My phone is no longer getting updates, so it’s time to buy a new one. The hardware could easily last 1-2 more years but I’d have to replace the battery, which is a pain on my phone.
I’m looking for something that has long firmware support and some good privacy roms while not being worse than my current Oneplus 8 in any way. I don’t care about cameras at all and I’m still mad about the missing headphone jacks, but unfortunately those don’t seem to be coming back and I can survive without one.
So, the options are Fairphone 5 and Pixel 8 from what I found out. The Pixel 8 is a little small for my taste and with 256GB storage it’s more expensive, but it does have grapheneOS, which I’d prefer because the app sandboxing would allow me to have peace of mind even if I have tracking apps sitting on my phone. I could use the proper play store and do IAPs without fiddling with aurora store. I use it already and it isn’t great.
With the Fairphone, I’d get a replacable battery so I can buy a spare and swap instead of charging my phone. I used to do that with the good old S3 and it was great. MicroSD slot is also nice. But the ROM options are CalyxOS and /e/OS. I know Calyx has a nice firewall to keep tracking at bay and /e/OS is an LOS fork mainly focused on getting rid of google from what I know, but neither has as much protection as grapheneOS.
My main goal is to become less dependant on google while still being able to use google maps for my way to work. The traffic aware routing saves me 10 minutes every day so letting google know when I go to work is a fair deal.
So, any opinions or experiences with either? TIA
Pixel because it supports GrapheneOS thus more secure and private.
Calyx isn’t as good as GrapheneOS, they do a lot of snitching on you (including to Google and Mozilla) and they overlook critical details such as this one allowing the OS to contact 3rd parties such as Qualcomm.
I’d get the Pixel because of the long, not to mention timely software updates and security patches, better hardware and GrapheneOS. If you do get the Fairphone, use DivestOS. See this comparison
Fairphone only partners with organizations who pay living wages. I.e. their phones aren’t made in a sweatshop
With the Fairphone you get more than just a replaceable battery. You get replaceable nearly everything. Also they do their best to ethically source the materials. In terms of ROMs there is also Iodé, also based on LOS, and if you go with a FP4 instead Ubuntu Touch.
