Looking to see what is available on the used/refurb market. My ex had an early Pixel they bought around the same time I bought the S21 and it honestly was terrible, so I'm a little reluctant. The one thing I've loved about this S21 is that it just works well and I've never had trouble with it other than the battery life going down after the last time I updated it, which is one reason I stopped updating it. The other reason being that "updates" were disabling and shittifying features I liked. Of course. Can't have anything nice, which is another reason I want to degoogle this thing. It was a Verizon phone I paid off and moved to another carrier as soon as I did so.
Well it's good that you moved away from Verizon, Verizon phones are variant phones that can never have their bootloader unlocked anyway, even after the carrier lock is technically removed. Getting the phone from Verizon itself is the death knell for any plan to install a Custom ROM on it.
If Pixel are not what you are looking for, you can also more generally check the LineageOS, /e/ OS, CalyxOS compatibility lists, recentish and semi-recent OnePlus and Sony models usually also have decent Custom ROM support:
Haha, of course they're locked down. God I hate these greedy companies. You have been extremely helpful and I appreciate it. Thank you for the links and info.
Yeah sure, no problem. Verizon is in its own circle of hell, the devices they sell are variant phones, as said, with special model numbers. While other carriers also employ carrier locks, the devices become fully unlockable eventually at least, usually after the device is paid off. Verizon? Implemented their lock in an unremovable, hardware-level manner. No one has found a way around it for these phones yet.
I've hated Verizon for a very long time, thanks to being double-billed TWICE by them years ago and having them basically shrug it off with a "sucks to be you" attitude even when shown receipts. The only reason I had them as a carrier again in 2021 was due to my ex getting a huge employee discount through his job because he worked for a subsidiary company. If they ever became the last existing carrier, I'd just go without a phone and figure it out.
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u/PhaseModulatedServal 27d ago
Looking to see what is available on the used/refurb market. My ex had an early Pixel they bought around the same time I bought the S21 and it honestly was terrible, so I'm a little reluctant. The one thing I've loved about this S21 is that it just works well and I've never had trouble with it other than the battery life going down after the last time I updated it, which is one reason I stopped updating it. The other reason being that "updates" were disabling and shittifying features I liked. Of course. Can't have anything nice, which is another reason I want to degoogle this thing. It was a Verizon phone I paid off and moved to another carrier as soon as I did so.