Why?

cracauer@ I've always had Samsung phones but Samsung fiddles with things too much and I can't figure out what or where settings are. Was thinking of getting a Pixel phone. I like Google services. Should I get a Pixel phone?
 
cracauer@ said:
Google Pixel phones can still be rooted an official way.
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I know the Google Nexus 7 has no way to wipe it officially without macOS (aarch64) style online activation DRM in the first boot.

I think its demonstrated here. Impossible to skip the wifi requirement and if the wifi is offline it then asks to connect to a different wifi. (Interestingly for public wifi, it presents the proxy page in a little embedded web browser).

This put me off the entire range if it cannot be offline from inception. Its all landfill-ware.
 
@drhowardfine, I got a Motorola Edge which at the time was said to not have a lot of the junk. I don't use it for anything but texting and as an e-reader (using Kindle and Nook apps) and occasional calls.

It's the Motorola Edge from 2022, it has a lot of the usual google junk on it, I've not added too many apps to it. It's not bad, for my use but I don't pay attention to camera, sound quality, etc.
 
MG said:
Never had 1. It gets mobile network without a Android/Google kernel? I was considering Pinephone but it seems too difficult to actually use it as phone.
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Yes, the cellular modem stays active, even if you root or even install a different OS variant.

If you use a different OS you lose Android market by default, but people sideload the apk.

There is some braindead software that tries to detect whether the phone is rooted such as some banks and some DRM. But the people who do the actual software you use to become root (like sudo) work around that in a whack-a-mole manner.
 
drhowarddrfine said:
cracauer@ I've always had Samsung phones but Samsung fiddles with things too much and I can't figure out what or where settings are. Was thinking of getting a Pixel phone. I like Google services. Should I get a Pixel phone?
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I exclusively use Pixel phones and I am happy with them. Very consistent experience.
 
I have an iPhone 13 Pro Max.
I’m not an Apple guy at all.
The entire family world wide is on iPhone so it was the right move to make.

I refuse to upgrade IOS to more emojis and that power gobbling glass interface.

I am perfectly happy with it and will run it until it dies.
 
OnePlus 6 is the best phone I know of (8G RAM, SDM845/upstream Linux support, unlocked UEFI bootloader with Renegade Project that even ran native Windows 10 ARM, and Qualcomm EDL tools for complete R/W any partition)

I use one now with LineageOS with F-Droid and no Google apps. postmarketOS with GNOME worked pretty well (edge non-mobile GNOME was unstable/crashed to log-in with random stuff like pressing OSK keys) but might be different now; maybe more stable on less-edge, or the mobile version might be better.

Windows 10 ARM was interesting and played retail WoW 50 FPS; I don't think it had phone/SMS (not sure how to do that from Windows but it worked postmarketOS and Windows had the modem for LTE) but if it wasn't my main phone I'd run W10 for games :p

cracauer@ said:
Google Pixel phones can still be rooted an official way.
Click to expand...
Iirc Verizon enforces Pixels to be bootloader locked (I got an OG Pixel 1 for cheap but seller didn't mention it was VZW :p)

I did something in Dev Options and wifi toggle to somehow get it unlocked
 
I'd get an iPhone in a heartbeat but I'm tied into the Google stuff too much and don't want to fight with "making it work". If I had Apple gear I might switch. My one son is in theater and film so he's all Apple everything
 
My wife is Apple everything, but I always went with Android because side loading was easier. At the time, I would frequently transfer epubs over--I don't know if it's still a pain with Apple or not, but at the time, side loading epub books wasn't straightforward..
I dislike both google and Apple, but for my limited use of phone---I do nothing financial on it, and have a throwaway email account that I use with it--it isn't, for me, worth the effort of learning how root it and put a different OS on it.
 
adorno said:
There exists a classic paper on the subject: https://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html
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And, very regretably, a "classic" response to someone who doesn't want to (or in my case have) the money to spend on the LATEST! AND GREATEST! hardware and software. Because I'm aged and poor, I'm not allowed to download that paper. The author clearly believes it offers nothing important to the likes of me, and if I think it just might: жалко -- I'm collateral damage.
 
It's a bit of a chicken and egg problem, you need a certain amount of active users in order to get the necessary apps that people actually need for something other than iOS or Android. But, if you don't have those apps it can be hard to get people to use the device. I think KaiOS might be the only other option that has any hope of getting there and as much as I liked it when I had it, I have a handful of apps that I really do need to use which weren't supported. IIRC, the big ones at the time were those 2FA apps.

Personally, I did like Google One, but I'm a bit hesitant to try it again when my phone dies because of all the AI that Google is cramming in there. I was not amused when my phone suddenly stopped respecting the button to activate assistant and put it also on the power button.
 
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