I don’t know what their high-end options are like, but I’ve been very satisfied with Motorola. Good quality for a low price.
I refuse to use any payment ap or link my phone to my bank or home computer. I have a separate chip for the camera in case the phone dies.
I’ve had my Galaxy S9 for 6 years now. I don’t use Bixby, and had put duct tape over the button that summons it so I don’t accidentally turn it on. It’s been a good phone, but my phone needs are simple - calls, text, and the occasional pic. I did go to the account feature on my phone to see where the account was located, and apparently it’s my Gmail account, so I should be able to recover it if I need to. I don’t do any financial stuff on my phone, except accessing Amazon.
StG
I haven’t had a Samsung phone since a Galaxy 3/4 because of all the bloatware that you couldn’t delete w/o rooting the phone. I’ve been told they’ve gotten better, but of course, I’ve only been able to see a demo phone in a store, not a real one to see if I could delete what I didn’t want on it. I’ve been mostly happy with my Pixel(s)m though even they’re starting to put bloatware on.
On most Samsung models, the “bixby key” can be repurposed via some setting to do something else or do nothing. So no awkward duct tape necessary.
I felt the same way. I changed my mind because it’s no longer safe to wait a month for a bank statement.
I look at my checking account transactions twice a week on the Bank App. I caught the fraud early this time. I can’t imagine the damage if it had gone for a month.
I don’t make deposits or transfer money with an App. I only do that in person at the bank.
I had a Galaxy S8 for years, which finally died about a month ago. I don’t care about having the latest and greatest (obviously), but my wife kind of does. So she got an S24, and I took over her S21. After doing the factory reset on the S21, when I was told to sign into my Samsung account, there was a link in small print at the bottom that said something like “I’ll do this later.” That let me skip it. When the notifications started coming, “reminding” me I needed to sign in, I turned off notifications to all Samsung apps (those that I couldn’t uninstall), and that was the end of it.
What does this mean, your phone has an external micro SD card that you’re saving your photos to? I hope you’re backing them up somewhere else as it is possible for a card to fail.
Legally this is not correct as I don’t believe there’s been any change to Reg E. Obviously, the more time between looking the greater the likelihood something could go amiss but whether you call your back 5 mins after a fraudulent txn or a few weeks later once you get your statement you’ll get your money back, after an appropriate investigation by the bank as you have 60 days from the statement to report it.
That’s true. It’s not as safe as cloud storage but then the photos are not in the cloud.
I wouldn’t encrypt a SD card.
I don’t think it can be used in a new Android phone.
I moved my SD to my new phone in 2022. Still working fine.
The Files by Google App has a encrypted Safe folder. Protected by 4 digit pin. It keeps sensitive docs, spreadsheets secure. The downside is they have to be moved back to a standard Android folder to open or edit the files.
Encrypted or not, any device can fail. It’s not common, but it is > 0 that it happens; even to a server ‘in the cloud’. Hopefully your cloud storage is mirrored so you’ll never know if a device dies but it is possible for some server to die.
A lot of newer phones don’t support external storage anymore; the less orifices the less likely water is going to get in & kill your phone.
I just memorize all my photos in my head just in case.
For real? Can you further define “matter of months”? I ask because Vaderling and I both have iphone X and if I need to start shopping for different phones I should start now and migrate to motorola or pixel in a planned way.
Sorry don’t mean to hijack but this is important for me.
I was led to believe that the XR series would not be supported by iOS 18, which is set to release sometime in the fall (likely September). However, I’m now seeing reports that any phone with an A12 chip will be supported, and the XR does have that chip. So what I had been told before might not be accurate. (My agency is still pushing the replacement regardless.)
I believe that we had made plans to replace the phones before Apple had fully released the requirements and knew whether or not they would still be supported. So it looks like the XR, XS, and the 2nd generation of SE phones will still be okay for 18.
Your iPhone X is already a full version of iOS behind (the latest version it runs is 16, not the current 17), so I am assuming that what you are concerned about are security updates. Security updates are still released for older iPhones even years after they stop receiving full-version iOS updates.
For example, Apple is still releasing security updates for the iPhone 6s, which is two full years older than your iPhone X, as recently as March 2024. That’s eight and a half years after its initial release.
That’s no guarantee your X will receive security updates for another 2 years, but it’s an encouraging sign.
My phone is running 17.5.1
I was at work on break and was both surprised and didn’t have time, then, to look it up myself. Everything I could find said support for iphone X ends 2025 and SE was good till, I think 2027? I paid less attention to the SE end date.
Then you don’t have an iPhone X.
Maybe you have a XR or XS variant, but the X does not support iOS 17.
Again, full version releases for iPhone X are already over and done with. Support for security updates, however, often continue for several more years after an iPhone has received its last full version update. Whatever information you found for how long security updates will continue is just people guessing and using historical data, myself included.
This ambiguous security update policy has changed recently. Apple recently said it will support the latest iPhone 15 with security updates for a minimum of 5 years, and that’s likely a policy that will continue with future iPhones. But, again, it’s fairly regular for iPhones to receive security updates for significantly longer than 5 years.
Any commercial cloud storage is fully mirrored to an amazing degree. By them, so you don’t have to. Your only risk is e.g. Amazon or Google or Microsoft closing their doors forever unexpectedly one night. Which is zero risk compared to the risk of any solution or collection of solutions any consumer could possibly cobble together.
Switching to money …
I may or may not put my financial institutions’ apps on my phone. Depends on how often I need real-time access to that particular institution.
But I sure as hell have an online account fully set up to any- / every-where I keep any money and likewise things like insurance carriers that can indirectly affect my financial well-being. Why? So some bad actor can’t be the first person to establish online access to that account in my name. Me already having that online connection to my Bank X means nobody else is going to be able to create one. They’ll have to somehow hijack the connection I already have. Which is a) far harder for them to do, and is b) also far more likely to be noticed by me.
Refusing to establish an online connection to an e.g. bank isn’t security. It’s head in the sand about actual threats.
I came to the same conclusion.
It’s important to claim and secure online access accounts. Use 2 level logins. Lock the door.
Otherwise someone else can hijack the online account that isn’t claimed.
You can always delete the App. If your worried your phone could be lost or stolen. The account is still there and secured. Anyone trying to recover a password has to answer security questions and a Text PIN from your phone.
It’s pretty sad that is the world we live in today. My mom dealt with the same broker at Wells Fargo Advisors and A.G. Edwards for 35 years. All transactions were done by phone or personal visits to his office. He knew her voice and face.
I would argue the opposite.
E.g. In the last several days, including weekends and the wee hours, I’ve sold securities, transfered the proceeds first to one bank and then on to another, then finally paid off a car loan and received the updated title from the relevant government agency. All while traveling out of the country.
Exactly zero of which I could have done back when I needed to visit branches, talk to dear old Bob the Broker in person, nor wait for snail mail or schlep paper checks from branch to branch. That would have been at least a month-long process back in 1965 or even 1995.
Now is so superior to 20-30 years ago it isn’t even funny.