I am currently using a Galaxy M20 with (now) unofficial LineageOS, which will turn 4 years old this year.

Generally, I am not a kind of person who buys new products every one or two years, and I love tools that last years and years, so I keep using them even if I’m facing slight inconveniences.

However, the smartphone situation is different and here is why:

  • The situation with security and feature updates on Android phones is terrible. My phone was only supported for a couple of years and I was only receiving updates very unfrequently.
  • Furthermore, the Samsung variant of Android is a dumpster fire. It is ugly (my opinion), overloaded with bloated Samsung replacements for existing Android apps (40MB calculator, seriously?) and contains uninstallable bloatware like Microsoft products or Netflix.
  • I’ve had no problem using, I even would prefer flashing LineageOS on the phone (what I’m doing now), but as Samsung doesn’t provide updated kernels and upstreaming the kernel on one’s own is a pain in the *ss, the device isn’t even supported by LineageOS, so I have to rely on third-party unofficial builds as I don’t have the hardware to build a ROM myself. Although Samar-V-121 is doing an amazing job there, I would rather prefer using an officially supported OS.
  • And here are the reasons why:
    • No Push Notifications: it’s a hassle to set up Google Play Services or microg myself, and it’s still a kinda hacky solution
    • Camera bad: photo quality is worse than on the official ROM and the wide-angle camera doesn’t work at all
  • So I end up with a perfectly working smartphone (it runs pretty smoothly because I don’t do any intensive tasks as gaming), but I’m still not able to utilize all of its capabilities and have an enjoyable experience.

Looking for a replacement

So I’m looking for a new phone unless I find some other solution. My current plan is to wait until the end of the year, gather some more information and buy a new phone after Christmas.

These are the requirements I have, from most important to least important:

  1. Longevity and Security. By that I mean software support for at least 4-5 years.
  2. No bloat. A clean and usable OS, no preinstalled bloatware. Never going back to Samsung.
  3. Smooth experience. I love tinkering with Linux on my PC, but my phone has to just work. I want push notifications, easy way to install any apps without jumping over extra hoops.
  4. Privacy. I know that it’s very difficult to achieve on the mobile market nowadays, but I would like to avoid Big Tech companies that harvest my data and have as much Open Source as possible instead.
  5. Price. I’m not going to pay $1000 for a phone.
  6. Battery life. Just want my phone to last longer when I’m travelling and not having to carry a powerbank with me all the time.
  7. Decent camera. Shooting beautiful photos would be a really nice addition.

I already considered some phones but they all fall through some of the categories:

  • Samsung: No. Doesn’t meet any of the requirements, maybe apart from camera and battery (?).
  • Any other 9-to-5 Android phone: already first two points aren’t fulfilled.
  • Shiftphone: suggested by a friend, looks ok, but I don’t know anything about them and cannot be sure that they will be bankrupt next year, so I’ll lose any kind of software support.
  • Google Pixel: point 1, 2 and 3 are fulfilled. Privacy, price and battery life are not :(
  • Pinephone: Linux phone, yeah! If it would work properly…
  • No phone at all: life-time software support guaranteed, very cheap, and the OS is exceptionally clean, private and has unlimited battery life. However, the user experience is kinda lacking :(
  • The evil: I even looked at the brand I thought I wouldn’t even consider: Apple. The same as with Google Pixel, 1-3 are fulfilled, but the privacy and especially the price… I don’t know whether I can justify it.

That’s why I would ask you for suggestions (if anyone is reading this at all): what phone would you recommend? Looking forward for emails and messages on Mastodon!