In early 2016, I bought a Nexus 6p. It has by far and wide been my favorite device with a comfortable size, great screen, and a headphone port. While I’ve strongly considered picking up a fresh shiny Pixel, with both the proliferation of “fix it” stores and the sustained development of custom operating environments, I think its time for a Nexus Redux!
First off, the battery. While Nexus phones are notorious for having an unrecoverable reboot looping problem, they also have batteries that can dye unexpectedly fast (i.e. at 35%). Luckily, I only have to deal with the latter and getting it replaced is $90 at one of the fresh new UBreakIFix stores. This change has enabled my phone to last for a pretty solid two days based on my usage (which isn’t a lot). Wonderful!
Second, LineageOS! Back when I got my OnePlus One, I quickly installed Cyanogenmod and really enjoyed the customizability (plus enhancements!). LineageOS has picked up the torch and carried forward providing a beautifully optimized experience for basic and advanced android users alike.
The process has also become much easier:
- Install adb and fastboot on your computer.
- Unlock your bootloader and install recovery.
- Wipe and copy over install files.
- Install and boot
- ???
- Profit.
You can find documentation for whatever device you have on the wiki. I followed this page for my device and booted up into a brand new environment!
But wait, not so fast
I had this one pretty big issue. After going through the initial setup, my SIM was not being detected (even after a few reboots). Generally when this used to happen, it required you find a zip package for your radio firmware. Luckily, I found this in a forum thread:
A bug in oreo… Set security to none, reboot, then set security of your choice.
And he was right! That is one of the oddest bugs I’ve ever seen but disabling then re-enabling screen security worked a charm!
More Enhance!
From the Nexus6p subreddit, I found a couple other cool things users have done to increase the overall speed of the device:
- Change the screen resolution (I did 1080x1920)
- Disable Animations (so weirdly different without them but so much faster!)
- Install Adgaurd (I use custom DNS servers too!)
I can totally get another 2-3 years out of my Nexus! I urge to investigate how you might be able to increase the longevity of your device and save your money for other cool things like bundles, sneakers, and Nutter Butters.
