this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2023
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Why should i get a new phone if old ones are cheaper? Nothing wrong with getting a new phone, but what are the actual benefits when my phone from 2010 is just fine for using lemmy?
If your phone is end of life, it doesn't get updates anymore and that's a major security risk. Not to mention that your phone from 2010 can't run modern day apps in the first place. That can be due to the software being too old or because your CPU literally doesn't understand modern day instruction sets.
To mitigate some of this (and also plug FOSS) you can get a PinePhone and install a community-driven OS with perpetual updates planned for long term service. The specs aren't as top end as the Pixel but if you're just looking for a midline smartphone I think it's an excellent choice.
This looks nice! Can I just install a bog-standard android OS on it with no problems?
GloDroid, which is an open source port of LineageOS, is available for the PinePhone. There's still issues though, such reading external storage and automatic brightness. Hopefully after some time those issues will be sorted out.
I am looking forward to getting the PinePhone because it has the power of the Linux desktop (though you are limited to applications supporting the ARM architecture, which is still quite a lot), it has a nice clicky keyboard accessory, it has hardware killswitches in the back of its interior, it uses gorilla glass, I finally get an SD card slot again, and it is a very versatile little machine (you can run a Java Edition Minecraft Server, try doing that on an Android) that is more freedom respecting and is well supported for repairs and maintenance. I honestly don't like most android apps and their style, and I miss my Linux computer when I am at work, so this will be fun to play with. I plan to install Gentoo on the device and use crossdev to do the compiling on my main machine so I avoid burning up the poor thing. I also plan to get a PineTime, which will work nicely with the PinePhone, and it's only $27.