Pixel 4 has just stopped getting updates (thanks Google) so I'm looking for recommendations for an android replacement. I like the idea of the Pixel 7 but also like the idea of spending less (Pixel 6a or Nothing Phone 1)
3 years of updates is actually exceptionally good for an android phone... So if you care about getting updates then the Pixel 7 is the default recommendation. As for the nothing phone, that would be a complete dice roll when it comes to ever getting updates, at that point you might as well just buy a new £150 phone every year or two where you know you'll never see an update for android.
What do you want out of the phone? Samsung S21/22 series get a guaranteed 5 years of updates, if that's important to you. A decent refurb S21 is pretty much the same size as your Pixel, a much better phone in every way, and will get updates until 2026. All for about £350. I can never understand why someone would buy a current gen mid-range handset for similar or more money than a last-gen flagship, only to find out that it is significantly more 'disposable' than they first thought. But each to their own of course! Edit: Whether you will still want to be using the same handset after 4 years (at most) is a different question entirely. The battery will be degraded by that point and the chipset will likely have been trumped several times. But as someone who has done budget and mid-range phones to death over the years, always trying to support the underdog, moving to a big brand flagship is night and day. You can really tell where the billions in R&D have been spent.
The idea of a better phone is kinda nonsensical, the specs of even dirt cheap phones are orders of magnitude beyond what apps require to work just fine with the size of the screen, battery and storage as the only real difference left. This isn't like a pc where faster hardware can provide a performance benefit in lets say gaming for example, cause the most stressed component in a mobile game is your credit card while normal apps like google maps or the 50 trillion store loyalty apps everyone is doing now and the likes run just fine even on ancient budget turd phones. Sure if you have two phones for the same price and one has better specs get the better one, but don't pay for specs cause they don't actually serve a purpose.
It's the car argument though. You live with it every day. All cars can get you from A to B, but it's up to you what extra features you want/need to pay for to make those journeys more pleasant. What car do you drive? How much did you pay for it? I bet I can find one that would have done ostensibly the same job for a lot less... My S22 Ultra is massive overkill - I don't use the S-pen, I don't game, I'm not a photographer and I don't use it for productivity. But I use it every day, and I'll bet I compromise a lot less than most people do with their phones, each and every day.
In a similar boat looking for a phone atm and torn between the Pixel 7 Pro and OnePlus 10 Pro OnePlus is doing £200 off the onelus 10 pro (£100 in the sale and £100 using cod BF2022A) bringing the 128GB down to £599. Code should work with the Oneplus 10T too. I would also throw the Oppo Find X3 Pro £449 and OnePlus 9 Pro 128GB £479 in the Curry's Sale if you are looking at that £400 mark. Compared to their successors (Find x5 pro and One Plus 10) they have a slightly smaller battery, slightly less ram and use the older Snapdragon 888 processor but use the same cameras. Certainly puts them as contenders against the Nothing Phone 1 and Pixel 6a.
Unless you have extremely sensitive information on your phone, you don't need to dump it the second the guaranteed security updates stop. Google would probably issue a patch for anything devastating all the way back to the original pixel just to protect their brand. Custom ROMs are also not the worst idea.
I had a OnePlus 8T, was nice until the color OS update came out, phone was garbage after that, kinda glad I lost it. Picked up a pixel 6 when it was on offer, temperamental fingerprint sensor aside been happy with it.
