[Discussion] Which Mobile Vendor device do you use?

[donald]

I recently was forced to upgrade my 9 years aged mobile device for a new mobile device and have been on Android for most of my mobile time.

I'm wondering what are the brands most Debian/Linux users using?

Do you link it with desktop integration software like kde connect?

Is it rooted?

I went 9 years, how old is your device?

Poll has 2 options for those with 2 handsets.

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Manufacture data taken from:
https://gs.statcounter.com/vendor-marke ... worldwide/
https://www.mordorintelligence.com/indu ... nes-market
https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS50146623

[sunrat]

Realme 7 Pro here, 4 years and counting. Happy with it. Way better and cheaper than the older Pixel I had before it.

I'm surprised it's even in the poll. Whenever someone asks what phone I have they always say "never heard of Realme".

Currently the poll sits at 50% Samsung, 50% Realme. n=2

[donald]

I'm the Samsung guy. Yeah never heard of Realme until I looked at the overall market. Forgot that Nokia perished

[CwF]

Alcatel GoFlip with full cup inductive mic noise cancelling headphones.
>24hr continuous operation.

It's a phone. I don't carry a pocket computer.

[Bulkley]

I don't have either a cell phone or tablet.

[donald]

Opps. I reset the poll to add an other option. There were only 3.

Samsung
Realme
Other

[NFT5]

Other = LG Q6



LG stopped making phones after mine. Figured that there was nowhere further to go once they'd reached the pinnacle.

Seriously, it's a great phone. Doesn't have all the features of some of the new ones, but I don't care. Makes and takes calls, messages and photos. Can be tethered for internet access on my notebook. And it fits in my pocket. Had it about 5 years after a Samsung previously.

Like its predecessor, when it's rooted I'll get a new one. It is, of course, unlocked so I can choose network which I do with 2 SIM cards so I have more complete coverage when travelling.

The phone is connected to both the desktop and notebook via KDE Connect and Syncthing. That makes things very handy.

We've just been through the exercise of buying my wife a new phone after two Samsungs. The Samsungs are great but now that they know it the price includes Samsung tax, putting them out of contention. A lot of the other brands, even in the list, aren't available here and I am concerned that Chinese brands have a habit of phoning home. So the short list came down to Nokia and Motorola. The Motorola won on price (G62 5G) since the Nokia 5G capable model was much dearer. And, yes, I do know that Motorola is owned by Lenovo now, but there is a little more separation, so maybe some better security. It's taken me (do you think she'd do it?) a couple of days to set up but so far I'm impressed. Little on the large side for me, but a good solid phone. Pity about all the crap software pre-loaded.

[steve_v]

brands

Samsung S5 ATM, but I really have no loyalty and I'll take whatever has the features I require. That means readily rootable/hackable, a user replaceable battery, and a 3.5mm phone jack.

kde connect?

Sure.

Is it rooted?

Of course. I refuse to buy anything I won't actually own.

I went 9 years, how old is your device?

Ditto. I'll think about replacing it when I see something on the market that isn't a locked, unrepairable, disposable trash downgrade.

[canci]

One Plus 6 rooted with LineageOS. I use Samba and Nextcloud rather than KDEconnect.

The phone cost under 200€ refurbished 3 years ago.

[revmacian]

Other; Any phone I can buy unlocked and under $500.00. I don't buy phones from carriers.. I buy an unlocked phone and then I look for a carrier.. the way it should be.

[FreewheelinFrank]

Whatever is cheap. Currently Nokia G10. £67 A1 reconditioned, Vanilla full Android (no need to root to remove vendor software), security updates for 3 years, updates to Android 12 (done) and 13 (on the way).

I would be laughing but the money I saved my daughter spent on an Apple.

[kent_dorfman766]

Oh man, this thread provides a venue to vent...spent many years with a samsung galaxy that couldn't be rooted because it was on the verizon network and they force pushed the "fix" to close the privilege escallation hack before I found out about it. And I under no circumstances download and execute blobs from the internet...It amazes me how many folks blindly execute "root tools" from people they have no reason to trust. When I can get a root tool in source format and build it myself under android studio then I'll consider it.

cellular phones and the spyware they call an OS are a major pet peave of mine! I thought since I am being forced to upgrade to a 5g capable phone I'd accept the recommendations of others and go with an iphone12...what a major mistake. First off, the activation for ANY NEW PHONE is so ridiculously invasive that I wanted to throw it through a wall. I buy a phone thru a cellular carrier I expect them to have it pre-activated and ready for me to use, not have to bare my soul to mother Apple just to use the damned thing! Then, once I'm registered (using bogus info where possible) I find that virutally everything is locked down thru their apple store. Hell, ya cannot even load ringtones or MP3s unless the source is blessed by big-brother. So, I'm not trusted to own or manage my own computing resources but I'm suppose to blindly trust apple to have my best interests as a priiority...Yeah, that makes sense!

I'm also not impressed with the iphone interace. Yeah, maybe Joe Sixpack can use it, but it is an abomination to any real engineer because it thinks it is smarter than me and forces me to use it the way they want: the way that encourages more social engineering and data mining.

At least my old android galaxy was open enough that I could develop and load my own apps without registering for the privilege of doing so.

The lesser problem is that these devices are nothing but spying tools, and the larger concern "should be" that the sheeple don't seem to care, so it will only get worse.

