone-3-custom-roms-custom-kernels-development/ https://www.xda-developers.com/asus-rog-phone-3-custom-roms-... Hopefully, Asus does something similar with the Zenfone 9.
- imwillofficial 4y ago“I've never seen faster phones” ::Points to an iPhone SE::
- cercatrova 4y agoROG phones are quite a bit faster than iPhones, not only in gaming but other software tasks as well [0], at least on the Android side [0] https://youtu.be/uWzwovY9u-E https://youtu.be/uWzwovY9u-E
- imwillofficial 4y agoAbsolutely false, iPhones (admittedly the more high end ones) stomp every other phone out there by a WIDE margin. Even the camera, less megapixels but Apple has far better computational photography algos.
- codegladiator 4y ago> don't update them consistently enough i don't want to update. the persistent update notification in my note 10 is still here. i cannot dismiss it .
- valzam 4y agoUpdate in this context also means android security updates. I hope you don't also ignore those...
- codegladiator 4y agoYes, I want to ignore them also. I know the people who want to snoop in can snoop in irrespective. Its just a matter of how easy it is. Every update is just more trackers and ads.
- weird-eye-issue 4y agoIt's not just about snooping. It's also other things like being part of a botnet that's scanning for vulnerabilities or actively hacking or DDOSing or being used in a proxy network
- slimsag 4y agoWhen users are used to updates screwing them over generally, it's not a surprise that we start to find people who don't want to update and disregard the security entirely.
- judge2020 4y agoiOS doesn't seem to have this problem, reaching "89% of all devices introduced in the last four years use iOS 15"[0]. iOS generally is less at-risk for these botnet issues since any botnet needs to be actively embedded within a popular app-store-installed app, especially if it wants to run expensive background tasks hitting HTTP endpoints. To add, since apps can't JIT, the apps can't RCE a jailbreak that would allow full system compromise, besides if the exploit chain is possible via a WebKit exploit (which is exceedingly rare[1]). 0: https://developer.apple.com/support/app-store/ https://developer.apple.com/support/app-store/ 1: https://www.theiphonewiki.com/wiki/TotallyNotSpyware https://www.theiphonewiki.com/wiki/TotallyNotSpyware
- throwaway892238 4y agoHuawei had the most advanced hardware and best UI in the cheapest, most compact devices that I've seen. I'd gladly let the Chinese spy on me to keep using them.
- ofcrpls 4y agoThey didn't release updates at the cadence they promised for the Flagship tech demo phone with Qualcomm. Not sure if the Z9 will fare any better. https://www.asus.com/us/Mobile/Phones/Snapdragon-Insiders/Smartphone-for-Snapdragon-Insiders/ https://www.asus.com/us/Mobile/Phones/Snapdragon-Insiders/Sm...
- jaimex2 4y agoHow good is the Lineage OS support on Asus phones? Do they lock it down including the camera modules or are they fairly open?
- leeoniya 4y agotypically LineageOS uses the stock binary blobs for cameras, too many trade secrets for Qualcomm, Sony, Samsung etc. to release them as open source. you can bootloader/oem unlock zenphones, though that might wipe DRM keys.
- yjftsjthsd-h 4y agoSome phones require extra firmware to get good quality out of the camera that are protected with keys that get wiped when unlocking the bootloader, which is probably what was meant.
- leeoniya 4y agogood point. samsung apparently also used to have a kill switch on their S22s with the Exynos cpus in EU (the only models that are unlockable...Snapdragons are not). i have a hard time believing this tho if they permitted unlocking at all. most likely it was some signed firmware snafu as you say. https://www.xda-developers.com/samsung-galaxy-s22-bootloader-unlock-camera-working/ https://www.xda-developers.com/samsung-galaxy-s22-bootloader...
- jaimex2 4y agoYeah, this is a pain point. Installed Lineage on my OnePlus 6 and it basically had no camera app. Using the Google Camera atm which crashes/freezes randomly.
- adeleine 4y agoRunning Zenfone 8 with official builds by LineageOS 19.1 (Android 12) for about 6 months now, very flawless and updates almost every Friday. Unfortunately I do not know anything about the camera modules. I only know that it works.
- wetpaws 4y agoNot only updates, but soft quality in general is atrocious, every update is usually a gamble.
- magic_hamster 4y agoI own the Zenfone 8 and it has consistently received updates large and small. It came with fairly clean Android and I get the feeling it's not far behind a Google phone when it comes to updates. That includes major updates (got upgraded to Android 12 too). It's a really great phone. The only thing I would improve is the fingerprint sensor, but apparently that's been addressed in the next iteration.
