Ive been using custom roms to greatly extend the lifespan of my phone (still using a xiaomi mi9t from 2019, running smoothly on A15, with lineageOS). Some apps, like banking apps, or gov apps sometimes require a stock android and locked bootloader. But, besides the stock spyware, stock roms become unusable in 2 to 3 years, forcing an upgrade.
Im thinking of getting a cheap 2nd phone to keep with stock android to use banking/gov apps and to leave at home. This way i could use my primary phone with a custom rom and have it working for way longer than 3 years, with less spyware, and wasting less money (depending on the price of that 2nd phone).
Does this seem like a decent strategy considering how android is moving?
Important question: If the cheap phone gets outdated, would it be safe to use it for banking considering i wouldnt install other apps or use a browser in that phone?
The brands available here (brazil) are mostly motorola, samsung, lg, xiaomi and realme (no pixels, nothings, fairphone, pinephones,…). What would be the best options for these two phones? The 2ndary phone should be cheap and reliable (gonna be used like once a week, but should last as long as possible) and 1ary phone should have unlockable bootloader and have good rom support for many years (i hope this niche wont die soon).
Banking on the browser is not an option anymore in my situation. I think it wont be around for long in the rest of the world too.
That’s basically what I was thinking. I would have a “normie” phone that has all the stuff modern society expect people to have, which would also have my sim card in it. Then I’d have a second device, not necessarily a “phone” but just something portable. Could be a Pinephone, or some Non-Google Android phone, or maybe a handheld PC (but I would need like a backpack for it, can’t fit a SteamDeck in pocket unfortunately). The “normie” phone would then hotspot the internet to my other device.
A pocket linux pc would be great. Why do you want to keep the sim in the normie phone? Or is that just in case you get a handheld that doesnt have a sim slot?
Because the thing is, phones are not PCs. You can connect almost anything to a wifi network (cuz otherwise, many of those cheap wifi smart gadgets wouldn’t work, I highly doubt they are gonna police wifi networks any time soon), but with cell towers, the carriers control which devices they allow to connect to their towers.
Example: In Australia, the have a phone whitelist system, where older phones are banned from connecting to cell networks, including for emergency calls. Something like a fairphone, pinephone, librem 5, would definitely not be on the whitelist, and thus would not be able to connect.
Now, the US, where I live, hasn’t done this yet, but the writing is on the wall, might as well get used to it, and have a, sort of, “Standard Operating Procedure” developed for it so that when they do start doing the whitelisting thing, I would already be prepared for it.
Hence, TLDR:
Banking, Government stuff, SIM Card, all goes on the “Normie” phone.
Everything else, on my actual private Phone (or Pocket PC) that I watch youtube videos on, torrent tv shows/movies, write a journal, browse the dark web, Lemmy, etc…
At least that’s the plan, I have to change a lot of my habits and get used to this new way of using tech.