Other than your carrier give it for free or cheap, I don’t really see the reason why should you buy new phone. I’ve been using Redmi Note 9 for past 3 years and recently got my had on Poco F5. I don’t see the point of my ‘upgrade’. I sold it and come back to my Note 9. Gaming? Most of them are p2w or microtransaction garbage or just gimped version of its PC/Console counterpart. I mean, $400 still get you PS4, TV and Switch if you don’t mind buying used. At least here where I live. Storage? Dude, newer phone wont even let you have SD Card. Features? Well, all I see is newer phones take more features than it adds. Headphone jack, more ads, and repairability are to name a few. Battery? Just replace them. However, my Note 9 still get through day with one 80% charge in the dawn. Which takes 1 hour.
I am genuinely curious why newer phone always selling like hot cakes. Since there’s virtually no difference between 4gb of RAM and 12gb of RAM, or 12mp camera and 100mp camera on phone.
Chances are if you know how to use an Android, using Graphene isn’t too much harder. You can still download from the play store and run apps like normal. If you’re reading this post then you probably have the technical knowhow to plug your phone into the computer and press the start button.
Fair point with not being for everybody though, I wouldn’t be comfortable giving it to my non-techy family and friends. You do have a fair point.
I’ve been running GrapheneOS on my Pixel 3 for three years and I have few complaints. I still cant figure out how to get automatic updates to work in Android 13 with the Neo or Droidify stores but atleast the stock GOS apps auto update. BTW, to clarify what you said, we have to use the Aurora app to download from Google Play Store.
You’re right it’s not for most people. Not having Google services installed might be a major blow for people who have become accustomed to the conveniences they provide. I just use a separate vanilla Pixel for Google services if I need them, but the phone with my SIM card is the one with GrapheneOS.
You can turn Google Services on if you would like. I personally do have it turned on as some of my apps wouldn’t get notifications without it. You could use it as a normal android downloading through the play store and nobody would notice that it’s degoogled. All the apps are sandbox and you can change what permissions that have, I previously used CalyxOS and this is much more private and secure.
Does it send telemetry? Why is CalyxOS more secure?
Oh I meant GrapheneOS is more private and secure. Don’t get me wrong, CalyxOS is still much better than stock android
Out of curiosity, which Pixel phone is a good one to have GrapheneOS installed on to last a long time?
The latest Pixel would get the longest update. They follow Google’s support updates which is 5 years from the time it is available for purchase.
https://grapheneos.org/faq#device-lifetime
Just a reminder that GrapheneOS dev harassed Louis Rossmann of being complicit in his hoax attempted murder, something he has not provided evidence for in over 2 months. He has harassed me, Techlore, FlorisBoard, Bromite, Calyx devs and many countless entities, including subreddits of sheltering, according to him, alleged swatters.
I followed this controversy as well. On the GrapheneOS forum, strcat announced he has stepped down to work on himself. The project is running like normal and development is still the same as always.
https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/5235-stepping-down-as-project-leader-of-grapheneos
His announcement is a big hoax for attention seeking purposes. Upon repeated attempts by his non-critic fans, he refused to provide any evidence of swatting. His habit is to maintain silence whenever he is caught lying, and will use as much dead cat strategies as needed to accomplish that.