My phone’s just bitten the dust and now I need to look for a new one again.
Thought I’d test the waters and see what kinds of phones people on here are using nowadays and what for, what features set them apart if any etc
Bonus points if anyone’s managed to get mainline linux running on them either via KVM or bare metal
Edit: Thanks for everyone who talked about their choices of phone, I am now writing this on a fairphone 4 and am quite happy with it so far.
Any smartphone, they’re not that different and all have the same weaknesses. They’re pretty fragile, don’t have battery-life and they have lots of bloat and functionality that’s gate-kept behind sign ups and cloud accounts
The biggest difference is whether you can run a custom rom or it’s locked down.
any special model that you prefer?
Pixels (at least ordered from Google) allow you to unlock the bootloader without any exploits, so they normally have the best ROM support
GrapheneOS is where a lot of the security work that ends up making it to other Android devices starts
CalyxOS is a good option for more support for standard Google Play apps
LineageOS is the original big ROM, but I think last time I checked, you couldn’t reenable the secure boot chain
GrapheneOS has better gplay support than calyxos
Thanks for the correction - I’ve been using enough different ones that my information might have been out of date there
Only if you ever buy the popular models.
Get yourself a rugged device, made for enterprises. They tend to be a bit more costly, but they aren’t fragile, they have great battery-life (although usually low specs to make that work), have no bloat and don’t require a sign up or even cloud.
Like the Unihertz Tank for example, or the Ascom Myco. Or the Bittium Tough Mobile 2 if you want extra secure.
Wow I misread the battery capacity on the unihertz tank and was like when was 2000mAh last a big battery? It’s 20 000 mAh. Also there’s a Tank2 with only 15 500 mAh.
damn thanks how did I not know these existed…
I have a Fold 5 with a snapdragon 8gen2. I have “light performance mode” on at all times, and deep sleep most apps that I rarely use, and get 8 hours SOT. The 8g2 phones are definitely worth getting for battery life
That’s not even that good.
In normal scenarios, I get 10h SOT, with 12h in battery saver mode.
Although I do drop to 5h SOT when using it for GPS map logging while on my motorcycle.
Which phone? Stock OS or custom ROM?
Motorola Moto G Stylus 5G (2022), stock OS