[thorio]

Since Google is about to brick my Pixel 6a with the battery botchering update, i find myself in the same struggle again i had when buying the 6a.

Basically you have to make compromises on performance and camera and then this was, what i came up with: - Zenfone 10 (flagship with prices still above launch price (!), which soon gets no updates anymore) - Unihertz Jelly Max (small, but thick and bad camera) - Rakuten Hand 5G and Rakuten Mini (also bad camera and older Android) - Balmuda Phone (which i really like, but also bad camera and discontinued, so probably not even security updates and no custom rom support) - Bluefox NX1 (really tempting, but appearantly kind of bad build quality and no NFC)

All other options are even older phones. Samsung S25 line does exist, but i really like vanilla Android. I think the price chart of the Zenfone DOES somehow indicates the existence of a market and i wonder if it would be big enough for a small niche player!?

Personally I am considering a pixel 8, which is the "smallest" of current phones, but it still really isn't small. And i don't see myself as a Google customer because of the battery topic...

I personally would have been more happy had Eric made a small android phone instead of the new pebble, but hey...

[mmarian]

I have the Pixel 8, and I've been happy with the battery and pretty much everything. It's got a great performance/price ratio.

[NoGravitas]

I got a Pixel 8, and it's not small, but it's reasonably sized. About the same as the Moto G7 I replaced, much smaller than my kid's current Moto G Power. The good thing about the Pixel 8 is that you can run LineageOS on it, which was the main thing that determined my choice.

[twiclo]

Couldn't you put lineage on the zenfone?

[thorio]

How problematic is app compatibility with Lineage nowadays? (banking, google-pay etc.)

[martin_henk]

Rakuten hand was/is very small.

[thorio]

Couldn't get my hands on one so far as they don't sell in Germany. Could you elaborate a bit if you had the chance to try one?