Anybody still use old 32-bit phones?

MC.Morrado · April 15

I am asking mainly because of Android ending support for 32-bit hardware. If it makes you feel better my Kyocera S2720 is way past end-of-life when the manufacturer stopped making phones for the consumer market in 2023 to focus on enterprise/business. Does anybody install custom ROMS to get more life out of their 32-bit phones? Have you ever dealt with the looming threat of your phone's carrier eventually no longer supporting your device?

AndrewAsd · April 15

I'm honestly surprised to hear that they're just now cutting off support for 32 bit hardware, seeing as Apple cutoff updates for their 32bit hardware back in 2017.

Mark Kaine · April 15

6 minutes ago, AndrewAsd said:

I'm honestly surprised to hear that they're just now cutting off support for 32 bit hardware, seeing as Apple cutoff updates for their 32bit hardware back in 2017.

Well that's not surprising taking the different market approaches into account, apple just wants to sell you new shiny things, Google just wants your data.

Needfuldoer · April 15

Nope. Work refreshes the work iPhone every two years, and I only replace my personal phone when I absolutely have to. (I had a flip phone until the carrier shut its network down and I got a Galaxy S7, then I replaced that with a Pixel 4a when the carrier shut down their 3G network and annoyingly didn't support VoLTE specifically on the unlocked S7.)

Obsolete smartphones fall into the "too old to be useful, too new to be interesting" void for me, just like Pentium 4 through Ivy Bridge PCs.

MC.Morrado · April 16

1 hour ago, Needfuldoer said:

Nope. Work refreshes the work iPhone every two years, and I only replace my personal phone when I absolutely have to. (I had a flip phone until the carrier shut its network down and I got a Galaxy S7, then I replaced that with a Pixel 4a when the carrier shut down their 3G network and annoyingly didn't support VoLTE specifically on the unlocked S7.)

Obsolete smartphones fall into the "too old to be useful, too new to be interesting" void for me, just like Pentium 4 through Ivy Bridge PCs.

Funny enough my gaming PC uses an Ivy Bridge i7-3770 and I have a Pentium 4 box that I installed FreeBSD on. It's fun to tinker around with old potato PC's!

Commodus · April 16

21 hours ago, MC.Morrado said:

I am asking mainly because of Android ending support for 32-bit hardware. If it makes you feel better my Kyocera S2720 is way past end-of-life when the manufacturer stopped making phones for the consumer market in 2023 to focus on enterprise/business. Does anybody install custom ROMS to get more life out of their 32-bit phones? Have you ever dealt with the looming threat of your phone's carrier eventually no longer supporting your device?

I just couldn't outside of "does it still boot?" nostalgia. I'm not a fan of running phones that aren't receiving security updates, and with Android being 64-bit only as of 2023 that means 32-bit devices are highly unlikely to get patches outside of emergencies.

And on the iPhone side... as was mentioned, Apple dropped 32-bit support in 2017; you'd have to be pretty hardcore to hold on to a completely obsolete eight-year-old phone with the intention of using it for even longer.