- Gigachad 4y agoThat phone came out a year ago, it hasn’t even had time to prove it’s supported. Check back with us in 5 years.
- sk0g 4y agoWhat Android phone gets OS updates for 6 years? Even 2-3 is quite good by Android standards.
- ThePowerOfFuet 4y agoPixel phones beginning with the Pixel 6 are guaranteed five years of updates at a minimum.
- fauigerzigerk 4y ago3 years of Android version updates and at least 5 years of security updates. But I have to say, Apple's OS version updates are not always quite what they seem. My 2 year old iPad gets OS updates in name only. None of the major new iPad OS features are supported. That's fine if the hardware just isn't capable of supporting those features. But it sort of muddies the water compared to an Android device that doesn't get a nominal OS bump but still gets security updates and all the new features distributed through Google's Play services.
- ThePowerOfFuet 4y agoAll security issues are handled on iOS for many years. Yes, feature updates are gated by model because Apple wants to sell new stuff and the new features are a big driver of that. GrapheneOS on Pixel is probably the best bet right now.
- googlryas 4y agoWhat's stopping people from just running the, say, Google build of Android on this phone? If there is custom device drivers or whatever, can't they just be copied from the custom ASUS android over to the standard android build, while avoiding all the crapware and lack of updates?
- yewenjie 4y agoNothing. People do that all the time - there is a huge community for aftermarket custom ROMs at places like xda-developers. However, I would guess that is like less than 1% of users since custom ROMs a) are not popular b) require some courage and technical knowledge c) often void the official warranty.
- yakak 4y agoD) Are highly unlikely to support relocking for new keys in secure boot, or are limited to a very small number of models. The attacks sold to governments fighting such evils as journalists and pro-democracy youth haven't yet been shown to include persistency across reboots, AFAIK, but relatively small percentages of politically active people using insecure boot could encourage them to build those features to more passively monitor a sub-sample as it is relatively easy and makes their work less detectable.
- CameronNemo 4y agoThis is why I opened this thread. Such a critical feature for hardware to have these days.
- Gigachad 4y agoIt’s a huge pain in the ass. Usually trips up the android safteynet drm and doesn’t give kernel updates because no one has access to the proprietary driver blobs which no longer work with new kernels. You can often get android api updates like this but not any real security updates.
- 4y ago
- pjmlp 4y agoYeah, apparently the marketing material is big on everything, except updates.
- yxhuvud 4y agoNo, battery life is very notably absent. And that is a painpoint in the zenphone 8 already.
- andrepd 4y agoWell rather than trust promotional material, see the gsmarena review ;) https://m.gsmarena.com/asus_zenfone_9-review-2455p3.php https://m.gsmarena.com/asus_zenfone_9-review-2455p3.php
- pmontra 4y agoThanks. This is the comparison with my current phone. https://m.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=11656&idPhone2=9642 https://m.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=11656&idPhone2=... The size is almost the same. It's thicker, which is bad, but at least that allows for a side mounted fingerprint sensor. A rear mounted one is inaccessible on a phone holder, car or bicycle. It weights a lot more. No micro SD slot. Anything else, I don't care, so I can't find a reason to pay at least 3 times the price. If it were a couple of cm shorter, maybe but probably not.
- dividuum 4y agoNot sure what you're looking for, but Ctrl-F "Battery" brings you to the battery sections with a "learn mode" button showing some battery life numbers.
- criddell 4y agoI was looking for big on longevity with a promise for updates for six or more years.
- MichaelBurge 4y agoIn general, shouldn't the importance of updates depend on what it originally shipped with? If it isn't buggy and the shipped features match the marketing, why would it ever need to be updated? So it seems like any argument like "Vendor never updates it" needs to be paired with an argument that they ship buggy or incomplete software.
- colordrops 4y agoBecause the hardware can handle updates to the OS, and as the ecosystem evolves, apps start misbehaving or not even functioning on older versions of the OS. And then you've got vulnerabilities.
- wildmanx 4y ago> If it isn't buggy That's not how software works. Software is always buggy. Question is only how severely functionality is impacted and when those bugs will be found. Most bugs are never noticed since they only concern corner cases that you normally won't hit in the field or would even have a hard time driving the system into even if you tried on purpose. The main issue is with security-related bugs. Especially with mobile phone software, which has an enormous attack surface and has really wide distribution, this is a constant issue. No mobile phone OS ever will be bug free and will always contain security flaws. Over time, more and more of them are discovered, and it's a race between the vendor fixing them and malicious actors exploiting them. That's why the OS (and all the apps) need to be constantly updated. The longer you skip updates, the more you fall behind and the more doors are open that better be closed once they are known. > needs to be paired with an argument that they ship buggy or incomplete software. That argument is an easy one to make and everybody familiar with software engineering should be intimately familiar with it. This is not about some button not working, it's about somebody pwning your phone.
