Best phone I've ever used. Still going great after 4 years. Don't know how long it will last. There doesn't seem to be anything available with similar form factor.
Replaced my 4a with a similar sized Moto Edge 30 Neo. Overall, much better hardware quality. I had a warranty replacement for the 4a due to cracks around the headphone jack, also happened to the replacement but that wasn't replaced.
The Moto was half the price of the 4a and is still receiving updates.
I looked into this because I find I want something I can stuff into a trouser pocket. The only reasonably viable android option was a Sony Xperia XZ2 compact, from 2018 on android 10. You can put lineage on it which is currently maintained, but that has the downsides of not passing device integrity which some apps will check, or being willing to constantly play cat and mouse to spoof it. Sony also apparently wipe a partition with a little DRM blob for the camera, which degrades some aspect of its post processing capabilities so image quality might be less. There's also the iPhone SE3 which is currently in support
I ended up getting a 'regular' sized samsung only slightly larger than the one it's replacing, but at least modern phones seem to be getting longer software support periods (assuming there's no nasty surprises included).
> Sony also apparently wipe a partition with a little DRM blob for the camera, which degrades some aspect of its post processing capabilities so image quality might be less.
I think they no longer do that since a while (a few years) ago, but don't ask me which phone model exactly was the last one affected.
The 8a is 3mm wider, 8mm taller, and 45g heavier. Perhaps that's not a huge difference, but I already consider the 4a too big. I will likely continue not upgrading as long as LineageOS and the hardware remain usable.
I switched from 4a to 8a. The weight difference is substantial and really noticable at first. I've gotten used to it now and it runs great with GrapheneOS, but it marked an end of an era of smaller, lighter phones for me.
FWIW I was on Pixel 3a until last month; bought Pixel 6 in the meantime, but it was too big and heavy to carry around, so I only used it as a "tablet", only at home.
Just updated to Pixel 8 and it fits the hand very well (including Spigen Liquid Air cover), and doesn't feel too heavy. Have a few friends who got Pixel 8 last month on sale as well and they all confirm.
> Headphone jacks in phones are (sadly) gone forever i'm afraid.
Maybe from Google phones, for now? Possibly on smaller phones. But Best Buy sells 7 models with 5g and a headphone jack. There's almost certainly more if you shop a retailer with more variety, using Best Buy because they have decent filtering.
I like the parametric search, but searching a US retailer helps me focus on phones that are reasonable to source and use in the US. I could manage when GSM was two bands in the US, and usually two bands overseas and if you wanted a really neat phone you hoped it was quad band or at least tri band, because the really neat phones that were dual band were dual band on EU frequencies... now GSM Arena inevitably points me at phones intended for use in Japan and usually have a pretty poor match up with bands I'm likely to use while remaining flexible for use on other carriers in case it becomes a hand me down and the recipient isn't on the same carrier as me.
