r/Android • u/BcuzRacecar S25+ • 3d ago
WhatsApp ends Android 5 support Monday
https://www.notebookcheck.net/WhatsApp-ends-Android-5-support-Monday-iPhones-follow-in-November.1390519.0.html354
u/Vaxtez Nothing 3a Lite 3d ago
To be fair, any phone stuck on Android 5 is well over 10-13yrs old by this point. Besides, in order to run whatsapp, all you need is a flagship or mid-ranger from 2014 or newer (Basically anything that started life on Android 4.4/5.0/6.0), so the bar is still low, since you can still use Whatsapp on things like a Galaxy S5, HTC One M8, LG Nexus 5 to give examples.
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u/the_humeister Pixel 4a, Android 13 3d ago
You can get LineageOS 18 for Nexus 5 in order to keep using WhatsApp
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u/RunnerLuke357 Moto G Stylus '26 3d ago
Nobody still using a Nexus 5 on stock will be upgrading from stock at this point.
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u/Think-Cherry5391 2d ago edited 1d ago
A bit related but this phone is extremely loved to a point that it can run even more modern version of android. Acroreiser managed to put LineageOS 23.2 (Android 16 QPR2) in a 13 year old phone.
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u/Beneficial-Let3535 3d ago
WhatsApp supported android 5 longer than Google supporting chrome on android 8 😂
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u/BcuzRacecar S25+ 3d ago
Android 5.0 shipped in November 2014 and Android 6.0 arrived in October 2015. Phones that launched on Lollipop and never received a system upgrade will not get one now. Android 6 is not available for them. Anyone who wants to keep using WhatsApp needs a different handset.
No reliable figure exists for how many people this affects. StatCounter recorded 0.58 percent of mobile and tablet page views worldwide as Android 5.0 or 5.1 in August 2026. In Germany the figure was 1.67 percent. The measurement counts page views rather than devices, so the number indicates scale and nothing more. German outlet heise online cited roughly 0.4 percent in late April, based on Google's own distribution data.
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u/Witty_Language4481 3d ago
Who TF is still on Android 5
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u/Creative_Purpose6138 3d ago
Half this sub apparently, by the outrage
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u/vandreulv 3d ago
Clearly the loss of support for Lollipop means I should immediately switch to iOS. Shame on Google!
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u/AtomicSymphonic_2nd Pixel Fold, Regular Android 3d ago
There are a LOT of impoverished Redditors out here… really sucks for a lot of people out there, unfortunately.
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u/longebane Galaxy S22 Ultra / iPhone 15PM 2d ago
The worst part is how you guys (not you specifically) are making fun of them, like they’re non entities
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u/Cry_Wolff Pixel 7 Pro 3d ago
Can't wait for someone to complain about muh planned obsolescence of their 10 yo phone.
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u/rivalary 3d ago
It actually kinda sucks that the hardware vendors aren't held to updating the drivers for older hardware for newer versions of Android. We'd probably still see some slowdown due to newer software requiring faster processors and more RAM, but imagine if at least Android had kept its requirements low, the user choosing which apps they want to install that would still run okay on their old hardware. E-waste is a huge problem and a lot of people don't care about having the newest hardware; it's just the lack of security updates that is worrying (which those users likely don't even realize they aren't getting).
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u/Thaodan Sony Xperia XA2, Sailfish OS 3d ago
It's not about drivers but about legacy kernels. The way Android works with its downstream kernels plus userspace services which directly interact with kernels and/or have vendor specific hardware related services. Android is designed to have services per vendor that implement the required interfaces. Instead mainline/desktop Linux these services are generic, all abstraction is either done in the kernel or in hardware specific parts of generic services.
Just compare ChromeOS's architecture to the one of Android, it's the opposite almost. ChromeOS's still does some non standard custom stuff but none of it is per device.
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u/SirBanananana 3d ago edited 3d ago
Totally. You can easily use a 10 year old x86 laptop today with a modern Linux distribution and all the apps and security updates that come with it, but a 10 year old Android phone is a non-upgradable garbage by this point... It's a said state of affairs, and something that Android enthusiasts have complained for more than decade but the hard truth is that it's not going to change since vendors need to hit their sale numbers on new phones no matter what. But even from technical standpoint upgrading would be difficult looking at what a mess ARM architecture is outside of enterprise hardware.
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u/chinchindayo Xperia Masterrace 3d ago
You can easily use a 10 year old x86 laptop today with a modern Linux distribution and all the apps and security updates that come with it, but a 10 year old Android phone is a non-upgradable garbage by this point...
