You surely have heard the awesomely cheap prices of the Huawei phones, Xiaomi, and other chinese brands. And you'd be wise with your money to invest for a Chinese smartphone, but there's a catch, every American company makes their cellphones in China as well.
Apple as a notable example of this. Where the people working at their factories in FOXCONN have a reputation for killing themselves. Why? Excessive loads of work and a poor working ambient.
But this post goes even further than criticizing the treatment of employees in the PRC, but the bad treatment of their citizens in general, China is a repressive authoritarian state where people are not allowed to say think or act in ways contrary to the government and if the government thinks you're a threat then rest assured it'll make your life a living hell.
How does Chinese authoritarianism affects your user experience as a consumer?
Very simple, yet dark.
Chinese companies syphon all the info they can possibly gather about you, even Nokia was found to send data to the Chinese government.
It is a threat to your security and a support to the current oppressive regime in China to buy their cellphones.
So what's my recommendation? Buy phones made in India, Vietnam or South Korea. Samsung is a good example and is why I bought my phone from them, mine was made in Vietnam and I'm happy with it. Except that I have a not so popular model and I have to be active in the dev community to push it forward. But that has its own beauty!
With this I close the Post and I wish every reader a good day.
There are some companies that send data to governments, they use operating systems such as HydrogenOS as far as I know. I don't know much about these things but I can assure you this thing is very dangerous and can lead to uncountable threats in the future
Null909 said:
There are some companies that send data to governments, they use operating systems such as HydrogenOS as far as I know. I don't know much about these things but I can assure you this thing is very dangerous and can lead to uncountable threats in the future
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I know right? The worst thing is that the common consumer doesn't care about it. So they'll buy a phone from the shadiest cheapest company you could possibly imagine and won't even try to install a custom rom.
A phone, which is a conglomerate of plastic, glass, metal and other solid components, cannot spy, whether it has been produced in china or elsewhere: if someone is spying, it is the apps that are installed, the rights that are granted.
It is the user who enables espionage and not a chinese or other resident manufacturer. See also here
Sotiras said:
I know right? The worst thing is that the common consumer doesn't care about it. So they'll buy a phone from the shadiest cheapest company you could possibly imagine and won't even try to install a custom rom.
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Yes, that's right, but it's not necessary for the phone itself to be spying, maybe it's the system that plays the spy. Like China's Hydrogen firmwares, this thing is like trying to find a needle in a haystack for users, i.e. they don't think about such things in general as it poses a danger to the user. I don't know much about this thing but I recently read about cases revealed by phones, the internet is a big and dangerous world and used as a means of gathering information in various subjects، and don't forget that a lot of people have been investigated just because they searched for certain topics on the internet i.e. countries are watching literally everything.
do you have any proof that e.g. Huawei is spying on people John Doe? you don’t, because there isn’t any, there isn’t any evidence of intention, there is nothing there, just smoke and mirrors. even a mr. Trump could not present any evidence.
i hope we are not so ignorant as to be swayed by such poor writing as OP did.
remember that as soon as you switch on an Android device, where it doesn't matter whether you registered it with Google or not, Google starts spying on you. wondering why always chinese manufactures are said to be the culprits?
@Sotiras
while we can understand and accept the freedom of speaking about our devices on a dedicated forum like XDA, the exacerbation of the topic beyond the forum rules and the lack common sense is not tolerated.
such remarks as below
But this post goes even further than criticizing the treatment of employees in the PRC, but the bad treatment of their citizens in general, China is a repressive authoritarian state where people are not allowed to say think or act in ways contrary to the government and if the government thinks you're a threat then rest assured it'll make your life a living hell.
How does Chinese authoritarianism affects your user experience as a consumer?
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is totally inappropriate and have never had a place on XDA for a simple reason:
2. Member conduct.
2.4 Personal attacks, racial, political and / or religious discussions: XDA is a discussion forum about certain mobile phones. Mobile phones are not racial, political, religious or personally offensive and therefore, none of these types of discussions are permitted on XDA.
