My Zenfone 8 is getting old. I love this smartphone as it runs perfectly smooth despite its age and easily fits in every pocket. However, more and more problems start to pop up. The internet connection is unstable and I need to restart the phone once in a while for the internet to start working again. The battery is really weak. It even struggles to get past the day.
I am even considering getting another one, perhaps with a broken screen, to replace the mainboard in mine, but this phone is not getting security updates anymore, so I think it may be finally the time to buy a completely new phone.
What am I looking for:
- At least 1 year old. Yes, you read that right. I want to see long-term reviews and experiences with servicing. New phones often appear super fast in the store and then start lagging just a few months after buying. And also there’s a chance to get an older model at a decent price.
- Relatively small. I know that it’s rare to see a phone with less than 6 inch screen, so it’s not a hard requirement. I’m even considering getting a foldable as used ones are getting cheaper, but I worry that with me dropping things once in a while, it’s not a good idea.
- Clean software. This is subjective of course, but Zenfone 8 has almost pure Android with only a few noninvasive things added by ASUS (like smaller tiles!). Any ads are a no-go.
- Inexpensive. I don’t need a flagship, I need something I can rely on. And I’m piss poor currently, so I really rather not spend all my money on a phone.
just ran a quick search, the zenfone 8 seems like a very capable phone with SD888… is the issue really on the hardware side? with a custom rom i’d say this phone is good for more than 5 years. maybe even with the stock rom since android apps tend to support older versions.
I definitely need to try doing a factory reset before spending money, but the thought of having to backup all apps, especially the FOSS ones, where I need to manually make backup for each one, makes me procrastinate doing that.
Yes, I know, if I bought a new phone, I would have to do that too, but for now I’m just evaluating my options.
As for if these are software or hardware issues. One of the issues is that the compass/GPS is going haywire. It has trouble getting a fix, even when doing eights and for like 1 minute the arrow (my position) on the map is rotating and moving all over the place. For this issue, even restart doesn’t help, so it doesn’t look like the software issue.
The connectivity problems… some can be fixed with a restart, some cannot. Every few minutes the internet connection drops. Sometimes it starts working again after a while, sometimes I need to restart the phone.
Oh, and the worst one — recently it just started randomly turning off during the night, so the alarm doesn’t ring
do you already have the bootloader unlocked? if so, a full backup could be trivial. if it’s not unlocked then the unlock procedure involves a factory reset so it wouldn’t be of much use tho…
No, unfortunately I don’t