I've researched open-source smartphones and they are a bust. While cool in principle, they cannot funtion well until the phone EOMs are forced to provide hardware with well published APIs.

My next phone will probly be a non-smart flip-phone.

[steve_v]

It amazes me how many folks blindly execute "root tools" from people they have no reason to trust.

Agreed. My criteria for a device is "unlocked bootloader or GTFO", and step one after getting it is a complete wipe with official firmware tools over USB and installation of a FOSS bootoader and OS. Makes the options a mite limited, but If the alternative is a carrier-locked stock image and/or shady "root enabler" tools... I'll go back to carrier pigeons thanks.

an abomination to any real engineer because it thinks it is smarter than me

Corollary to "I refuse to buy anything I won't actually own" is "I refuse to own anything that dictates how I use it, as it is then not truly mine".

Current non-smartphone bugbear: Modern cars that simply will not STFU or stop being "helpful", even when it is completely counterproductive. I will not abide devices that backchat and second guess me at every opportunity.
I'm pretty sure the same would go for "features" like apples new crash-detecting automated distress call whatever too, were I insane enough to go anwhere near a modern ithing to begin with.

the sheeple don't seem to care

The crux of the matter indeed, right next to the closely related "convenience trumps all".

Lament, all those people I'd be so willing to help free themselves from corporate spyware garbage... and yet I have absolutely no time for, because their committent ends at the realisation it might not be as "convenient" or "intuitive" as an iphone and they can't simply pay me to do everything for them (my motivation being sharing of knowledge > acquisition of material wealth).

[oswaldkelso]

Xiaomi Redmi note 9

I managed to download the f-droid apk and copy it to the phone without activation all the crap that comes with it. Then installed all my apps from f-droid. Most google stuff has not been allowed but I can't remove some of them.

It was cheap for the spec, it works. Some times a bit flaky but I suspect because it gets confused because it's not allowed to do what it expects. Good camera that I need for work.

I most used bits are phone calls, sms, camera, email, and molly-floss. All using f-droid apps.

Just looked and it seems it's now supported by Lineageos
https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/merlinx/ Though it does require "Windows" to install it!

Nokia 8110 4G "banana phone" Great for camping and festivals where long battery life is required. Also great when sub contracting and they want you to join their "whats-app crap" so you can check in every hour! I say I'll use sms. Then setup sms -scheduler to auto send a text roughly every hour.

Wiley-fox that came with cyanogen mod the precursor to lineageos. Smashed the screen crawling under some machine at work. It was uneconomical to repair so retired as an alarm Way louder than the Xiaomi and I sleep like a log

Nokia n900 My nuclear holocaust invasion by aliens phone. Like the "banana phone" I need a magnifying glass to use it.

[dilberts_left_nut]

Xiaomi Redmi note 9

*snap* although mine claims to be a "pro"
You do get used to big phones pretty quick.
I've been well impressed with this for the price.
+1 for the camera
3.5mm jack & sdcard were my base requirements.
Not many replaceable battery models around any more.
And, yes - f-droid FTW.

Prior to that an S5 for ~8 years - still goes but only charges when it wants, which has drawm out to about once every month or so if the stars align.

[wizard10000]

Last two phones have been Motorola (current is a two-year old Moto G Power) and I've been happy with the price, performance and relative lack of bloatware but my needs are fairly simple.

I gave up on rooting mobile devices because I occasionally use streaming services and a lot of them won't work on a rooted phone. Neither will MS Authenticator, which I need for work.

[revmacian]

Last two phones have been Motorola (current is a two-year old Moto G Power) and I've been happy with the price, performance and relative lack of bloatware but my needs are fairly simple.

I gave up on rooting mobile devices because I occasionally use streaming services and a lot of them won't work on a rooted phone. Neither will MS Authenticator, which I need for work.

I love my Moto G Power, it's a good phone. I recently was able to find an unlocked Moto G Stylus 5G at Best Buy for around $250 USD. It's faster (Snapdragon vs. Mediatek chipset) and has better screen res for my old eyes. Just an idea for when you're ready to upgrade.

[cds60601]

Does a Windows phone or a Blackberry count?!

[kedaha]

I use an old BQ Aquaris Pro, which was released in 2017 but which has received no updates beyond Android 8 and the company is no longer in the mobile phone business, so, rather than fork out money for a new phone, I installed e-os on it and it now runs a “deGoogled” version 11 of Android OS. It works great and the battery still lasts two days. An alternative would be LineageOS, listed at lineageos.org/devices/#bq.
I also have a Nokia n900 and wouldn't mind using it with Maemo Leste, which uses Devuan, which is much closer to Debian than /e/OS. if voice calls were OK but, according to this, it works for phone calls but there's no UI and there's poor quality for upstream audio, which might require pulseaudio audio filters.

[casper :)]

im currently on an iphone 13 i got for trading in my old phone, free if i sign a two year contract. hell, ill be here in two years. for what it's worth, it's not a bad deal of a phone. before the 13 i had a 12 i bought Verizon's website as refurbished but it had a heap of problems. sometimes the touch screen wouldn't work, safari would freeze up and i'd have to close the app completely then re-open. the 14 is alright, though i did drop it on concrete (no broke screen, thankfully) and now on some apps the screen will turn an orange hue. i can't expect much out of a phone so i'd say im satisfied with how everything works.