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as simple as that, just imagine you`re talking to your best friend that has just purchased a Chinese or other branded phone; are you going to talk about that country`s politics or about the device itself? I bet you`d just say, "ok bud, enjoy your phone although I`m not such a fan because ... takes worse pictures ..." and nicely move on for a beer and continue talking about girls. But somehow here on XDA you feel like, behind a keyboard, expanding your thoughts further to political aspects well no, we do not host here such topics.
please keep this in mind and next time try to be device centred rather than political.
thanks for understanding!
thread colsed
Related
I don't know if anyone has seen the new post made on portal but I intend to send this to all the Apple Exec's and relevant people I can find.
We should all send this to the same people to let them know what we think.
Dear Apple,
Your ENTIRE organization lacks morals and free market competition basics, and as such, you are not worthy of having the glory that you now posses. While you may have revolutionized the world as we know it with very well crafted marketing campaigns and some good ideas, you are far from being a true innovator in the field of… anything. Just think for one second about the LEAPS in technology that you would have accomplished, should you have invested in R&D a quarter of the money you spend into advertising and marketing. Then, you would have something worth portraying as a technological wonder, something that would likely be untouchable by others. Something truly genuine that you can call your own, and at the end of the day you could look at with pride. What you have right now is a bunch of reinvented wheels, most of which don’t do much more than other wheels out there.
Redefining concepts and ideas is not what makes a company great; coming up with new concepts is. HTC and other major OEMS have often been in the vanguard by innovating with their products, adding new features, rethinking, and just putting concepts out there to imagine their possibilities. Your last innovations and only major contributions to the world of mobile technology were the inclusion of capacitive multi-touch gestures and an accelerometer in mobile devices, and these were with the original iPhone back in 2007. For that and only that, I give you credit. All the newer models of virtually every product you sell have been remakes of previous technology—perhaps a little thinner and a little faster, but all in all, minor changes.
It is because of companies like yours that technology is not further today than where it currently is. You are so adamant in protecting something that you didn’t even invent that you are holding back future innovation. The spirit and basic concepts of engineering are completely missing from your business models. Courtesy of the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology:
Engineering is the profession in which a knowledge of the mathematical and natural sciences gained by experience, study, and practice is applied with judgement to develop ways to utilize economically, the materials and forces of nature for the benefit of mankind.
Notice the importance of the concept that you are no longer following. Engineering practices are used for the betterment of mankind. What have you done for this purpose? Rebrand an existing technology (MP3 players) and sell them for twice the price? Trying to cripple your competitors by claiming that you invented something that was previously invented, when you simply adapted the technology and closed off any other use of this by others? This can be compared to using a Linux kernel (if it weren’t under GPL license), patenting it, and closing it off so that no one else can use it.
Apple, you are simply a disgrace to the world of technology and to engineering in general. I feel ashamed of being called an engineer in a world where your company roams around freely without even following the most basic of the field’s concepts—a world where the law and justice are blind to the fact that your actions are hindering humanity’s advancement. While I understand that there is nothing wrong with making money, there is something very wrong with replacing engineering with greed.
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Does anyone know some definite e-mail addresses to Apple execs and relevant people?
E-mail Addresses found so far:
Tim Cook [email protected]
How about sending it to one infinite loop,Cupertino CA
At least spam filters won't get it...
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus
I went to their site earlier today and when on chat to let them know my anger. Click thru their Google ad first
Nice! Even though i dont have any email addresses, i think this should be posted to any and every response to or from a crapple fan or employee.
Sent from my Transformer
sent
This is silly.
I mean, heck. If I were company A who invented idea X and company B came along with idea X, I would not be so different from Apple.
And, Apple employees are not the ones hording our EVOs. Its the government.
What we need is a "Free EVO" campaign
typhoonikan said:
And, Apple employees are not the ones hording our EVOs. Its the government.
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Ah, didn't realize the Customs office is holding HTC products for ****s and giggles.
Doesn't matter. Voices need to be heard.
I sent one too!
