/tech/ - Technology

They don't exist. Phones came out later than PCs, when capitalism already figured out how to do tech and didn't have to carry on legacy. So the free market gives you choice with phones: get screwed over or get screwed over, or get fucked.

>>33873
What's a brand that'll fuck me up the least

>>33874
Brands exist to fuck you up. Buy used pixel and install lineageos or maybe grapheneos (never tried the latter). Or even use stock, stock on pixels seems the least cursed. Pixels seem to age well, surprisingly, and even get stock security updates for a somewhat reasonable period, and they're very popular.
Always buy used, it's unethical to pay corpos. You already pay them with your data, don't pay with real money on top of that.

I simply buy a new smartphone for €70 every year and throw the old one away. Smartphones are short-lived, disposable items that aren't worth agonizing over. They’re all the same and even the cheapest devices handle the basic functions.

>>33877
> new phone every year
good capitalist paypig, yes you are!

>>33879
who isn't a capitalist paypig under capitalism?🤔

The main question you should ask when you go buy a Google approved NSA tracking device and you plan to use it long term is:

>Can I unlock the bootloader?

If the answer is yes, buy it. Now if you just want burners, I'd follow this advice >>33877

>>33876
>>33882
OP here. What about Xiaomis?

ive had my samsung A32 for probably more than 6 years, it works fine, cant name one thing about it thats an active annoyance.

>>33885
CCP aids. I mean their quality is surprisingly good but they're full of spyware and bloatware. If you want to install lineage you have to fetch like half a gig of unsigned firmware from some shady source

what do we actually need phones for anymore? nobody leaves their house except to go to work or run errands, don't need a phone for that. nobody talks to their friends or relatives by telephone or sms anymore, don't need a phone for that. need gps for your car, just buy a gps receiver it's much cheaper than a phone and works better and access to the gps network is free. if you have to make a phone call to some business for whatever reason they never answer the phone or they do answer it's a machine and if it's not a machine it's a person on other side of the world who can't speak or understand english and it's not that it's a checked out receptionist who just lies to get you off the phone and doesn't relay whatever message you give them. mobile apps are all malware garbage. mobile websites are all malware garbage. social media websites are all horrible and constantly harass you to install malware ad-infested apps and you're not allowed to use the web browser on your own phone. you have a mini-anxiety attack every time your phone rings or gets a notification and 90% of the time it's just ads and spam, you waste your time and make yourself miserable scrolling mindless bullshit instead of doing something productive, you stress about plugging it in and keeping it charged every day like the whole world will end if your phone battery dies. why are we buying $500+ phones and paying $50+ a month for this?

>>33889
for those damned two-factor authentication text messages

>>33888
i have a xiaomi, the level of adware in it is insane, i have to agree with this

iphone. iphones are designed to shit the bed after 5-7 years, androids are designed to shit the bed after 2-3 years. apple only gets the bad reputation for planned obsolescence because they did it first, but android took it to the next level and the monolithic vibe-coded pile of shit that is the linux kernel gives android a tremendous edge in that department.

>>33935
iPhones also get shit for not allowing app installs outside of the App Store but Android is soon to follow so who knows what happens.

>>33936

the whole thing sucks, like a duopoly is almost as bad as a monopoly to the point where it might as well be a monopoly. one gigantic company that makes all the phones, two gigantic companies that make all the phones, either way you get garbage phones. i'm at the point now where i actually miss the windows phone, it was actually pretty good compared to the shit that google and apple are putting out today and it would be nice to at least have three competing smartphone ecosystems instead of just two. it's funny that the big criticism about it back then was that it didn't have enough apps in the app store, and now everyone hates android and apple for having too many garbage apps in their app stores.

You guys are giving shitty replies. Just tell me what phone GOOD

Those eink phones seem p. cool, but they're like 10x my used One Plus One.

