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.
I’m leaning towards samsung again because of DeX and an absurdly high battery life in a couple of their phones, but samsung don’t seem much better than apple as a company
The s22 ultra has amazing battery life. Prefer Samsung now (flagship only) over any others. They work very well, great battery, and camera. Can use it all day streaming and using navigation, still have 40% battery after 8hrs.
I have a 22+
Why is the camera a bit shit? I was hoping for a lot more after I upgraded from a 5 year old much cheaper Chinese phone.
Mine blows away the camera on the iPhone 13 and 14 pro that I also have. Not really.sure what your talking about, it has better hardware and software than any 5yr old phone
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.
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
Only if you ever buy the popular models.
Get yourself a rugged device, made for enterprises. They tend to be a bit more costly, but they aren’t fragile, they have great battery-life (although usually low specs to make that work), have no bloat and don’t require a sign up or even cloud.
Like the Unihertz Tank for example, or the Ascom Myco. Or the Bittium Tough Mobile 2 if you want extra secure.
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.
I’m using a Pixel 6, mostly because I like stock android. Not spectacular compared to their previous phones though, notably they used to be the only major company that still had headphone jacks, but that is no longer the case.
I have a 6a. Same deal. Terrible battery life honestly. I wish I could find a phone that could stay up to date and I can replace the batteries…
I will say though I had to replace the screen after completely obliterating it and it was shockingly easy, at least as far as modern smartphones go.
Are the newer pixels any better? I have a pixel 4 that I’d like to upgrade at some point but it seems like everything else would be a downgrade for what I want.
Good battery life under load, wireless charging, and NFC are the only things I want. A low end phone with a potato for a CPU would be plenty but none of them have wireless charging AND NFC. They’ve started to have one, or the other, but not both.
Im not sure. Looks like the 6a would not be a good fit for you: https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/does-google-pixel-6a-have-wireless-charging/
If you know yoyr criteria you could try the Phone Finder on https://www.gsmarena.com/
I am on an iPhone 12 mini, I expect to keep it for another two or three years.
There are VNC and SSH apps in the appstore for Linux access.
iPhone XS Max here, and I’m astounded at how fast it still is after five years. Battery lasts all day, too.
I’m contemplating upgrading due to USB-C and 120hz, but I have no other reason to at the moment. The longevity of this bitch is mindblowing.
Yep, I used my iPhone 6S far longer than I expected.
I get that plenty of people dislike Apple and iOS, I am no super fan of Apple, but credit to them where it is due, they make phones that last for a long time.
People HATE Apple products here, but I loooove iOS. I fuck around all day on my Linux and Windows machines, I want zero fuck-around-ing on my phone.
I want a great big button that says “MAKE INCREMENTAL ENCRYPTED BACKUP: THE BUTTON”.
I want 50k photos and videos and every text I’ve ever received to not slow my phone down after years of not reformatting.
When I get a new phone, I want to plug it into my computer and immediately have it be the exact same phone as my previous phone.
I have an iPhone SE that’s 2 years old and my battery lasts like 6 hours without use. Can you replace a battery?
Pixel 7, but for me I always look for a phone with stock Android and a good camera. Usually any of the Google Pixel phones covers that well.
