Q: what's a nice phone to buy? I don't want to go through menus
A: flash graphene os
Cmon lemmy
this post was submitted on 22 Feb 2024
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Why do you feel the need to change phones? Pixel 6 Pro should still be plenty good enough.
If its stock ROM bothers you, you're in luck because Pixels are surprisingly hackable and it's very easy these days.
See i.e.: https://grapheneos.org/
No need to worry about Google services, they work: https://grapheneos.org/usage#sandboxed-google-play
Yep, Pixel is the best phone to get the most Google free experience for those that seek it.
Depends on your usecase and your country of living. Why do I say so? I will name my 2 points:
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Lack of sd card. Yes I need my sd card, I don't want to upload stuff online on a 400kbps connection or download on a 16mbps connection. It's not a good experience.
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Not officially sold in my country, only available rarelly in resellers for 200+ euro more than normally.
Pixel has a Trusted Protection Module like computers with secure boot. No phone hardware in existence is documented at the hardware level. This is how planned obsolescence is created and why you have to buy a new phone every few years.
With a TPM chip it becomes possible to run signed and secured code on top of untrusted hardware and underlying software. Without this, your security is very limited in practice. Graphene OS is verifiably secure and only runs what you put on it.
The entire Android system is designed for people to use when they have no clue how to secure a device themselves and when they are far too incompetent to learn. The way this is done is to delegate a lot of permissions to app developers. This gives a lot of freedom to the apps you run. They can exploit the hell out of you within their little sandbox of vague permissions. Graphene does everything possible to limit what is happening in the background and the exploitations. It is default privacy.
I do not purchase phones as hardware any more. I don't care what is sold by any of the exploitation clowns. I shop for my ROM and buy a device that is well supported by that project. I've owned several Graphene OS devices and am happy with them. I had a Lineage device I liked too awhile back.
That's all fine and dandy, but when it outright doesn't have features you wan't, and costs in most cases double your wage it just doesn't pay off.
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Too old to know what a telemarketer is?
The nice lady who plugs the connections at the post office would give a telemarketer a stern talking-to and that's that.
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You should keep your phone and install GrapheneOS. It's not hard, you just have to reboot your phone and press few clicks in your browser. You can install Google Play and every Google service should work (except Android Auto and you can't use NFC with GPay).
This. People with Google Pixels wanting to switch is something I dont get. You literally own the most secure phone on the planet, with the best OS.
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I'm on a pixel 6a, I swapped out my DNS server to dns.adguard-dns.com and now I don't get ads on any app or game I use, excluding YouTube (which I use very rarely).
I've got a 6a and I ended up rolling my own DoT server so that it would adblock, but also resolve to servers in my own country.
I also moved to GrapheneOS. The only Google stuff that broke was Google Wallet's tap payment thing. Reportedly even Android Auto is supported now.
Oh - my kid just got a Motorola G84. It was a very cheap handset for 12GB RAM and no ads so far. Very close to stock Android too.
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Just taking the YouTube app off my home screen and replacing it with a Firefox shortcut has done wonders for my sanity. It's really disorienting now, when I follow a YouTube link that opens up the app. All of a sudden it's all ads and shorts and sponsors.
ELI5 swapping the DNS? (I know what it is, but thought that wasn't possible on the device.)
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Fairphone 5 is still on my list but unfortunate it does not support QI charging.
I can definitely recommend getting a Fairphone. I quite happy with my Fairphone 4. Bloatware is limited to Google stuff and they even give instructions how to easily install a custom ROM (have not tried that yet though).
The specs are not great, but good enough for me. But the main advantage for me is that it does not break that easily. I drop my phone all the time. My Samsung phones and Pixel phone I have broken within the first few weeks. Usually I dropped it and the screen cracked, even with a protected case.
I have had this phone for a lot longer now (maybe years by now) and I dropped it like a 1000 times and it is still fine. The screen has not cracked, it still works. Only the side is a little chipped. I don't even use a protective case. And even if it breaks, I can just buy the broken component from their website and easily replace myself using normal tools. So that is really nice.
Nice to read your experience with the fairphone. We're looking at it as well. It's expensive, but can at least be repaired when something breaks. I'm curious aboutt the custom roms though, as they are my main requirement, next to costs of max €100 per expected year of usability. (And as phone, it should be usable for a while)
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I needed a new phone last year just as the Fairphone 5 was launched so I went with that. Very, very happy with it. I really don't miss wireless charging: the main reason I used it on my old phone was to extend the range of it's ageing battery. Having a new battery removed that problem - full day of heavy use, no issues at all - plus it takes all of twenty second to replace the battery once it starts to age.
