Privacy

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What other options for good phones are out there? (lemmy.world)

submitted 6 days ago by ZeDoTelhado@lemmy.world to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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I have now a pixel 8, which was working OK from the past 8 months and using grapheneos. Unfortunately, today out of nowhere got the green screen bug (searched around, this seems to be really a thing with pixel 8 and some pixel 7). This really stroke me a nerve. Previously I had a pixel 5 which at some point also got screen problems and later the speaker piece just straight up did not work properly. And now this with the pixel 8.

So my question is: what other phones could potentially be used with a custom ROM that allow bootloader relocking? Other Roms can be something like divest or calyx (I used calyx before, so I am fairly familiar with it).

It really pisses me off the only option until now are pixel phones for proper relocking (from what I know from a while back), and then they have these annoying issues. It makes my skin crawl, but if required I would change to an iPhone (and throwaway a lot of things that android is actually superior, such as proper tor browser, VPN split tunneling, work/user profiles, no bloody account to use a phone).

Thanks for the responses in advance.

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[–] TootGuitar@sh.itjust.works 6 points 5 days ago (4 children)

Just my two cents on this topic: I used to use an Android phone with LineageOS (this was before Graphene was a thing), and struggled with similar bugs/issues from time to time.

I got an iPhone and never looked back.

Don't get me wrong, as you suggested here, iPhones are objectively worse in a lot of ways. But mostly, it. Just. Works. And, rather than fight the OS on things like VPN configs, ad blocking, browser usage, etc, I've found that I simply use my phone less, and tether my phone to a real computer more often. Paired with a small chromebook or other laptop running Linux, or (gasp) even MacOS, I just don't use my phone as much as I used to.

On the plus side, iPhones are supported for a long time, have a secure lockdown mode which you can enable if you're extra paranoid, and have "don't need to think about it" full-device encryption including full phone backup support. If your phone ever dies or you want to upgrade, you can load a full backup/image from your old device on to your new one with close to zero fuss (just gotta deal with USB 2.0 speeds on all but the newest phones :)

One final note, you don't need to sign in to an account to use iOS as far as I'm aware. You lose out on the sync/iCloud stuff that Apple provides, but it sounds like you don't care much about that anyway.

[–] ZeDoTelhado@lemmy.world 5 points 5 days ago (1 children)

This is also a good perspective. One thing I was thinking just now: at some point, side loading on iOS will be a thing. I wonder at that time we can truly use an iPhone without an account at all (not even to install stuff), but my guess is, considering their track record, they will do the wildest malicious compliance possible....

[–] TootGuitar@sh.itjust.works 1 points 4 days ago

Yeah, that's a good point. I'm not counting on sideloading bringing any benefit to me, but if it does I'll be pleasantly surprised.

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