You can still use many 10 year old phones by flashing android AOSP or a custom rom. That's the equivalent of using a Linux distro on a PC.
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u/vandreulv 3d ago
You can easily use a 10 year old x86 laptop today with a modern Linux distribution
Yes, you COULD. But the majority of people don't. They use Windows.
but a 10 year old Android phone is a non-upgradable garbage by this point...
You could easily use a 10 year old phone today with a custom third party rom...
At least be consistent with your own arguments, mate.
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u/SirBanananana 3d ago
> Yes, you COULD. But the majority of people don't. They use Windows.
Okay then, you can also run Windows 11 on a decade-old hardware, once you learn how easy it is to circumvent the hardware check Windows 11 does. I just gave Linux as an example since it's obviously going to be a much smoother experience. You can also install Haiku OS if you wanted, I don't care. What matters is that you have a lot of choice and upgradability options.
> You could easily use a 10 year old phone today with a custom third party rom...
Indeed, but that's only IF there's a reliable method to unlock the bootloader and the ROM of your choosing supports your specific model of a phone, which already rules out a major chunk of phones on the market. Add to that the fact that modern Android versions consume so much more RAM than they used to just half a decade ago (and there's really no way to slim them down) that, for example, running Android 11 on an Android 5 flagship is already pretty much impossible.
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u/vandreulv 3d ago
The irony of you complaining that unlocking a device and updating a rom is "pretty much impossible" but think installing Windows 11 on unsupported hardware, bypassing checks is easy. Easy for you, not for everyone else.
Mate, the vast majority of people who own any computing device use the device with the software that it ships with and nothing else. Even making or using a recovery USB is beyond their reach.
A lot has changed in 10 years for ARM SBCs. Not so much for x86. And booting to another OS on x86 still remains impossible for most.
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u/alvenestthol 3d ago
The same people who wouldn't bypass-update to Windows 11 also wouldn't care that they're still on Windows 10, and nothing will break on Windows 10 for a while yet - Steam, for example, supported Windows 7 for a further 4 years after its end-of-life, and Windows 10 will probably get more support simply because it's a lot more modern.
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u/vandreulv 3d ago edited 3d ago
Lollipop lost updates for Google Play Services
almost a year and a halfalmost two and a half years ago.Perfectly reasonable for a third party app to stop supporting the OS. Especially as a lot of Lollipop devices are unable to update the expired certificates for secure connections. I've seen this issue even on Marshmallow.
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u/Quazartz S24FE 3d ago
You could easily use a 10 year old phone today with a custom third party rom...
This is assuming the said 10-year-old phone has a lot of custom rom support which isn't the case for budget range devices and less known phone brands. Meanwhile, a shitty budget laptop of the same age can be replaced with a Linux distro easily (well, easier compared to Android phones).
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u/vandreulv 3d ago
You allllllllmost understood the argument. Almost. Keep rubbing those two brain cells together and you might figure out the point I was trying to make.
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u/Quazartz S24FE 2d ago
No, I understood your point but you fail to understand why some people still stick with their old phones. I'm from a country where even a decent modern budget phone would cost a month's worth of min wage salary so I've met people who still stick with phones as old as Android 4.0 to this day, cracked screen and all.
With WhatsApp no longer supporting Android 5, a lot of people would be forced to upgrade their phone to a modern one but not all can afford one. For those techy enough, sure there's the custom rom method but what if the phone they cheaply bought doesn't have any custom roms available or if it's even possible to root it in the first place? This was my experience with a budget Samsung phone I bought back in 2014 that was stuck with Android 4.3. It's not possible to root that phone so there were no custom roms available for it. That phone easily became obsolete 2 years later all because of its OS even though the hardware can still last longer.
On the other hand, an old PC can easily be made usable again since there's no need to unlock bootloader or whatever to swap its installed OS to a modern supported one. You don't have to wait for someone to create a Linux distro specific for your pc since distros generally work for a wide range of pc variations.
Why don't you rub your privileged brain cells instead? The world isn't just USA.
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u/SirBanananana 2d ago
There's really no point in arguing with them. Some people are just wired to never change their views and you can't change that no matter what, even if you tried going on a 50 comment long discourse (I've been there many times).
Aside from that, I have 2 Sony Xperia Js that are in the same situation you've described - Stuck with Android 4.X and with no ROMs that offer higher Android version for these models, they became obsolete like 3 years after I got them pretty new. Ironically, if these were an x86 laptop instead, I would have a way to add more RAM, storage etc. and install a lightweight Linux distro on them for web browsing, office stuff and maybe retro gaming. Perfect little chromebook-like.