>>33939
just bite the bullet and buy a used flagship from 2024 or 2025, it doesnt matter which brand they all fucking suck

look at flagship phones from a few years ago and what custom ROMS are available for them. Go with whichever one works best with whatever ROM you want to use. The only way to get more and longer functionality from your old phone is custom ROMS so if that's what you're going for you want to base your phone purchase off that. Specs for phones in the last few years have gotten crazy, and with how much memory and shit costs right now those phones will still be usable well into the future on a custom ROM

>>33940

its because e-ink technology is monopolized by patent trolls

>>33983
it's because the one plus one is like a 10 year old phone. the e-ink patent expired and now it's dominated by chinese manufacturers. the big me 60fps e-ink phone is like 500 bux

>>33872
they all suck, don't bother. if you want cheap burner androids they exist for less than 50 bucks. don't even waste your time trying to get the most out of a garbage OS like android beyond installing f-droid apps and a firewall. a used iphone SE is around 100 dollars and has security updates into the 2030s, and the OS is objectively better.

Pixels are pretty much the best option for long term support now. I do lament that we no longer have a DivestOS style ROM though, which was basically GrapheneOS + LineageOS best of both worlds. Pixels can use Graphene though and just about everything else and are likely to have the baseband and other core stuff updated for awhile, without depending on some OEM's custom shit atop Android and for them to bother updating core components. Samsung, Lenovo/Motorola, any of the Chinese Oppo/Huawei types etc.. can fall into these pitfalls easier. Nothing is perfect, but Pixels are the best option. I do wish they were more like the Nexus models of old that stayed to AOSP instead of having special Pixel versions of stuff that was proprietary, but its still quite possible (and on a pixel, easier than most other modern flagships) to run a custom ROM .

As far as the hardware, if you're buying Pixels (and especially if you're buying used) I HIGHLY suggest getting something of the Pixel 10 series or newer (ie the brand new 11, which is basically very close to the 10 with some small bumps here and ther, I think) because the 10 (at least the Pro models) have "pixelsnap" compatibility which is basically a built combination of Apple's "magsafe" magnetic connection for accessories and the like, and the latest Qi2 standard for wireless charging (regular Qi has been around a long time, Qi 2 is faster and has other benefits as well ). There are other benefits of course but this was one of the things added in the recent Pixel models with the new body redesign. There are also going to be a lot of deals on Pixel 10 family stuff now that the 11s are coming. Pixel 10/11 families go like

>Pixel 10a
The cheapest variant, usually released after the mainline. This is the cut down version but still solid overall. Usually has less 'premium' materials, cameras, and other ancillary shit, lesser raw performance etc.. but a lot cheaper.
>Pixel 10
The baseline version, very capable and a step up from the A models typically.
>Pixel 10 Pro and Pro XL
The high end version that has the best of everything. The XP version is just slightly physically larger but aside from that is very close in terms of specs; its more an issue of preference for portability etc. For most technically adept users one of these are typically the way to go
>Pixel 10 Pro Fold
These have Pro level specs in every other way, but are the ultra-premium halo product in that they have both an external standard phone display, and a foldable internal display that opens up into a tablet-ish setup. Its worth mentioning that unlike every other Pixel foldable or tablet to date, starting with the 10 (and continuing with the 11) the Pro Fold models have foldable glass displays, instead of plastic exclusively. While the foldable glass isn't as durable as the external screen glass, iits a big improvement over the plastic in the past. If you spend a lot of time reading, watching videos etc.. on your phone and don't have a tablet you use separately, the Fold Pros are good options. Just make sure to get a good screen protector for the external display (one of the tempered glass ones are good additions) and most importantly, a proper case. Lots of cases for the Pro Fold do NOT protect the goddamn spine for some stupid reason, but there are some that do as well as being both slim and pixelsnap/magsafe compatible. Oh and keep in mind that ROMs are different for each model of Pixel (look up the codenames etc).

Got a 2023 thinkphone from motorola, it's good and got lineage so

>>33885
Insane value for money. Had the same 200 american dollar (that's 260 in today's money) xiaomi for 7 years now. Adware I turned off immediately and haven't had trouble with since. For apps like gallery I just installed a replacement if they were bad, design-wise. Spyware is like, same level as samsung or other cheap shit. Would you rather have american or chinese backdoor?

>>34135
Bullshit or cope, I had a xiaomi and it had so much shit that you needed to turn off in separate places it was insane, and to this day I never figured out how to disable the xiaomj "safe installer" crap. I got lucky on that phone because it was vulnerable to mtkexploit which rescued it from the trash bin

>>34152
I just hit back out of muscle memory when the stupid safe installer appears. Yeah I had to turn off "features" in separate places too but it took me about a day of getting used to the thing. Yet it is still my daily phone after all these years. Battery still lasts a good day use, too.