Steve Jobs would sometimes personally answer emails, but I doubt Tim Cook would. Honestly at this point it's out of Apple's hands as it's US Customs who are enforcing it and controlling the process of holding the phones so a mass email to them would be more effective.
typhoonikan said:
This is silly.
I mean, heck. If I were company A who invented idea X and company B came along with idea X, I would not be so different from Apple.
And, Apple employees are not the ones hording our EVOs. Its the government.
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Therein lies the biggest issue, Apple didn't invent a lot of the stuff they have patents for. They are just the first ones to try and patent something so ridiculous.
coolblue830 said:
Steve Jobs would sometimes personally answer emails, but I doubt Tim Cook would. Honestly at this point it's out of Apple's hands as it's US Customs who are enforcing it and controlling the process of holding the phones so a mass email to them would be more effective.
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Tell my why the HTC One on T-Moblie is being held? You know, the network without the iphoney...
Pure thuggery by apple
Sent from my Sprint Galaxy Nexus CDMA using Tapatalk 2
shook187 said:
What we need is a "Free EVO" campaign
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As in "free" beer, or "free" willy?
Sent.
All sprint and other cellular phone salesman should advise customers against buying the iPhone. Recommend a Nexus or EVO LTE instead.
Peace All,
Where is ANONYMOUS when we need them? They would be the best at doing this--hey they might even be able to shut down some of Apple's infrastructure
phatmanxxl said:
All sprint and other cellular phone salesman should advise customers against buying the iPhone. Recommend a Nexus or EVO LTE instead.
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I sell phones and already do this! B-)
Apple doesn't care what non-customers think of them.
Apple's action is anti-consumer, it's time to awaken the government's consumer protection arms to take action against Apple. Write to your Attorney Generals, write to the Federal Trade Commission. Make Apple listen.
ZTE announced as being banned from use by US officials.
Very interesting, I haven't seen concrete evidence posted.
1) any record of "phone home" packet being sent via stock firmware(like BLU)?
2) is there a hardware embedded or software or both tech concern?
3) would lineageOS devices be susceptible to this?
What steps has anyone takeno ameliorate concerns?
cyrusharding said:
ZTE announced as being banned from use by US officials.
Very interesting, I haven't seen concrete evidence posted.
1) any record of "phone home" packet being sent via stock firmware(like BLU)?
2) is there a hardware embedded or software or both tech concern?
3) would lineageOS devices be susceptible to this?
What steps has anyone takeno ameliorate concerns?
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Why do you suspect it's because of a security concern? The US govt wanted to ban Huawei on selling phones via carrier on the US, they failed, so now they are banning ZTE and Huawei phones on the govt. They just don't want them selling on the US.
Anyways yes we found out about one app that sent location info to some place in China. That was before they changed to Qualcomm IZat. Before that, when you were setting up your phone, they asked you if you wanted to use that app to improve gps performance, so you actually were asked if you wanted to use it anyways. Aside that I think there was nothing else.
There are some data logging apps on the Play store anyways, so you could see which apps are sending data
When I first had stock I found that the lockscreen wallpaper thingy would query a server in China with your phone's IMEI in the URL string. At one point I also found where they would find their wallpapers on the web. Like, they just skimmed them from "best photos of 2012" sorts of articles.
Anyways, I think I used things like NetGuard and Wireshark to capture packets and see what they looked like to glean that information on what was being sent to random servers when clicking around on some features on the stock ROM.
Aside from that, this stuff with ZTE, Huawei and the U.S. gov't has been going on since like 2009 or so. They've never released proof every time it comes up. They have this speculative fear that someday Huawei could embed snooping software in networking hardware (routers and stuff) but there's never been any proof. For ZTE, they didn't like that ZTE made business deals with Iran a few years ago.
The summer before this phone was released, Congress lifted sanctions on ZTE to allow them to trade in the U.S. ZTE consequently opened up their books and let our gov't sift through their business dealings and find intelligence on North Korea's business dealings, amongst other things I'm sure.
The impression I got is the U.S. gov't works on gathering intelligence and uses pressure against industries in other countries to get what they want through threatening a foreign government by going through their businesses.
Bottom line: I have no idea if they do shady stuff because no one has given any proof.