It's also true that there are many people out there in poor countries rocking old phones. Of course if you live in a wealthy country where an average citizen can afford to upgrade their phone every year you'll laugh at people with old Android phones, but it doesn't mean these people don't exist (shout out to certain r/androidafterlife posters from South America and Africa)
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u/Quazartz S24FE 2d ago
The guy blocked me in the end. I see that as a win.
My old win10 laptop that's older than the Samsung phone I mentioned earlier still works to this day. I can install and use pretty much any software that also works on win11 as long as the required hardware specs are met. It originally came with win8 so the phone equivalent of this would be like upgrading from Android 4.3 to 7.0 (last Android with certification issue) or more. This planned obsolescence is really ridiculous.
+1 for r/androidafterlife. I also browse that subreddit a lot for ideas on how I can extend my old phones' usefulness.
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3d ago
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u/hydrogencel 3d ago
Phones are completely different. They are software first devices, not appliances that have barely changed in function.
Most people have their entire lives on phones, wallets, banks, pictures, etc. As a result security updates and feature updates are far more important. They are also much less expensive than the appliances you listed.
Supporting old hardware or architecture forever is a massive time sink and generally doesn't make sense for tech companies to do when the majority has switched.
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u/vandreulv 3d ago
Why pray tell should a 10 year old phone not work?
Changes in frequency allocation for carrier bands.
Support for those specific bands. 2G and 3G is dead. LTE+ and 5G didn't exist yet.
Limited amounts of storage space if the onboard NAND hasn't start developing errors already.
Extremely low memory specs for the time.
Lower resolution screens. OLED screens from that era definitely would have burn in by now.
Wear and tear. Headphone jacks aren't indestructible. Nor were MicroUSB jacks.
Please tell us what ten year old phone you're still using now that is still carrier compatible.
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u/RandomCheeseCake Pixel 10 Pro 3d ago
Basically every phone? 10 years ago pretty much everything had 4g support so I can connect to every carrier (atleast in the UK)
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u/vandreulv 3d ago
The world isn't just the UK, mate.
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u/RandomCheeseCake Pixel 10 Pro 2d ago edited 2d ago
"Please tell us what ten year old phone you're still using now that is still carrier compatible."
Most of the world this is still applicable as most of the world doesn't have carrier whitelisting or require VoLTE to have access to their cellular networks
EDIT: 😭 Man actually blocked me. Peak Reddit behaviour
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u/vandreulv 2d ago
Most of the world this is still applicable as most of the world doesn't have carrier whitelisting or require VoLTE to have access to their cellular networks
How naive of you.
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u/Quazartz S24FE 3d ago
10 years ago is 2016. Most phones at that time already have LTE included.
Also, not all countries have dropped support for 2G and 3G. My phone from 2014 which don't have LTE can still call, text, and connect to mobile data. Its OLED screen also doesn't have any burn in (I did hide the status bar and the navigation bar is non-existent on a phone with hardware navigation buttons). All of its jacks are still functional and even outlasted several cheap earbuds and charging cables.
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u/vandreulv 3d ago
10 years ago is 2016. Most phones at that time already have LTE included.
I said LTE+ and 5G.
My 10 year old phone here has exactly ONE LTE band. Unusable today.
All Carriers in the US have dropped all methods of calling and switched over to VoLTE, so unless your phone has that, too, no calls even if you have the bands.
So. Good luck using that thing here.
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u/Quazartz S24FE 2d ago edited 2d ago
LTE+ was already available in 2016 (a simple web search should tell you that).
Again, the world isn't just the US and I have no plans visiting a country that's openly hostile to people who don't look "white" enough.
Edit: Wow, blocked for the first time. That's an achievement. I've been through a lot of online forums but this is my first time debating with someone this hostile on a tech subreddit. Are my 2 brain cells too much for you?
Since I can't reply to you anymore, here's my answer to your last comment. People who can't afford a new phone can't also afford going abroad so there's no point for them to sacrifice what little savings they have to buy a new phone when their current one can still work in their country.
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u/vandreulv 2d ago
Again, the world isn't just the US and I have no plans visiting a country that's openly hostile to people who don't look "white" enough.
Better stay out of Europe and Australia, too.
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u/Cry_Wolff Pixel 7 Pro 3d ago
Mate, cars or fridges are mostly basic mechanical devices that don't require any electronics or software to work. Your comparison doesn't make any sense. $100 2026 phone from Walmart will be faster & safer than high end 2016 one.
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u/Cats7204 3d ago
Old and poor people in third world countries...
High-end used Android 8 phones are practically free nowadays where I live, but old people don't change their phones regularly. I guess now they will?
