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Which option would you recommend: Pixel with Graphene OS (cheapest new phone is $500) OR A Cheap Mototola Budget Phone (new at $200, sometimes on discount at $140) running Lineage OS? (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 5 days ago by DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works to c/privacy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/45425575

I mean we all know about the sideloading restriction thing. So I wanna explore alternative OSes, just gathering info, not sure if I'll even end up buying another phone (currently have a Samsung as a main phone, and in North America they are bootloader locked).

Like I know Graphene OS is supposedly more secure, but is it worth paying so much more for a phone? And used phones are kinda sketchy btw, most originate from a carrier so unlockability is in question (I'm not playing the buy/return "lootbox" game lol, so much hassle and its never guaranteed when a seller would even accept a return).

The moto I was looking at apparantly was on CalyxOS's supported list, but they suspended development for some reason, so Lineage is the only Custom ROM left other than Graphene.

Graphene seems cool, but idk if its really that much better. Getting a pixel is directly giving Google the most money, and I don't feel so good about that after they closed sourced Pixel device tree codes (or whatever that thing was called that they closed sourced), and then they killed sideloading, feels wrong to be buying a pixel right now. So that leaves me with just Lineage. And I could get a much cheaper phone too going Lineage.

So TLDR: If you were to recommend a phone to someone, which would you recommend? Expensive phone for Graphene, or Cheap phone and just use Lineage? Or something else?

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[-] MxRemy@piefed.social 16 points 5 days ago

Refurbished pixels are pretty darn cheap, and I've been happily using Graphene for over a year.

That said, all the AOSP forks seem like they're in a somewhat precarious position these days, not knowing what BS google will pull... Not sure if anyone has the resources to maintain a hard fork of AOSP if Google really clamped down on access to it. So to that end, the new non -Android mobile Linux distros might get reaalllll important sooner or later. The Graphene folks say those distros are just completely and utterly lacking in security, but if the Android situation becomes untenable I'm not sure what else we're supposed to do?

I dunno nothing about nothing though, so please correct me if I'm wrong about any/all of this!

this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2025
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