I can cite sources but that's the gist of my thoughts on the subject.
I just think this means government officials can't use phones from Huawei or ZTE
But that makes sense, I remember in stock rom I took photos with location on, and those photos had a location of a factory/office in Shanghai, China which made me very suspicious
It isn't just phones. Huawei produces business-class and telco-class networking equipment. That's why they get more of the coverage and speculative concern.
This 60 Minutes episode was kinda my introduction to the story a few years ago.
And then right around the time I bought this phone the U.S. lifted sanctions against ZTE
https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-to...sanction-relief-to-chinas-zte-corp-1458511694
Here's an article on ZTE giving up financials to us on North Korea
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...-target-north-korea-violators-with-zte-s-help
Granted, ZTE has also done a few things the U.S. didn't like in regards to trade with Iran and North Korea and Huawei (I gathered) would reverse engineer Cisco equipment to steal their intellectual property.
At this point it sounds indirectly harmless for you and me.
Teet1 said:
I just think this means government officials can't use phones from Huawei or ZTE
But that makes sense, I remember in stock rom I took photos with location on, and those photos had a location of a factory/office in Shanghai, China which made me very suspicious
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That was the previous location accelerator weird thingamajig i think
Choose an username... said:
That was the previous location accelerator weird thingamajig i think
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It didn't do much of that location acceleration if my pictures and Google maps all pointed to china
I am glad I wasn't the only one to perceive corporate agendas ''vs an actual threat. ZTE has been amazing. The only time I have seen dev and device support like theirs was with Moto in their first google year. ZTE was the only one doing something good for me in 2016 devices. I was pissed to read all of the stories against ZTE. Mostly because it is obviously click bait. _typed from my freshly received Axon 7 $79 refurb Hands down the industry's best warranty.
This whole spying thing is always silly. IMO the US would have to be the number one suspect for a spying nation. Things like Google commercialised spying. We might be served adds using our data but what else is being done with it?
My thought is that if the US points the finger, maybe it's because they do it already themselves and are paranoid about others doing as they do.....
ZTE has been caught using spyware and the Axon 7 does have suspicious software on it. The odd thing is that Google is collects enormous amounts of personal data and nobody seems to mind. It even leaks that data back out in the form of ad selections, search result rankings, and Google Maps detail rankings.
kevinmcmurtrie said:
ZTE has been caught using spyware and the Axon 7 does have suspicious software on it. The odd thing is that Google is collects enormous amounts of personal data and nobody seems to mind. It even leaks that data back out in the form of ad selections, search result rankings, and Google Maps detail rankings.
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Can you tell us where you read the first statement? The worst thing we've seen here is a gps accelerator app sending stuff to somewhere in China, but that's not necessarily spyware since they might just be sending location data
https://mobile.twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/995680316458262533?s=19
I'm tempted to be happy and optimistic about this. But please forgive me if I'll exercise restraint until ZTE makes a statement that everything is back to normal, the OTA servers are back online, etc, etc.
Somebody on Reddit is already claiming that the ban is going to be lifted. Or that in this case, here in XDA, "ZTE is back". Why can nobody read articles carefully? Spreading misinformation is never a good thing. The tweet basically says that both parties are working on a solution. Nothing more, nothing less. Also, ZTE was never gone, it still exist. So "ZTE is back" doesn't make much sense here.
Nevertheless, I'm stocking up on spare usb pcb and a battery in case this stays the way it is and no other, decent phone comes out in the next 2 years I'd want to dump $650+ on.
Lineage is a much better experience all around so any updates no longer get me excited. And there was always reason to be optimistic ZTE could reach a deal as while their transgressions were serious, they are not the same as being tied to Chinese intelligence and the party like Huawei is. The US government still won't use them but banning them outright only killed competition in China which might be good for the US in the long run.
This is the last Chinese phone I will own. Spending less is nice but I think we have reached a point where the battlelines are drawn and people should voting with their dollar. The Axon 7 for $325 was a great deal but Im willing to spend more for a better software experience next time and to support a 'Western' company, even if it is in Taiwan.
