Android

Q: what's a nice phone to buy? I don't want to go through menus

A: flash graphene os

Cmon lemmy

Why do you feel the need to change phones? Pixel 6 Pro should still be plenty good enough.

If its stock ROM bothers you, you're in luck because Pixels are surprisingly hackable and it's very easy these days.

See i.e.: https://grapheneos.org/
No need to worry about Google services, they work: https://grapheneos.org/usage#sandboxed-google-play

You should keep your phone and install GrapheneOS. It's not hard, you just have to reboot your phone and press few clicks in your browser. You can install Google Play and every Google service should work (except Android Auto and you can't use NFC with GPay).

I'm on a pixel 6a, I swapped out my DNS server to dns.adguard-dns.com and now I don't get ads on any app or game I use, excluding YouTube (which I use very rarely).

Fairphone 5 is still on my list but unfortunate it does not support QI charging.

I don't see any ads on a non-rooted Samsung.

If you're seeing ads, its because you're using apps that deliver ads.

Google services still work on Graphene, Lineage and DivestOS. With Graphene they run in a sandbox, with DivestOS they run in a user context.

I've done all of them. My google stuff works fine.

GrapheneOS yo. You even already have a pixel for it lol

I bought the Zenfone 10 for those reasons and I'm pretty happy with it. I'm not going to buy a Samsung again.

Google Pixel with GrapheneOS.

If you are actually, really, honestly low on money, you may get something with DivestOS or LineageOS.

GrapheneOS is the gold standard, every Google certified Android is full of tracking and will show ads in places

Where'd you hear about flagship Samsung phones having ads?

As far as I know, the only Samsung models that feature ads tend to be the lower end series that get sold in markets like India.

You can disable all the bloateware on any phone using an universal adb/fastboot debloater script on xda.

Does not need root access.

My recommendation is FairPhone. Check specs before buying. It’s only a mid range CPU.

I've read that the FairPhone comes with a standard, vanilla Android OS on it, no bloatware. I cannot say if it's true, but you could have a look at the FairPhone forums and see what people think of the OS.

I know you don't want to tinkle with the bootloader et al., but if you're willing to try a different OS without the hassle: it is posible to buy a FairPhone with /e/OS or iodéOS preinstalled.

I'm currently using a Moto Edge 30 Ultra it's basically completely AOSP Android the only stuff that's pre-installed are the Moto Apps that are actually useful for the phone which also don't have any ads and the phone has way better performance than all my stupid Samsung Exynos phones. So Motorola would be very good for what you're looking for. If you don't want to go with Motorola though I would recommend Sony or Fairphone.

Depends what you mean by an "ad" but going by the usual definition no phones have ads except cheap chinese ones and some phones in amazon's program.

I'd say stick with the Pixels, especially since you're already invested in Google services. You wouldn't be gaining much from switching to Samsung, unless you want to use the S-Pen, or some of the advanced multi-tasking features or customisation options (Good Lock stuff).

But FWIW, I've had the Galaxy Fold 4 and now on a Fold 5, and I haven't seen any ads on my device, nor do I recall seeing any third-party bloatware (besides Samsung/Google bloat of course). But your experience might be different if you buy a phone from a carrier, since it's usually the carriers who load crap on your phone (with the exception being most C*****e phones, which come with thirdparty bloatware out of the box).

I recently bought a Pixel 8 and put grapheneos on it. Pretty happy with it but quite the learning curve.

Sony Xperia 1 II, III or V can be flashed to LineageOS

https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/

As far as I know Motorola and Pixel are the only OEMs with no ads or bloatware. For samsung you need to debloat and turn off notifications.

Pixel 6 Pro+GrapheneOS is my choice. Finding apps that dont need google play services is tough, but doable. Its insane how much of the android app ecosystem relies on google play services, especially for push notifications.

Well...since Google is primarily an Ad company.....

I just plug into the Private DNS settings dns.adguard-dns.com and run ad free. As for bloat- mine was infested with Facebook and other apps preloaded by Samsung, but it was easy enough to remove by long pressing and deleting it. They fortunately didn't make them system apps.

With that said, if you are handy with android-tools such as ADB, you can place your phone in debug mode and issue adb commands to disable system apps. Pretty easy once you get the hang of it.

Upgrading from a pixel 6 pro... I'm still on a pixel 3 and the only thing that's making me want to get a new phone is my battery, but even then I'm still apprehensive. It's not like I NEED a new phone.

I've been happily running cheap Nokia phones for the last couple of years. It's vanilla Android with very little bloat, no ads and years of security updates.

Any with good hardware as long as you can switch to stable and community-made ROMs.