Ever since Android 12 I've noticed severe battery drain issues on my Pixel 4a. I now have 2 other pixel 4a phones that I want to install GrapheneOS on. What is the last version of GrapheneOS with Android 11? My plan is to rollback then stay on that version for the remainder of the life of the phones.
Pixel 4a - Android 11 Rollback
bowpay Pretty sure that you cannot rollback to 11. There is NO choice on which version of android you can use.
brookie229 Darn! I guess I will try Android 13 on the new phones. Battery life has been horrible! Thanks for the reply!
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bowpay considering you got your 4a when it first came out, battery is approaching its life cycle. But with the new power hungry chipsets albeit a bigger battery do not expect a whole lot more of screen time.
Apologies for hijacking this thread for something related.
brookie229 Do you know when Google's Android Flash Tool stops providing working builds for phones? I'm referring to this: https://flash.android.com/back-to-public
According to this page, they support Pixel 2 and newer: https://source.android.com/docs/setup/build/flash#device-requirements
When Google says they provide security updates for 5 years and feature updates for 3, does that mean that after 3 years, they stop offering a new major version of Android?
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Equal2024 I am sorry for jumping in and putting another variable into the equation and that is the battery of the device. It is nice to have a promise of years and years of updates but after 2 to 3 years of use, performance of your battery will drastically reduce and you will be forced to replace it by either an old stock or not so trusted third party replacement. Current way of mobile phone production where the battery is built-in is IMHO unsustainable, water seal is hardly an excuse, my view is vendors are trying to disallow access to internal parts. Let's be honest in three years time you will likely be using a different device, that is more up to date. Or if not you, vast majority of people will go down that route.
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Equal2024 does that mean that after 3 years, they stop offering a new major version of Android?
Thats all they are guaranteeing theyll offer, yes.
bowpay since Android 12 I've noticed severe battery drain issues on my Pixel 4a
I dont think its likely connected to the Android version you use.
Its much more likely that this is related to the apps you use or the way you use them/have them set up (e.g. Element can cause big battery drain for some people). Can try and disable individual apps. See if you notice much difference. Maybe uninstall and set them up again in case youve changed settings that impact battery drain.
Also possibly a change in the quality of your mobile network connection. A poor connection can have a big impact. More so if you are running certain apps (e.g. Signal without Google Play Services can cause much heavier drain in this condition)
It is nice to have a promise of years and years of updates but after 2 to 3 years of use, performance of your battery will drastically reduce and you will be forced to replace it by either an old stock or not so trusted third party replacement.
I'm unfamiliar with Android devices, but my iPhone 8 lasted 6 years without a problem (and is still just fine, with 79% total battery capacity, but software support will lapse soon, hence my purchase of a Google Pixel). Perhaps because my phone usage is usually no more than 1 hour per week. I do intend to take good care of the battery on this phone, though, following the battery threads for GrapheneOS. We'll see how that goes...
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Equal2024 Certainly, if you use your smartphone very sparingly, your battery will go a long way. But this is by no means average use, which I had in mind.
A little bit of statistics showing how our mobile phone use grows exponentially
https://www.uswitch.com/mobiles/studies/mobile-statistics/
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Why can't we roll back to Android 10 or 11? My device was supplied with stock 11. I flashed on Graphene 13 last week. I thought you can put any version of Graphene on we like. But Graphene 13 does not give any issues to the phone like stock 13 does? I also read that the best version of android to be running on a 4a is android 10, and 11 is where things start breaking on stock
galaxyegg Why can't we roll back to Android 10 or 11?
https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/4674-video-recording-in-camera-app-laggyunresponsive/13
https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/3641-how-to-factory-reset/19
https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/735-downgrade-to-graphene-os-android-12/5
If you have an old image and are willing to wipe your device, you can go back.