I wouldnt consider China an enemy and I marvel at the things we could all accomplish if we put aside our nationalistic garbage, but China will never be like that even if the West was. Fundamentally different views of the world and the future. It's time for Westerners to understand that. China will never be our friends. They dont think like that. It's not about good and evil or anything like that. They just believe they are better and believe they will, and should win. Once you understand Confucianism, you understand China. We either rise to the challenge or fail miserably. As a consumer I can do my small bit. If every Westerner did the same we could start to level the playing field.
And if Google could stop overpricing their Pixel line that would be great. They have zero need to turn a profit. You could easily argue that they should be taking a loss to get their hardware into people's hands in order to improve the inherent issues with Android.
rjt378 said:
Lineage is a much better experience all around so any updates no longer get me excited. And there was always reason to be optimistic ZTE could reach a deal as while their transgressions were serious, they are not the same as being tied to Chinese intelligence and the party like Huawei is. The US government still won't use them but banning them outright only killed competition in China which might be good for the US in the long run.
This is the last Chinese phone I will own. Spending less is nice but I think we have reached a point where the battlelines are drawn and people should voting with their dollar. The Axon 7 for $325 was a great deal but Im willing to spend more for a better software experience next time and to support a 'Western' company, even if it is in Taiwan.
I wouldnt consider China an enemy and I marvel at the things we could all accomplish if we put aside our nationalistic garbage, but China will never be like that even if the West was. Fundamentally different views of the world and the future. It's time for Westerners to understand that. China will never be our friends. They dont think like that. It's not about good and evil or anything like that. They just believe they are better and believe they will, and should win. Once you understand Confucianism, you understand China. We either rise to the challenge or fail miserably. As a consumer I can do my small bit. If every Westerner did the same we could start to level the playing field.
And if Google could stop overpricing their Pixel line that would be great. They have zero need to turn a profit. You could easily argue that they should be taking a loss to get their hardware into people's hands in order to improve the inherent issues with Android.
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Stop being a political s_hit in XDA this not place to practice politics it is a good community where we dev our beloved devices.Yes there is a trade war going on with China and US and we are the victim of that war.BTW if you hate china so much then you should die Cause I bet the thing we use in our day to day life all are made in or assembled in China.So its impossible to live without them.:silly:
Druboo666 said:
Stop being a political s_hit in XDA this not place to practice politics it is a good community where we dev our beloved devices.Yes there is a trade war going on with China and US and we are the victim of that war.BTW if you hate china so much then you should die Cause I bet the thing we use in our day to day life all are made in or assembled in China.So its impossible to live without them.:silly:
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That's a logical and reasonable response.
I lived and worked in China. I dont hate China at all. I just think people in the West should begin to understand China. China wouldnt give a thimble of water to a man on fire. Not because they hate the man on fire, but because they would save the water for themselves because they might need it someday. That's a totally different mentality from the Western mindset that they take advantage of. The best thing we can do is understand China, and all of our competitors. We give away far too much as a result of not understanding and assuming that Western ideals are the dominant ideals, even when capitalism is embraced.
Druboo666 said:
Yes there is a trade war going on with China and US and we are the victim of that war blah blah blah
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If you want to stop the political bull**** on XDA, then stop parroting CNN and going "BUT MUH TRADE WAR!!11" ZTE violated an agreement. Another agreement was set up and they violated that one too. You can only give someone so many chances before you look like a fool.
Everyone should just be hopeful that ZTE isn't out and we might get an actually stable build of oreo that works with all the features of Android, LIKE ENCRYPTION
Hi all. so I've been thinking about getting the s9+, but there is so much talk about them spying on their users, I know we can't just believe anything we read online these days so I thought I'd ask here.
So I'm looking to get some good answers from real programers and people who actually know what they are talking about, so if your a programmer or just a more advanced Android user and know anything about the code, please share your opinions.
