Or an established player in the market that wants to keep competitors out (but I guess in a way that is someone who dislikes change). While legislation like this can sometimes be great (e.g. the recent changes forcing longer support for mobile phones) there comes a point where it cuts the other way and it becomes an entry barrier.

Imo the better solution would be to legislate what happens after support ends. Like forcing the disclosure of at least some documentation that allows others to continue servicing the product or at least transfer out data and install other software on the device.

I admittedly don’t have enough comparison, since my last phones were all pretty much stock android (2x pixel and before that a nokia/hmd with android one. I do have a Samsung tablet, but only a lower one without Samsung dex, which i assume would be the most interesting vendor feature? What special features am i missing out on?

What i do however like is that they don’t come with google apps and another set of vendor specific ones by default. Some of them might be better than the default, but when i am unsatisfied by that i rather just choose a replacement myself and download it e.g. from fdroid store.

Also I’m not sure Pixel actually counts as a premium phone.

As far as msrp price goes i’d say they are in the premium segment price wise, but at least here in Germany they pretty much immediately are available at great discounts at least in combination with mobile plans.

You are right that hardware wise they aren’t necessarily at the top, especially when compared to some of the chinese brands. But in return you get clean software and very long support. And even though the camera might not have the greatest specs the immediate results (which is what matters to most consumers) are consistenly ranked among the best.

Yeah, even when considering them briefly that was an absolute deal breaker to me. 4/6 is still far less than the 7 years you get from Google/Samsung (at least their higher end models) or however long iPhones get updates, but similar to some competitors already mentioned in this thread from Xiaomi or vivo.

And I guess many will upgrade within 6 years anyways, whereas with 2 years it was basically guaranteed that the devices will spend a good part (maybe even a majority) of their lifetime without any software and security updates.

Another aspect imo is software update policy. I guess now with new EU legislation it should improve, but in the past you got like 2 years OS, 3 security updates? Even on their flagship models.

That’s just terrible, even more so when you weren’t buying them at release.

I mean in the server space Linux has already won and is doing just fine. Imo it is actually the reverse and sad that it needs this level of turmoil to get Europe to even think about software and digital infrastructure as fundamental. And even with all that’s going on they are just dipping their toes into it rather than properly comitting to a radical shift. Hell, even with all that’s going on some parts of the police here in Germany are still getting into bed with companies like Palantir.

Agreed. I hope this gains even more traction. Building a digital economy around support and service of free open source software with the requirement of personnel being local seems like the best way for Europe to finally become competitive.