(Please when answering, assume I’m not a beginner at privacy/programming :) I know where the good stuff at)
First off, shameful confession: I’m writing this on a dying yellow iPhone XR I bought second-hand three years ago (189€). I absolutely love the look of it: the screen, build quality, are all amazing. The only problem was the locked ecosystem (sideloading Spotify/Torrent client was sooo hard).
I saw the android phone of my mother dying really fast. She currently has a Xiaomi phone that’s ridiculously big for my hands, there’s advertisements in the stocks apps (?!!), the UX is janky and everything. It looks like a bloat, privacy nightmare.
So… because it’s impossible to find a jailbreakable phone nowadays I need to buy an android and ideally I would want:
- Good screen (vivid colors)
- Good build quality (not shitty plastic)
- Don’t care about the camera (I don’t want those ridiculously big cameras they make nowadays)
- Would want to install either GrapheneOS/LineageOS
The things that scare me off:
- I really need my bank app and I need it updated so I have to use Google Play Services but I don’t want it to plague my phone with privacy bullshit (I want to be degoogled)
The things that excite me:
- Customization possibilities
- Learning experience
- Even more privacy than a de-googled IOS phone :)
- F-Droid!! (Maybe I’ll find a beautiful IRC client)
- More choices for Mastodon & Lemmy clients
- Freedom of free software.
- client for open-source git providers :)
But to get all of that, I don’t want Google, I need shitty apps (non-free software) I have to install:
- Instagram (for non-technical friends)
- GitHub (job & open-source)
- No-Ad Modded Spotify from Balatan
- Discord (gamer friends)
- Telegram (cryptobros friends)
- Steam (because I still love gaming)
Any advices? Phone ideas? I’m so lost in this ocean of choice (freedom ✨)
My current phone:
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Google Pixels are the only options with this one.
Have you tried Spotube? It is a no ads YouTube Music client, that fetches your library from Spotify.
I can’t recommend you a specific device, but can suggest a Bootloader Unlock: Wall of Shame, which can help you to choose a device, as you are planning to install a custom ROM, like Lineage. Best of luck with your device search!
Missing from the list: ASUS lost a lawsuit in the UK after lying about saying their unlock servers being down would come back up for Zenfones. While they have a headphone jack, offer good price/performance, & used to fall in the ‘small phone’ category, you can no longer unlock bootloaders with final statement being they won’t be allowing it going forward.
(I would contribute to the upstream, but I only use proprietary Microsoft GitHub when absolutely required—keep this in mind Privacy fam when setting up any unmirrored Git repository)
Unfortunately it only mentions unlocking. Re-locking the bootloader is just as important, and strictly necessary for Android Verified Boot to work.
Among modern devices, only Google Pixels support re-locking on custom ROMs, IIRC.
EDIT: Looks like, modern OnePlus devices can be re-locked too.
EDIT 1: Same goes for SHIFT6mq.
That Bootloader unlock link is an awesome idea!
eh, it equates region lock with racism and feels more like an anti-corpo rant than a comprehensive view of locked/unlocked devices.
A better link would be the lineageOS devices page, or the postmarketOS devices page. These will tell you explicitly which chipsets and models are open and worth getting