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Huge W imo
Repairability: Manufacturers must make critical spare parts available within 5 to 10 working days, and continue offering them for 7 years after the product is no longer sold in the EU.
It's the
Software support: Devices must receive operating system upgrades for at least 5 years from the end-of-sale date.
That I'm excited about.
Oh wow. After the end of sale date. That's a lot.
Yup, it's epic and ensures the longevity of devices. I suspect we'll see less cheap devices on the market, but the ones that are released, will actually be good and last.
That's the reason OEMs like oneplus, Nothing started to offer for 6yrs of security updates and 3-4yrs of OS. This was just to fulfill the formality.
Still safer for users than no updates at all
True. But, the requirements say 5Yrs of OS upgrades. A security update is not an actual upgrade. I wonder how it will pan-out; If OEMs will simply use the security update as a upgrade replacement.
availability of operating system upgrades for longer periods (at least 5 years from the date of the end of placement on the market of the last unit of a product model)
That's the interesting bit, because aren't we then basically talking about ten years of upgrades?
I suspect OEMs will pull devices from shelves quicker to try and limit their software obligations.
Samsung is doing it as well.
Samsung offers 6-7Yrs of OS and security updates on most of lower midrange to higher end smartphones. The 4-5yrs of policy applies older A series and S series smartphones no longer officially sold by them.
This makes me worried about the ultra cheap Chinese manufacturers. I mean the likes of Unihertz, Umidigi, Ulefone, Doogee, Oukitel, etc
Usually these don't get updates at all.
Even weirder, for example I have Ulefone Armor 24. They used to ship with Android 13. They still advertised it with Android 13 when I bought it. Mine like a few others have said arrived with Android 14, but the earlier ones aren't offered A14 update.
Someone on Reddit contacted support about this and they replied that they don't provide cross-level upgrades because Google doesn't allow them to release those to end users.
Anyway, point is, they save on everything possible, starting with software updates. And I have doubts about them changing this, unless EU is a large market for them.
They'll likely require you to import them. Buying them from the UK or even China would circumvent these new rules. Though spending a couple hundred on a phone with zero updates is wild to me.
I honestly just fear updates at this point. They always seem to break more stuff than fix, the only exception to that for me has been PixelExperience custom ROM (discontinued).
Edit: Android is simply missing proper backups. Bad update on my laptop? Timeshift. Bad update on stock Android? It is what it is.
First Moto G5s Plus which got high battery drain, sluggishness and crashes after Android 8.1 update. This was bad enough I had to fix it with custom ROM. Then Poco X3 Pro which reportedly had issues with performance after MIUI 13 update, so I stayed on older software. Now my Ulefone Armor 24, which only has one update primarily to fix Google pay, but also brings a newer security patch, reportedly causing many crashes that make the phone unreliable and a bad experience.
Also many Samsung phones had an update that removed access to manual band mode selection, and if I recall correctly, that update didn't even revert them to default.
It's not the best for security, but I basically now just fear any updates. If everything works, then it can only be broken.
Maybe I should at least somehow start checking known vulnerabilities. As of recently, I should probably stop using applock on my outdated Ulefone
Exposed ”com.pri.applock.LockUI“ activity allows any other malicious application, with no granted Android system permissions, to inject an arbitrary intent with system-level privileges to a protected application. One must know the protecting PIN number (it might be revealed by exploiting CVE-2024-13916)
https://cert.pl/en/posts/2025/05/CVE-2024-13915/
Though my device has AppLock v14, so I am not sure.
I dunno. This feels like a case of making a rod for your own back. The EU are doing a good job of creating a safety net, but ultimately there's a reason that Samsung, Apple and Google are and should be so popular. I would never buy a phone from a manufacturer without ensuring their update history was up to scratch, that means good, timely updates.
they also do not apply to devices with rollable displays, smartphones designed for high-security communications and tablet computers with full-featured operating systems
Who's betting every phone manufacturer claims their phone is for high security communications