zlacker

Is there a list or other easy way to find out which phones are not Google-certified going forward? Is it purely a country specific thing or are there (and will there continue to be) mainstream manufacturers with non-certified phones?

I'm also fine with sticking to older models. Never seen the point of having the latest and greatest (aka: pointless) feature anyway. Does certification only apply to new hardware or do manufacturers back-port it?

>>jbstac+(OP)
I'm pretty sure "Google-certified" is just the latest term for "has signed a contract to ship the proprietary Google parts of Android". (Google's blog post about this change links to a page which calls it "Play Protect certified", and this page says that all devices that ship Google apps are Play Protect Certified: https://support.google.com/android/answer/7165974?hl=en )

Amazon's "Kindle" tablets and TV devices famously do not ship Google apps, and sometimes you see restricted devices like the Rabbit R1 that just use the open-source parts of Android. But outside of China I don't think you can easily walk into a store and find a non-Google Android phone.

I don't think phones ever officially lapse out of Play Protect certified status -- the Nexus One, a phone from 2010, is still listed -- but presumably it'd be possible to find a phone old enough that it won't be able to download whatever Play Services OTA update they'll use to push this change.