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
Galaxy Fold 3, incredible phone, Dex is fantastic, brilliant for viewing things on larger screens so it’s much easier to view.
Battery life is atrocious though, I charge it 3 times a day
I have a Flip 5! Got it for the form factor and it just looks cool lol. I enjoy it.
I have a fold3 as well, personally have found the battery life to be fine. Maybe because my previous phone was 6 years old when I switched so I had low standards for battery. Although, I definitely don’t need to charge 3 times a day.
If nobody else had said fold3, I was gonna post: I have a fold3 and I love it. I can see how people could see it as a dumb gimmick, but for me it can legitimately function as my main portable media device (ebooks, internet, keeping notes, video content, sudoku, emulated games if I attach a controller, showing people pictures, etc) in a way that a regular phone would feel way too cramped for, while also just fitting in my pocket so I can take it everywhere without a second thought - which would be a much bigger pain with a regular tablet. It’s just really nice having a full-sized book in my jeans pocket in a waiting room, as a painless part of my “everyday carry”.
Downside (for me) is people sometimes see me fold/unfold it and want to start a conversation about how weird it is, when I’m an extreme introvert and just wanted some silent device time. I guess this might be an upside for extroverts, but then they might be less interested in being glued to a large pocket-screen in the first place.
oneplus 9 pro
Degoogled Pixel 4a that I bought to replace my broken Pixel 4a. I’m gonna use this thing until it dies and then maybe buy another one. I’m not sure when another phone this hold-able, reasonably powerful enough, and good LineageOS support will get released.
Unfortunately… Samsung is the only “normal” choice compared to others in my country… Other brands shipped adware, or just straight up shows ads on lock screen. I’m not joking. Samsung does it too unfortunately, though not as aggressive. Also I noticed after the year 2020 their midrange model has gone worse.
I miss Sony Xperia. I wish they didn’t leave my country.
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.
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
So. Much. Bloat. Otherwise good.
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
Maybe on the ultra.
The camera is better. But only by a little.
I took photos of the same country and switched one day. The picture quality made me hard to tell which day I used which phone. My parents didn’t even notice. This was on a tablet.
It’s better I low light but not amazing. Looking at stars or anything dark is terrible.
Definitely over saturates photos even with the ai off. I have to drag the brightness down pretty much everytime I use it because it tries to make things brighter than they are and it loses information.
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
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.
damn thanks how did I not know these existed…
Wow I misread the battery capacity on the unihertz tank and was like when was 2000mAh last a big battery? It’s 20 000 mAh. Also there’s a Tank2 with only 15 500 mAh.
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
The biggest difference is whether you can run a custom rom or it’s locked down.
any special model that you prefer?
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
GrapheneOS has better gplay support than calyxos
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.
USB C is the only reason I upgraded to a 15 pro. I’d still be on my iPhone 6s until this phone if it wasn’t for getting each upgrade for stupid cheap from friends.
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.
My dad has been using my old 6S until recently. We bumped him up to a 8 I recently quit using.
Currently I’m using an 11 Pro. Great phone.
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.
People here just irrationally hate apple, not even just their products. Like yesterday there was a person who was just literally making stuff up to dunk on them. I tried to set them up for a home run (and they could have scrolled down just a little bit for all the info they needed) but the best they could come up with was a feeling they had.
0 though, just irrationally angry.
That’s very in line with what I see here. Very sad, for a group of tech minded individuals. All of my IT friends use Linux desktops and Apple phones because at the end of the day, they don’t wanna fuck with their basic communication/photo device.
Yep, I am an IT guy, I just want my phone to work, and so far iOS has been perfect for me.
I love iCloud backups it just works.
I feel that—I find that’s the case for most of my IT friends.
I’d love to use iCloud backups, but I have some… sensitive stuff on my phone, so I stick to local encrypted backups hahaha
I also have some stuff I’d prefer to backup locally, so I have disabled iCloud backups for most of my apps and only really use it for core iOS features, like settings, texts, contacts, and local photo gallery.
Anything else is either manually backed up me or stuff I don’t care about.
All my weird stuff is in photos, but I couldn’t back up 50k photos to iCloud if I tried hahaha
What are you gonna do when your battery goes to shit?
Replace it? So far it is fine.
I have an iPhone SE that’s 2 years old and my battery lasts like 6 hours without use. Can you replace a battery?
iFixit has guides for it so yeah, looks like it
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.
The good thing about the pixel line seems to be that the repairs are supported in most local places or ifixit thats for sure. I had a terracube before. Do not recommend!
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/
Google pixel so i could put graphene os on it.
Bought myself a Pixel 6 used a whole back. Been very happy with it
I hear a lot of good things about the older pixels, but they only have a couple years of security updates left and a couple months of android updates so it doesn’t feel like a smart decision to buy them now
They don’t have less security updates than other brands. Plus you can always install a custom ROM to keep getting updates afterwards.
LineageOS or GrapheneOS are perfect for these and dont rely on google play services eating your data and battery.
Yup. That’s exactly what I was thinking
I’m on a OnePlus 5. Had it for a few years now and love it. Best phone I ever had.
I’ve had a few. The OnePlus line has been, IIRC, notable for charging quickly relative to competitors, though I don’t know whether things have evened out since then.
Second the OnePlus 5! I moved to the OnePlus 10 Pro for security updates and it’s great. Battery life is worse though, I hear the 12 isn’t as bad in that respect. Still have the fastest charging on the market though!
Currently on a 12 I got 6(?) Months ago. It’s been pretty fantastic on the battery front. 2 long trips and I never worried about it dying because I only needed to charge it every other day or so even with doing things like playing Monster Hunter Now.
I have Motorola something because I’m poor. Though, one good thing about Motorola phones is that they’re durable as all hell.
I got a samsung galaxy s23 ultra. Battery and stylus are dope, camera is fun to use, but it’s slightly too big.
They’re all pretty much the same, unless you’re looking for specific use cases, e.g. camera, outdoors ruggedness, gaming, specific OS build, etc. I stopped getting flagships once I realized my old ones battery started to swell like a cheaper phone. I’m on Android, so I get to replace any app with the one of my choice - I’m particular about data submissions to home and sneaky stuff like autotagging. Now all I look for is a recent android build (for app compatibility), decent camera hardware (I’ll replace the app), IP68 and a good price.
What camera app do you use and why?
Privacy reasons. Didn’t like the autotagging in the default app on my oneplus. Turns out it’s a common feature on all the new phones now. I now use procam x. Bear in mind, using a third party app means you lose the advanced filters and processing the manufacturers have spent money developing. Some of the camera hardware will also not be accessible. I don’t really care since I also have dedicated hardware for beauty shots.