I'd get a falcons in a heartbeat if it was smaller. Don't mind the thickness but I'm sick of large phones. I'm probably just going to get the jellystar
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I don't see any ads on a non-rooted Samsung.
If you're seeing ads, its because you're using apps that deliver ads.
Google services still work on Graphene, Lineage and DivestOS. With Graphene they run in a sandbox, with DivestOS they run in a user context.
I've done all of them. My google stuff works fine.
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I bought the Zenfone 10 for those reasons and I'm pretty happy with it. I'm not going to buy a Samsung again.
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Where'd you hear about flagship Samsung phones having ads?
As far as I know, the only Samsung models that feature ads tend to be the lower end series that get sold in markets like India.
Their ads are mostly self promotion and bloatware apps. In my device I had to turn off notifications for most of the pre installed apps.
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On my note 8 a few years back I would get push notifications advertising from Samsung
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Google Pixel with GrapheneOS.
If you are actually, really, honestly low on money, you may get something with DivestOS or LineageOS.
GrapheneOS is the gold standard, every Google certified Android is full of tracking and will show ads in places
Is this a US thing? I've never seen any ads within Android itself, or any Google app.
No me neither. But if you use ISP DNS, Google Chrome, Youtube, Google blablabla you might see ads.
This is not the biggest problem though, as all apps will gather data in you to improve those ads, no matter if you block them or not.
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You can disable all the bloateware on any phone using an universal adb/fastboot debloater script on xda.
Does not need root access.
My recommendation is FairPhone. Check specs before buying. It’s only a mid range CPU.
The mentioned debloater script is found here:
https://github.com/0x192/universal-android-debloater#how-to-use-it
This is the list of apps the debloater script uses:
https://github.com/0x192/universal-android-debloater/blob/main/resources/assets/uad_lists.json
I've read that the FairPhone comes with a standard, vanilla Android OS on it, no bloatware. I cannot say if it's true, but you could have a look at the FairPhone forums and see what people think of the OS.
I know you don't want to tinkle with the bootloader et al., but if you're willing to try a different OS without the hassle: it is posible to buy a FairPhone with /e/OS or iodéOS preinstalled.
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I'm currently using a Moto Edge 30 Ultra it's basically completely AOSP Android the only stuff that's pre-installed are the Moto Apps that are actually useful for the phone which also don't have any ads and the phone has way better performance than all my stupid Samsung Exynos phones. So Motorola would be very good for what you're looking for. If you don't want to go with Motorola though I would recommend Sony or Fairphone.
Depends what you mean by an "ad" but going by the usual definition no phones have ads except cheap chinese ones and some phones in amazon's program.
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I'd say stick with the Pixels, especially since you're already invested in Google services. You wouldn't be gaining much from switching to Samsung, unless you want to use the S-Pen, or some of the advanced multi-tasking features or customisation options (Good Lock stuff).
But FWIW, I've had the Galaxy Fold 4 and now on a Fold 5, and I haven't seen any ads on my device, nor do I recall seeing any third-party bloatware (besides Samsung/Google bloat of course). But your experience might be different if you buy a phone from a carrier, since it's usually the carriers who load crap on your phone (with the exception being most C*****e phones, which come with thirdparty bloatware out of the box).
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As far as I know Motorola and Pixel are the only OEMs with no ads or bloatware. For samsung you need to debloat and turn off notifications.
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I recently bought a Pixel 8 and put grapheneos on it. Pretty happy with it but quite the learning curve.
Pixel 6 Pro+GrapheneOS is my choice. Finding apps that dont need google play services is tough, but doable. Its insane how much of the android app ecosystem relies on google play services, especially for push notifications.
Well...since Google is primarily an Ad company.....
I just plug into the Private DNS settings dns.adguard-dns.com and run ad free. As for bloat- mine was infested with Facebook and other apps preloaded by Samsung, but it was easy enough to remove by long pressing and deleting it. They fortunately didn't make them system apps.
With that said, if you are handy with android-tools such as ADB, you can place your phone in debug mode and issue adb commands to disable system apps. Pretty easy once you get the hang of it.
Upgrading from a pixel 6 pro... I'm still on a pixel 3 and the only thing that's making me want to get a new phone is my battery, but even then I'm still apprehensive. It's not like I NEED a new phone.
You're probably not missing out keeping your 3. I traded my 4a for a 7 a while ago, and while the 7 has better specs and whatever, it's not so much that you can really feel a difference. It actually kind of feels like a downgrade because I lost my headphone jack and the fingerprint sensor absolutely sucks now. I would have been perfectly happy to keep my 4a for a good while longer if it weren't for the battery.
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I've been happily running cheap Nokia phones for the last couple of years. It's vanilla Android with very little bloat, no ads and years of security updates.
Any with good hardware as long as you can switch to stable and community-made ROMs.
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