Hardware far outlasts software in the smartphone world, due to aggressive chronic designed obsolescence by market abusing monopolies. So I will never buy a new smartphone - don’t want to feed those scumbags. I am however willing to buy used smartphones on the 2nd-hand market if they can be liberated. Of course it’s still only marginally BifL even if you don’t have demanding needs.
Has anyone gone down this path? My temptation is to find a phone that is simultaneously supported by 2 or 3 different FOSS OS projects. So if it falls out of maintence on one platform it’s not the end. The Postmarket OS (pmOS) page has a full list and a short list. The short list apparently covers devices that are actively maintained and up to date, which are also listed here. There is also a filter tool to easily specify your criteria of what must function to obtain a custom shortlist:
https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Special:Drilldown/Devices?DeviceType=handset
Then phones on the shortlist can be cross-referenced with the LineageOS list or the Sailfish list, which seems to be exclusively Sony¹.
So many FOSS phone platforms seem to come and go I’ve not kept up on it. What others are worth considering? It looks like the Replicant device list hasn’t changed much.
(update) Graphene OS has a list of supported devices
(and it appears they don’t maintain old devices)
Pixel 9 Pro Fold (comet)
Pixel 9 Pro XL (komodo)
Pixel 9 Pro (caiman)
Pixel 9 (tokay)
Pixel 8a (akita)
Pixel 8 Pro (husky)
Pixel 8 (shiba)
Pixel Fold (felix)
Pixel Tablet (tangorpro)
Pixel 7a (lynx)
Pixel 7 Pro (cheetah)
Pixel 7 (panther)
Pixel 6a (bluejay)
Pixel 6 Pro (raven)
Pixel 6 (oriole)
(update 2) Calyx OS has an interesting list some of which overlaps with pmOS
Calyx OS list
Device /Latest CalyxOS version /Release date
Pixel 8a /5.12.2-2 /2024-11-04
Pixel 8 Pro /5.12.2-2 /2024-11-04
Pixel 8 /5.12.2-2 /2024-11-04
Pixel Fold /5.12.2-2 /2024-11-04
Pixel Tablet /5.12.2-2 /2024-11-04
Pixel 7a /5.12.2-2 /2024-11-04
Pixel 7 Pro /5.12.2-2 /2024-11-04
Pixel 7 /5.12.2-2 /2024-11-04
Pixel 6a /5.12.2-2 /2024-11-04
Pixel 6 Pro /5.12.2-2 /2024-11-04
Pixel 6 /5.12.2-2 /2024-11-04
Pixel 5a (5G) /5.12.1-2 /2024-10-11
Pixel 4a (5G) /5.12.1-2 /2024-10-11
Pixel 5 /5.12.1-2 /2024-10-11
Pixel 4a /5.12.1-2 /2024-10-11
Pixel 4 XL /5.12.1-2 /2024-10-11
Pixel 4 /5.12.1-2 /2024-10-11
Pixel 3a XL /5.12.1-2 /2024-10-11
Pixel 3a /5.12.1-2 /2024-10-11
Pixel 3 XL /5.12.1-2 /2024-10-11
Pixel 3 /5.12.1-2 /2024-10-11
Fairphone 4 /5.12.1-2 /2024-10-11
Fairphone 5 /5.12.1-4 /2024-10-11
SHIFT6mq /5.12.1-2 /2024-10-11
Moto G32 /5.12.1-2 /2024-10-11
Moto G42 /5.12.1-4 /2024-10-11
Moto G52 /5.12.1-2 /2024-10-11
So Graphene’s mission is a bit orthoganol to the mission of Postmarket OS. Perhaps it makes sense for some people to get a Graphene-compatible device then hope they can switch to pmOS when it gets dropped. But I guess that’s not much of a budget plan. Pixel 6+ are likely not going to be dirt cheap on the 2nd-hand market. Worth noting that these phones are supported by both pmOS and Calyx OS:
- Fairphone 4
- Google Pixel 3a
- SHIFT SHIFT6mq
¹ Caution about Sony: they are an ALEC member who supports hard-right politics. They were also caught using GNU software in their DRM shit which violated FOSS licensing in a component designed to oppress. Obviously buying a new Sony thing is unethical. But perhaps a 2nd-hand one is fine. It’s still dicey though because the 2nd-hand market still feeds the 1st-hand market and rewards the original consumer. Sometimes it’s clear you’re not buying from an original owner, like someone on the street with a box of 100+ phones.
(update) It would help if we could filter out all the phones with non-removable batteries. I can confirm that these have non-removeable batteries:
- BQ Aquarius X5
Arguably 5G is a massive downgrade in easy deployabilty for most countries so 4G will stick around for a bit longer, but yeah, even 5G might not set you up for life.
Idk what the deployment issues are for 5g vs 4g, but I get the impression that at least here in the US, most new installs are 5g which means that 4g coverage will gradually worsen, then maybe go away. Same with 5g but not as soon, I’d guess.
The countryside will never be covered by 5G. The range is massively decreased due to the higher frequency. You would have to litter the forest and fields with antennas. 4G isnt going away any time soon unless we intend to cut off all sorts of infrastructure and farmers and hikers and emergency services from internet access.
4G has a range in the 10+ km area
5G is in the low hundreds of meters range so its a fancy city tech
terming 5G “fancy city tech” is more than a little harsh. 5G was never meant to exist on its own - it solves a lot of density issues exactly because of its limited range
It also conveniently offers more accurate cell phone tracking because of its limited range.
5g exists at different frequencies, just like 4g.
The lowest 4g frequency is 410mhz, and the lowest 5g frequency is 450mhz
The range of a 5g tower can be the same or higher than a 4g tower depending on the frequency used.
I think your confusion seems to come from the existence of 5g mmWave, which is sometimes uses synonymously with 5g. But 5g mmWave towers actually make up only a small fraction of 5g installs, the majority is using the same frequency band as 4g, and when comparing 5g to 4g at the same frequency then 5g actually even has a small range advantage
Isnt the bandwidth also gonna dip to 4G levels tho if you drop the frequency to those levels?
It will be slower than 5g mmWave, but faster than 4g at the same frequency
Ah thanks, I had thought it was the same frequency but different protocol. Good to know. I do see phones starting to have satellite capabilities now, though at first just for texts.
The guy you answered to is actually not correct, see my reply to him. 5g can and does use the same frequencies as 4g, the upper frequency limit is just higher but those are only used in dense cities. Rural 5g installations use the same low frequencies as 4g and get better range than 5g at those frequencies
Yeye i wrote a reply correcting myself with an excerpt of wikipedia. Thanks for pointing that out.
As Anivia pointed out 5G does apparently come in lower frequency aswell for higher range. That does drop the bandwidth quite a bit, but its still gonna be as good or better than 4G in terms of bandwidth. So my original comment was a bit too critical maybe.
You can always make a bridge/hotspot that will do what you need. You are only limited if you are fussy about pocket/backpack space.