- curiousgal 4y agoAndroid 12 has me swearing off updating my phone honestly. It's backwards in every single way. I don't use my phone for anything critical so I am more than willing to trade security for usability.
- ThePowerOfFuet 4y agoDo you check your email on that phone? If so, and I pop your phone, I'll have your email credentials, and with that I can probably reset the password of any other account you have. Email is critical.
- anthony_barker 4y agoyeah best way is to create a new gmail account for every phone. Or a phone only email which has the associated photos. Other option is a yubikey
- curiousgal 4y agoI don't use my main email as login to other accounts actually. But I get your point.
- fomine3 4y agoWhile some people legitimately blame bloatware on Samsung Galaxy, Samsung's customized Android (OneUI) is good for this perspective. Google sometimes decides weird annoying changes for AOSP but Samsung sometimes just refuses the change and keep their OS sane. I previously liked pure AOSP, but finally I found that it's not the best Android distribution.
- aceazzameen 4y agoI'm in agreement with you. I no longer like Google's UX decisions in AOSP. It's got to the point where I dread finding out what they removed or buried under multiple taps. I have Android 12 on a galaxy tablet, and OneUI with Good Lock makes it sane.
- KevinGlass 4y ago
- pjerem 4y agoIt’s sad that no phone maker is playing the open and standard platform game. A brand like Asus would have everything to win with this : they already are recognized as a « geek » brand, they could ship updates with no effort and they could get free marketing from the word to mouth of the « geek of the family ». Instead of that, like any other Android manufacturer in the market, they ship great hardware with shitty or soon-to-be shitty software that will make your premium phone worse than the next Chinese phone.
- phasersout 4y agoAndroid manufacturers, unlike Apple, don't really earn much via the software - so there is really no reason for costly updates which keeps the customers from buying the next phone..
- kevincox 4y agoIt's unfortunate that lack of updates don't prevent customers from buying the current phone. It feels like we need consumer protection laws that require companies to prominently advertise the software "warranty". So Google and Apple can put "5 years" on the box and Asus needs to put "0 days". The problem is that it isn't something that most people think about. But when you point it out to them it definitely changes how they evaluate phones when you show them that this one will be dangerously insecure after 1y but this other one is good for 3y.
- fuzzy2 4y agoCritical phone components (or rather, their drivers and/or firmware) are not open however. I would like a platform with x86-level standardization but competitive power efficiency a lot. I don’t see it happening though. It’s not down to the phone makers, but to the component suppliers—like Qualcomm.
- fsflover 4y ago> Critical phone components (or rather, their drivers and/or firmware) are not open however. They are either open or isolated in Librem 5.
- akmittal 4y agoAndroid system updates are so bad by all OEMs that I will literally pay to get updates
- flippinburgers 4y agoGoogle keeps its phones up-to-date? I was under the impression that 3 years was the max with 2 being more likely.
- pas 4y agotheir pledge is "Pixel 6 and later Pixel phones will get [updates] for at least 5 years from when the device first became available on the Google Store in the US." where [update] is security and may include features, (and I guess even feature removals) etc. https://support.google.com/nexus/answer/4457705?hl=en https://support.google.com/nexus/answer/4457705?hl=en
- MereInterest 4y agoI have a Pixel 3, which received less than 2.5 years of secure use between time of purchase and time of last security update. I'm looking for a new phone that isn't made by Google, preferably one that has an open platform, because I don't trust Google as far as I could throw their advertising department.
- varispeed 4y agoSoftware updates are not always a good thing. For instance I have not updated my Samsung in years, because I know the pending update will take away call recording functionality.
- Vinnl 4y ago> Their hardware is top-notch, literally I do think most phones with a notch have it at the top, though!
- 2-718-281-828 4y agohttps://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/#asus https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/#asus ZenFone 8 is being supported. So, there's good chance that ZenFone 9 will be as well.
- piaste 4y agoOdd that the Flip version isn't supported. I thought it was very similar.
- 2-718-281-828 4y agoVery similar would still need a dedicated maintainer working for free.
- sydd 4y agoThia is an aftermarket ROM that needs root, bootloader hack etc. This wont be used by 99% of the people.
- rr888 4y agoMy employer is strict on security for employee's phones to be able to install our apps. Right now they wont allow any android except Pixels, Samsung recently got taken off the list due to lack of updates.
- nix0n 4y agoSamsung pushes more adware with every update, so I don't think they're actually better on this.
- brnt 4y agoThe only phones I consider are those supporter by LineageOS. My Pixel 1 is still getting weekly updates.