Spying on users? If there was actually any hard evidence of that in public, it would be pretty well publicised. Your post is paradoxical, you acknowledge that you can't just believe anything you read online but you're online asking this very question. If you want a real answer, you'd have to hire a company to audit their software. Considering though that these devices are used by many many companies as business devices (Many of which will have already conducted audits), I'd say they're probably safe. Even if there is some form of deep spying going on, they're probably not interested in you.
Biggest joke ever:good:
How will be they able to spy on you.
spy who spies?
we all give our information of our own volition, for this you use social networks and various online platforms, everything learns from you what you like, what you use, what interests you to give you a better experience, unfortunately everything is recorded and if it can be used badly, but it is concern only for important people not for a normal user calm haha
An executive order has been signed by Trump banning Huawei in the US...
Also Qualcomm (QCOM) may have to apply for US export licenses to continue supplying technology to Huawei.
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/05/15/tech/trump-executive-order-telecom-security/index.html
Why worry about Huawei when Google, facebook and the countries intelligence are already spying.
I think the problem lies with 5G, Huawei are trying the set up the infrastructure for 5G across Asia, Europe and the US amongst over areas. Which means that they'll have a back door to almost everything connected to 5G.
5G will connect to everything, even LED lights in your home which basically gives them a 3D view of every area 5G covers. Whoever has access to it will know where you are nearly all the time.
The timing makes it obvious the steps against Huawei is derivative of the US trade war with China rather than concerns over spying.
warea said:
The timing makes it obvious the steps against Huawei is derivative of the US trade war with China rather than concerns over spying.
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I wonder if it makes sense to care about that. Huawei prices are dropping and people try to sell there used phones. A good moment to buy something like that.
Am I totally wrong in thinking that Trump will probably not stop xda developers from developing updates for Huawei phones? If so I do not care about Huaweis updates or wether they include Gapps
But sadly XDA is not able to develop updates for Huawei beacause of locked bootloader etc, so what you are trying to say is......?
EnormoDerClown said:
But sadly XDA is not able to develop updates for Huawei beacause of locked bootloader etc, so what you are trying to say is......?
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I do not own a huawei phone (yet) and am still investigating about existing roms. Is there really no easy way to unlock bootloader for huawei devices in general? That would definitely stop me from buying huawei.
BTW: of you quote me I see your post faster
daniu said:
I do not own a huawei phone (yet) and am still investigating about existing roms. Is there really no easy way to unlock bootloader for huawei devices in general? That would definitely stop me from buying huawei.
BTW: of you quote me I see your post faster
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No there is no easy way, even no way at all at the moment.
I am quite relaxed at the moment, for existing phones there will still be support, future phones could be a HUGE problem. But to be honest, A LOT switch their phones after 2 years or even before, so most people will not be touched by this ban who are currently owning this awesome phone.
I don't think Huawei spies. Even if they did, are they the only big players who do it?
US already spies on their citizens and on the world - Edward Snowden told the world and now he's not allowed back into his country. Facebook also sells your data if you remember that Cambridge Analytica drama.
Do people just forget what's happened?
Agree, i am total sure that Apple has a file with my data and i didn´t even touched an apple device in my life
that doesn´t make spying good, but i also think huawei is not doing more/less than the rest
EnormoDerClown said:
No there is no easy way, even no way at all at the moment.
I am quite relaxed at the moment, for existing phones there will still be support, future phones could be a HUGE problem. But to be honest, A LOT switch their phones after 2 years or even before, so most people will not be touched by this ban who are currently owning this awesome phone.
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this is not my attitude towards phones. Mine is rather: use the device until warranty is over (or a bit earlier) then root and install a custom rom and use the phone until it is really dead. Unfortunately it seems like that did not take too long on my Asus Zenfone selfie ...
I also use phones quite long, but really a lot people get a new one every year or every two years by contract. The same people which are now selling their phones because of panic^^
if you plan on using custom rom/modification huawei is not suitable for you, it is just not possible. maybe the android ban will change something, but nobody can say that, you will have to wait to see what will happen.
Since no one else has said it on this thread let me be the first, Trump is an idiot, when he's gone the whole world will be better for it. He can't even honor D-day survivors without making it all about him, the ultimate draft dodger.