[Galaxy S 4 General] spaced<->out:
Thanks so much for sharing your perspective @DiamondJohn.

I actually set my wife up with a S10e a few years ago, so I'm very familiar with that device. (She went onto a plan where the handset was basically free; I've stubbornly stayed on my prepaid arrangement for minimal expenditure.) I actually looked at her S10e when the troubles started with my S4 and thought, this would be the perfect successor. Except it's now out of OEM support and starting to look a bit long in the tooth...

I came up with my feature wishlist (audio jack + SD card + wireless charging) thinking it would narrow the field of candidates to choose from. Now finding that it's basically impossible/I don't like the options remaining, I keep going back and forth in my mind over what the highest priorities are.

No wireless charging on the Pixel A series I note. So I know I could use an add-on charging coil, that plugs into the USB port. That's not ideal... but then if I have wireless charging available then I'll seldom need to use the USB (like I do with the S4) - as long as the thing has a headphone jack 😫 Arrrgh!

So yourself and @Retrial suggesting I don't need removable storage. You're probably right I won't run out of space, although no removable card still gives me the heebie jeebies. At present, the SD card is part of my backup strategy, because as I said if I have to wipe the internal memory, or the device were to outright die, that data would be safe on the removable card. And my S4 is only living because I have the SD card to store the ROMs for restoring with! (What's the modding life look like when you don't have a card to section off your data and ROMs, separate from the internal memory?)

I guess the answer to that is I need to look at replacement sooner rather than later.

I just lost the SIM card again, and had to flash the bootloader+modem for the third time this morning - and then had to re-flash LOS a couple times to get that working again. (I have a browser tab permanently open to your Guides on my computer for reference now.)

I don't know why I have to keep re-flashing firmwares lately. It seems to me the internal memory must be failing, and the firmware installed is corrupting over time. Does that seem likely? (Is there some kind of diagnostic I can run to test?) For now I can re-flash the firmware to refresh it and un-brick the device, but that's unlikely to be a long-term solution.

I recently watched an interesting discussion on Linus Tech Tips about buying new versus older/second-hand phones that was considering Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) approach. The argument was that if a device offers 5 years of software updates, and costs (say) $1000 new and $800 after a year, buying the older one is not saving you anything as at that point it will only bring you 4 years of updates. The implication here is that the device is junk after update support ends, because it's unacceptable to run without up-to-date security patches. (**laughs quietly embarrassed in Android 5**)

I visited my local retailer last week to try handling a few current devices. First takeaway, handsets sure have gotten big since the S4! Second takeaway, I'm looking at these Android devices, and most are only 3 or 2 years of vendor updates for my price range (and sometimes already a year out of date on the store shelf to boot). It's not even close to the longevity I'm expecting out of it. So, I think I need to consider the support for custom ROMs into the buying equation. Now I know Samsung have the weight of popularity and a lot of community support, Pixel probably are up there too. But that's where I get nervous about striking out with one of these Nokia or Motorola candidates I've looked at. I doubt they will have a dedicated following, with official and unofficial builds of newer Android versions being published like the S4 somehow still(!) enjoys.

I have one other candidate device here, my wife's old Sony Xperia Z5 Compact that preceded her S10e. She dropped it and damaged the main camera (among other things), and though I tried to repair it with replacement parts, after a while it had issues again. Taking photos of the kids is her highest priority, so we upgraded her to the S10e and shelved the Z5. So I thought about spending no money, and try to resurrect the Z5 and use that. But it doesn't have official LOS builds available like the S4, and although the customisations are provided for you to build your own, that looks way more involved, plus the form factor of the device would be a transition for me too (screen just doesn't look as good as S4 even with the burn-in on mine).

So I come back again to thinking I should grab a secondhand Samsung flagship (maybe even a S10e exactly like my wife's), mod it to LOS straight away and enjoy what should be pretty solid community support for many more years... Am I wrong? 🥺