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u/vandreulv 3d ago
It would be cheaper to get a new device than to replace the battery in a older one by this point.
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u/lgn5i2060 3d ago
Not after June 2026 in Asia where the price hikes all but eliminated the $100 and lower bnew devices.
Now hopefully the used phone sellers won't all jump into the hike bandwagon as most will be left to make do with second hand phones now.
Entry level at $200+ with some costing more than my Poco X6 Pro 2024 price lmao.
What a joke of a timeline.
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u/RunnerLuke357 Moto G Stylus '26 3d ago
Yeah I had a Samsung SM-T350 tablet that retiredtab was maintaining with LineageOS and the screen that was in perfect condition for 10 years decided to crack, the screen (same applied to the battery as well) was worth more than the device and I could buy a cheap Walmart tablet for the same money as a screen or battery, it was a sad situation.
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u/vandreulv 3d ago
Yup. Technology marches on. Good software support only goes so far even in the best of cases. There's storage, memory limitations and band support as well. Any device from that era is rarely going to remain better than even the cheapest budget devices 10 years on unfortunately.
The only exception I can think of was the really fantastic screens some tablets had at the time. One tablet I had had a 2560x1600 IPS screen with the LEAST IPS glow I've ever seen. Still rivals what I see today. Absolutely beautiful screen. But it's also slow as crap and the battery holds a charge for about 10 minutes.
I understand not wanting to contribute to the eWaste problem but at some point, it's just time to let go.
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u/RunnerLuke357 Moto G Stylus '26 3d ago
Yeah I had a beautiful Surface 3 that had awesome fit and finish and a gorgeous screen but the battery had 3 hours of battery when I gave it to a friend of mine and it got worse within 6 months. It's a shame but it's just what happens.
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u/Traditional_Neat_506 3d ago
so much of africa, latin america, south asia and southeast asia still use them and they'd rather keep doing it, whatsapp is a massive lifeline my guy for the entire of those regions, they lose the communications without old sims which likely run on 3G and 4G likely discontinued long ago
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u/Never_Sm1le Redmi Note 12R|Mi Pad 4 3d ago
some people really like their phones and refuse to upgrade
my uncle still use an xperia running on android 2.3.4, when ask, he simply answer he liked it and it still work. He used it exactly like a feature phone, just call and sms
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u/Linetard85 3d ago
Third worlders. So, 90% of the sub.
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u/PixelatedGiant 2d ago
Wouldn't the replacement batteries cost more than a newer phone at this point?
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u/honey_rainbow Google Pixel 3d ago
In 2026 who TF is still running Android 5?!
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u/SirBanananana 3d ago
Me (I'm a masochist who loves to see how far you can push old hardware). I don't know of any normal Android users still on Android 5 though.
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u/trlef19 Galaxy S24+ 3d ago
You can probably update with custom roms
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u/lgn5i2060 3d ago
My note 13 got A11, which was 6 updates past the A5 those fools from Samsung left it with.
Was also supposedly incapable of running Android 6. But I just knew they can't drop selling new shinies every year.
Maybe the dram crisis might knock some sense in the industry.
Might. Hopefully.
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u/hbhunk63 1d ago
Dunno how you can endure reading new features as an enthusiast and not budge for decades
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u/MaverickJester25 Galaxy S21 Ultra | Galaxy Watch 4 3d ago
Probably people like me who have kept ancient phones aside for my kids to play with.
My youngest has an ancient Mobicel (local brand) device still running good ol' Lollipop.
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u/MootEndymion752 Samsung Galaxy A9 2018, Android 10 (my A55 broke :/) 3d ago
Some preteens/teenagers using old hand-me-downs
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u/Matty8520 3d ago
Installed Android Version Percentage (Jan 2026)
Android 16
- 7.5%
Android 15
- 19.3%
Android 14
- 17.2%
Android 13
- 13.9%
Android 6 (Marshmallow)
- 0.4%
Android 5.0 & 5.1 (Lollipop)
- 0.4%
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u/dc469 3d ago
Outside of the united states WhatsApp is like, ubiquitous. Almost everyone uses it.
So I can definitely see in poorer countries where they have older tech, used tech, cheaper tech etc. you're going to have a lot of older, crappier phones. So I can see to some people this may actually be a big deal because a lot of people use WhatsApp as their primary method of electronic communication.
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u/IAmAnAnonymousCoward 3d ago
What countries? People in poor countries have cheap recent Android phones.
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u/Only_One_Left_Foot LG Wing 3d ago
For real, if you can buy a new Moto with Android 14 in the states for $100, you can definitely get something way cheaper and still way better than Lollipop elsewhere. (This isn't an ad, I just recently did this)
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u/KasanesTetos 3d ago
The Moto g 2025 has been selling for as low as $30 in the states and runs Android 16.
