Moving to Android
Finally, I decide to give up iOS, despite having using it for so many years. When I began to use iOS on 2011, it's still far less mature than today. People jailbroke it for better UI and more features. I can still remember some of the classic debian packages, i.e. SBSettings which iOS later introduced as Control Center. Good days back then.
With Apple constructing its firewall taller and harder, jailbreaking is becoming much more difficult nowadays, not only for hackers, but also for common geeks. I'm not here to comment on the righteousness of Apple's action to promoting this. Objectively, fewer users means fewer developers, then fewer apps to serve even fewer users. To begin with, after iPhone 4s, iOS users can no longer freely downgrade their devices even one wants to enjoy fluency of earlier version. Year after year, the limits just became stronger and stronger. It finally leads to the collapse of jailbreaking community. A lot of cydia apps began to lose maintaince after iOS 9.
I have my iPhone se locked at iOS 9.3.3 to keep it working fluently for 2 years. And after this only 2 years, with the screen malfunctioning, infra-red sensor no longer working, cameras poulluted by ashes and speakers making noises, it's high time I decided to move away from iOS, from Apple. (I'm a bit too objective here. What I am truly thinking, F**k Apple.)
I choose to move on, and hope I can find some lost freedom from the Android world.
The Android Mobiles
Q3, 2018. Here is a list of Android device to choose from.
| Pro | Con | Price | Screen | Width | Root | Screen | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pixel 2 xl | Camera | Screen Color | 6888 | 6 | 76.2mm | POLED | |
| Stock Android | No 3.5mm jack | ||||||
| BackFingerprints | cpu,memory | ||||||
| Mi 8 | BackFingerprints | No 3.5mm jack | 3299 | 6.21 | 74.8mm | AMOLED | |
| Potential ad-less OS | |||||||
| Mix 2s | BackFingerprints | No 3.5mm jack | 3599 | 5.99 | 74.9mm | LCD | |
| Wireless Charge | |||||||
| Potential Stock Android | |||||||
| or ad-less OS | |||||||
| OnePlus 6 | BackFingerprints | Camera | 3599 | 6.28 | 75.4mm | AMOLED | |
| Almost Stock Android | |||||||
| MEIZU 16th | Screen Fing.P. | Ads | 3498 | 6 | 73.2mm | x | AMOLED |
| P20 | GPU | 3888 | 5.8 | 70.8mm | LCD | ||
| P20 pro | Camera | GPU | 4988 | 6.1 | 73.9mm | POLED |
About Stock Android
Pixel Series have their advantage of stock Android optimization.
However, I believe the consequent gap between Pixel Series and other models can be compromized due to more powerful CPU (Snapdragon 845 against 835) and larger RAM (8g against 4g).
About Camera
The stronger the better, though not a major concern.
About Apperance
Pixel > mix2s > All others
Still, not a major concern.
About Screen
AMOLED shares no big difference from POLED.
And I can go with LCD, due to some untended drawbacks of OLED, i.e. burn-in, low refresh rate.