When the iPhone 15 came out, I felt the pressure to upgrade, so I bought the standard model with 128 GB. I’m now experiencing the limitations of their ecosystem, which closed as dolls ass. I’m looking to sell my iPhone 15 and buy two Android phones for myself and my wife. If I could get some extra cash out of it, that would be a nice bonus. I’m not concerned with the fancy cameras or features. I just want something I can manipulate to be private and also install whatever I want, use the common apps everyone uses with no issues, stream movies and TV shows. My main concern is that most phonew from well-known brands, their Android OS are almost as disappointing as Apple products. I think it would be better to get a phone with hardware that is well-suited to a custom Android OS that is well-maintained and known for being reliable, and with a focus on privacy and not bloated. Thank you in advance for your help.
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If you are looking for a generic phone with good privacy and usability I would highly recommend a Pixel with Graphene OS. If you’ve never flashed a phone before, you can install Graphene within a web browser and never need to do any of the more complicated flashing stuff like most other setups require. It also allows you to optionally install Sandboxed Google Play Services (on the main profile or isolated on a second one), letting you access normal apps while still having some of the privacy and performance benefits of an otherwise de-Googled phone.
Thank you. Which Pixel models would you recommend considering cost, compatibility, and benefits? I estimate I could get around €700 from selling the iPhone 15 128GB.
I recently got a 7a for $300, quite expensive for me but imo worth it. Maybe 8a, after the release of 9/9a, would also fall into a similar price, with 7a getting to $200 eventually.
Depends on your price point, but the 8a might be a good middle ground. It’s got the 8 year update support and is second to newest so it’s a tad cheaper.
This is the best option for buget-ish, easy to flash GrapheneOS and 7 years (6 more now) of firmware updates. You can get the 256GB version for around 500 dollars, which should translate to around 460 euros. The 158GB version is only 50 dollars less, so not worth skimming on that, in my opinion.
Pixel 7a is pretty good. Cheap too now that they’re 2 generations old, around $330 new for an unlocked phone.
And from what I’ve seen, Pixels are probably the friendliest to other custom OSes as well.
But not friendliest on IO. No headphone jack. No microSD. No dual SIM.
I’m still using my old Pixel 4a because I refuse to get a phone without a headphone jack lol
Sony is still carrying the torch for flagships
Yes, absolutely. Having to use a dongle for my earbuds sucks :( SD is something I don’t really notice tho because 128 gigs is pretty much bottomless for a phone.
I’ve been considering this for a long time, but I can’t figure out if my banking apps will work.
As it’s a work phone, there are certain apps that I must have.
Have you experienced any issues installing and using apps?
I’ve had no issues personally with my banking apps. Most require sandboxes gPlay to be installed but there was no need to be logged into google for them.
Not sure now up to date this list is now but check out this site: https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compatibility-with-grapheneos/
Both my banks are missing, but I still feel like giving it a go.
I guess I could just go back if it doesn’t work for me…
Banking App Compatibility Graphene