I had to get a working phone on “I need it right now” short notice, so I bought the absolute cheapest thing I could find that had sorta decent specs. The winner ended up being a Xiaomi Redmi 10A for ~100€ new in box. So after opening it, the experience was as follows:

  • Spend 10 minutes doing the first time configuration
  • 3 hours of updates
    • Google play updates
    • Xiaomi updates
    • System updates
    • Default app updates
  • Watch apps pop up on the start menu during the 3h of updates
  • Watching the phone become slower and slower as “updates” install

I got to experience the insane bloat of Budget Android. The end result can be summed up by this screenshot of the app drawer. This is what a NEW phone will look like after all “Updates” finish installing.


All of these apps, with the exception of Magisk, came installed by default or has been installed during the first run of updates.

What I’m doing now? I will either root the device and flash something better, or sell it. For reference, this is what a Pixel device with Graphene OS looks after barely 1 minute after booting for the first time.


Yes. It didn’t even need to fill one screen.

Update: I sold the damn thing, no point in trying to fix it.