You don't have to stay left behind, there are other high-quality android-M distros with full support for your hardware.

https://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Install_CM_for_mako

Which aren't from Google, meaning it can be trusted as much as any other OEM.

you could build CM or AOSP from source if you want

And void the warranty of a device in the process? No, thanks.

Do you still have a working warranty for your Nexus 4?

Nexus 4 isn't the only one that suffers from lack of support.

but thats what this comment thread is about.

Anecdotally: I have had a smartphone hardware fault repaired under warranty, despite having an unlocked bootloader and a custom ROM installed.

The seemingly dropped support for the Nexus 5 from N. Their "end of life" policy is the main reason I won't get an (Nexus|Pixel) tablet or anything else than a mid-range phone (in case they release one again). Maybe from a Silicon Valley perspective, 3 yrs old hardware is ancient but my old hardware is still 100% functional and has been battle tested.

I think phones should get security updates for at least 4 years. Quite a few people use them that long themselves, as I have in the past, but even more people get them used from others, which means a phone gets to be used for 4 or 5 years pretty easily.

Those should shouldn't be affected by a myriad of security vulnerabilities that come up by then just because they are poor and because companies would rather have planned obsolescence. It's the digital divide between rich and poor. The rich get security if they buy a high-end phone every year (if we are to consider Android's average security update lifetime), and the poor do not.

The Nexus 4 was excluded from dev previews but still got Lollipop. I think it's possible that the same may happen with the Nexus 5 in this case.

> 3 yrs old hardware is ancient but my old hardware is still 100% functional and has been battle tested.

True, but so is your software. Especially on Android where Play Services and the Chrome browser are updatable via the Play Store, being on the previous version of Android isn't such an issue any more.

I wonder why they release monthly updates with security fixes then.

What would be your alternative?

I think they're saying they won't get a high-end nexus phone. I'm price-sensitive as well. For example, I got my current nexus 6 in October 2015 only because it was on sale. I would be disappointed if I'd bought this phablet for $499.

I just got a 5X but of course I'm going to get the last update at the same time as anyone who bought the 5X back when it came out.

No phone is dropped from a release cycle for a technical reason. It's just "we promise to give you updates for n years" at best.

which was good when it was first offered, at that time lots of carriers were not passing on updates, this is better than that...