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.
Regular Galaxy S22 256Gb
Was choosing between S22, Pixels, and Nothing Phone. Ultimately, I went with the former because I happened to accumulate Tab S8 as well as Galaxy Buds 2. If not for those, probably would’ve saved a buck with first Nothing.
Pros: Easy cloud sync, good processor, nice materials, could be found for a very affordable price, and rest of the features that come with premium phones
Cons: No headphone jack, no SD card slot, some bloat you can’t remove, battery
Would’ve probably still rocked my Poco F1 if it didn’t get obliterated by a 0.5m drop onto a quartz floor. It never fully recovered from it.
Fairphone 5 with iodéOS. Its perfect for me
I love the idea of fairphones but from what I’ve gathered they’re kinda crap for the price if you don’t count the moral benefits aren’t they?
Do they do video over USB C/thunderbolt? Am quite interested in having a device I can plug in and use as a desktop in a pinch
They do displayport over usb c I think. I almost got one a few months ago, or a pixel, but choked at the cost. Ended up with a Motorola Edge 40 and while it’s fine, I wish I’d just spent a bit more and got a phone I actually wanted.
I’ve been thinking about Fairphone, but the 5 isn’t available in the US to my understanding, unfortunately, and the 4 is a serious downgrade spec-wise.
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
don’t have battery life
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
I got a seconhand Samsung S22+.
Great size (my last phone was too small), battery good, performance is great, screens good. Everything is good.
But the camera is meh. I’m really disappointed by that and I don’t know what to do. Sure it’s an upgrade on my 5 year old cheaper Chinese phone. But I thought it was meant to have a great camera, the default setting are some shitty Instagram looking ai filter where the sky is the bluest blue much darker than reality, grass is some glowing bright green it looks like a fucking video game. I managed to fix a lot of that but it’s still meh, night mode is fairly bad too.
Oneplus have paired with Hasselblad, if you’re looking for something with a good camera. I regret the phone because the quality has gone downhill over the generations but the camera is on point
One plus was the best phone I ever had. I regret on getting it last time.
I looked into it this time but everyone said oneplus is shit now.
My 2 was amazing, it lasted me years and worked so well with minimal bloat. I went for the 10pro this time and it’s not the same. The camera’s phenomenal but it’s now two years old and just not holding up well. Glitches like crazy and the battery’s starting to die. Can’t distinguish it from any other phone now
Hopefully they come back
I hope so but they’ve lost my loyality so I’d have to be impressed to return to them
Considering the Nothing phone next
Lemmy users be like: I built my own phone
“privacy is so important” pulls out android phone
Educate yourself
The cheapest piece of shit Samsung make because I break phones. I work outdoors in all weathers and I use my phone alot. I go through on average one a year and I dont want a broken or lost phone to ruin my month.
I can get behind that, that’s kind of the direction I’m leaning in too.
I tend to go the other way with that and buy the tougher phones so they last me a bit longer though, I’d rather pay 600 every 3 years and have a somewhat nicer phone than 200 every 1 year and have to put up with a crappy one
I had two Caterpillar CATphones before. It was awesome. One of them had an infra red camera and was waterproof down to 5 meters.
They were a bit on the slow side, but they sure could take abuse
Did you use the infrared camera? How was the experience?
It was very low-res, but useful for finding where the cat threw up :p That was a regular use for it actually.
Other than that, it was fun to play with.
Sounds fun! I want to get one next time but it’s not available in my country so I need to figure when I travel next!
If you live in the US and want something on a budget, I recommend last year’s Moto G Stylus 5G (the 2023). You can find it for around $250. For the price, you get:
- More than adequate performance, especially at this price point (Snapdragon 6 Gen 1).
- Adequate RAM (6GB)
- Lots of storage (256GB)
- Decent cameras (50MP + 8MP UW)
- Great display (120Hz FHD+ IPS LCD)
- Great battery life
- Headphone jack(!)
- MicroSD slot(!!)
Damn, that does sound pretty good. Is the OS pretty close to stock?
I’m at my 3rd moto atm. A slightly outdated g31. It came with Android 11 and only recently 2 years after I bought it, it got the 12 upgrade. Still gets regular security patches.
Next the apps installe by Motorola (where I mean by optional that you can deactivate them, not uninstall). None of these apps are in the top 12 in the battery usage statistics and most of them are activated.
A tutorial center with “kurzgesagt” like animations e.g. for gestures. A selection of shortcuts to settings for customizing your device and Motorola QOL settings.
Moto Actions and Gestures (20MB, optional)
Enables the gestures (has no other brand a shaking flashlight gesture or has Motorola patented it?).
Moto App Launcher (4MB)
The Motorola specific desktop customization. I don’t know how close it is to the Pixel stock image but it doesn’t get in my way.
Moto AI Services (whopping 200MB, optional)
The reviews for this service are scalding. I’m honestly not the biggest fan of having AI on my phone that’s not in my control. Two reviewers point out, that it probably isn’t very invasive AI and rather used for QOL features, like the shaking flashlight feature.
Moto Feedback (31MB, optional)
Helps the user sending feedback (bug-reports and memory-dumps?) to Motorola. Again smotheringly bad reviews. Never had to do with it or used it knowingly. Can be deactivated.
Motorola notifications (88MB, optional)
Again some furious reviews. Double edged sword as it’s used to send news about updates but also push ADs. But the latter isn’t very spammy. Just every few weeks or month a push notifications about a new moto. That’s about the only place where I would see ADs (apart from regular apps).
iphone. They’re solid and they get updates forever so there is no rush to upgrade. I don’t miss Android and not getting updates 6 months after I buy the phone.
Well then you’re already unreliable and hyperbolic for giving advice as Android do in fact get updates well after 6 months. And no one can assure ‘forever’. Not even apple. I’ve had iPads complain they can’t be updated and force to go buy a new one.
Fanboi detected! 😂 Android phones vary in how many updates they will get based on manufacturer and price point of the phone. Google guarantees 4 years…that it. Others only reliably update flagship phones. I like the Android operating system, but the update situation is still largely a joke…as is the bloat in most Android phones.
Fanboi detected! 😂
Nice that you announce your arrival. I don’t see that too often.
I like the part where you proved my comments wrong…oh wait…
I’m not your employee. You are not owed a ‘discussion’.
Pout away. 😂
If you buy an iPhone 6 months before EOL you’ll also only get 6 months of updates
If you buy a non-flagship android you may get zero updates. I’m not hating on Android, but the update situation remains a joke for most Android phones.
That’s simply not true. Most 200 to 300 phones get a couple Android version updated and 3 or more years of security updates. You also can’t compare an iPhone to a non flagship. iPhones themselves are flagship devices.
Nowdays, I think the software support is basically the same.
Not even close. iPhone 8 from 2017 is still supported.
I mean the new android phones have 8 years of software support. You can still use phones with outdated software.
I use a pixel 8. If you care about security or privacy, GrapheneOS simply has no substitute.
Battery life lasts about a day and a half. Performance is solid, camera is solid, and it has an AMOLED for active display.
CalyxOS is a great substitute and doesn’t have a sus developer.
It might be a good substitute for some. Some features like contact and storage scopes are missing, and IMO they’re pretty cool Overall just worse privacy and security compared to Graphene
