Do you get security updates though? I stopped getting them in Dec 2019. Forcing my hand to move over to a phone with Android 9 that gets quarterly security updates still(on March 2021 now I think). I realize this is a manufacturer/carrier thing as far as I know, and I'd like to go back to a nice clean debloated 8.1 or whatever. But I feel like I'm dragged kicking and screaming along the path of forced obsolescence just skimming over the security stuff that apparently I'm never going to get if I don't upgrade phones.
Honestly it's just really annoying. I've toyed around with Lineage and such but at some point it seems it got a lot harder to do things on a lot of models and carrier configs. It seems you need to really research exactly what phone model is open enough and has enough people graciously doing open source work to support updates and such outside of the manufacturer and carrier.
I thought Android One devices had stopped receiving regular updates? I know I read a report that most/all of them had yet to receive Android 11 two months ago and that security updates were now being released months after they used to be. If I recall that report correctly, it sounded like new devices had all but stopped being released and that it seemed like the program is on life support now. I know that program was very locale-specific, so maybe that was just in the US?
Honestly it's just really annoying. I've toyed around with Lineage and such but at some point it seems it got a lot harder to do things on a lot of models and carrier configs. It seems you need to really research exactly what phone model is open enough and has enough people graciously doing open source work to support updates and such outside of the manufacturer and carrier.