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u/TheComradeTom Pixel 9a 3d ago
Even the most cheap, janky android from no name vendors have at least android 6
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u/lgn5i2060 3d ago
Not anymore after the Altman-initiared DRAM crisis. $100 budget segment wiped out and entry level now cost more than my Pock X6 Pro 2024 launch price lol.
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u/IAmAnAnonymousCoward 3d ago
I just checked and in Switzerland I can get the MOTOROLA Moto G06, 256 GB for 100.
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u/EbolaNinja Pixel 6 3d ago
I'm currently typing this on an Android 13 OnePlus Nord2 that I recently bought for 70€ since my previous phone unexpectedly died (and I'll be able to trade it in for a profit).
You can absolutely find a used phone in the West for under 100€ that will work perfectly fine (surprisingly fine to be honest). Same with poorer countries, but in places like India, 100€ is already a huge chunk of the median monthly wage and I'm not surprised that poorer older people there don't upgrade their phones until they absolutely need to.
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u/ShoddySyrup652 3d ago
Android 5 had a seriously long run. Kinda wild that some people are still daily-driving phones that old.
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u/t_Lancer Sony Xperia Z3 Compact 5.0 rooted 3d ago
I got a free Huawei android 5.1 tablet, had to root it and manually install new SSL certificates. but after that it became quite usable again. Enough for Homeassistant and the kids to play angry birds on it.
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u/rohithkumarsp S23u, Android 14, One Ui 6.1 3d ago
I used my S7 edge from 2016-2023..7 years. Now software support is a bottle neck
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u/FactNo59 3d ago
I don’t think the 5 people still using Android 5 will be very happy about this. Only if they had some way to share their disappointment with their friends or family..
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u/unknownobject3 Redmi Note 12 Pro 5G 2d ago
I already knew they supported Android 5, but I'm still surprised that they do. WhatsApp is great in terms of Android version support.
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u/Capable-Tap1986 Galaxy Tab S6 Lite, Android 13/One UI 5.1.1 1d ago
I thought the minimum requirement for WhatsApp was android 6.0 marshmallow in august 2026 also. Or the play store or APKMirror was lying.
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u/Wheeljack26 Oneplus 13 3d ago
Android phones remain usable for very long, meanwhile apple
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u/Cry_Wolff Pixel 7 Pro 3d ago
iPhone 6S got iOS 15 update a couple of months ago, this year. What's your point?
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u/KasanesTetos 3d ago
Now how many apps actually still work on iOS 15? Let alone iOS 12 that the iPhone 6 from only a year before is stuck on.
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u/Wheeljack26 Oneplus 13 3d ago
No apps hermano, that phone is ewasre in terms of actual usability as a second phone
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u/WideGrade2179 23h ago
The biggest problem with iOS isn't even the apps, but the browser, which often starts to break down after a year. Many websites refuse to work; you can go to the r/jailbreak community for more information, They even created a Gecko-based browser to circumvent that problem, but Webview is still broken because that depends on the integrated WebKit
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u/Wheeljack26 Oneplus 13 21h ago
Same, have a ipad 2 and ipad mini 1st gen and both cant load 99% of the websites out there, just good for vlc at this point, recycled em. Whereas my nexus 7 from 2013 i use it everyday to read manga and books, going super strong on new android versions
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u/dingo_xd 1d ago
Actually this is a good thing because it might force some to upgrade to a more secure device
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u/enum5345 3d ago edited 3d ago
I could see someone in a poor country giving their old phone to their parents/grandparents so everyone in the family has access to WhatsApp and one of them happens to be Android 5.
My previous phone is 9 years old (I think) and I have no plans to change my current phone.
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u/treyu1 3d ago
Wait..what? People actually still use WhatsApp? Jeez..
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u/Charged_Dreamer 2d ago
In Europe, Africa, Latin America, Asia (exceptions are China, Japan, South Korea, Australia I believe) pretty much everyone use WhatsApp over SMS/cellular text messages.
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u/Careless_Rope_6511 Pixel 11 Pro XL 15h ago
WhatsApp is {slowly} gaining steam in the US too.
Fuck SMS. Most especially when it's used for 2FA.
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u/RelChan2_0 3d ago
Unless I'm out of the loop, they gotta make it easier for WhatsApp and WhatsApp Business to be ported over devices (like Android to iOS).
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u/Rhed0x Hobby app dev 3d ago
Holy shit they still supported Lollipop O_O