And why? Name budget phones also :-)
I like the Google Nexus series 4 or 5. I run a Nexus 5 for work with LienageOS + Fdroid for work. I use a Google Nexus 4 on Ubports for home usage.
I never go over $50 for a phone.
That’s a great recommendation! Out of curiosity, how is the battery life?
I replaced the batteries in 2019 from the original stock. The N5 gets about 16 to 19 hours before hitting 10%. Talking full work usages - bash scripting, browser usages, remote desktop and playing a few rounds of games on PPSSPP and/or ReDream.
The N4 is very good. It’s the phone that’s left at home so it’s usage is just texting and calling but I usually charge it 1x a week.
That’s on par with the Pixel 3a I now use – an impressive performance. Thank you for sharing!
Pixel 3a
If I can find out for $50 or under I may check out the Pixel 3a. It may be a long while, though.
Samsung Galaxy S4 I9505 with LineageOS.
Below 60 and 50 euros, available in AliExpress refurbished.
Easily repairable and the same stores have all the separated parts available also very cheap.
For budget I’d always go with the current Pixel A-series
I am not that happy with my pixel 6 tho. I paid a lot and now like a year and a half after j bought I already look forward to replacing it.
I think my next phone will either be a Fairphone or a Asus ZenFone if they continue their current, amazing trend
pinephone + pmOS
I think a criteria of choice is: can you physically take the battery out? If not then the thing has been engineered to work against you
gsmArena and kimovil.com are very good sources for checking out specifications. Which phone you should choose depends on what is important to you.
The Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro has an excellent 108 megapixel camera and is very cheap for a phone, and also comes in 64GB and 128GB versions. Some less technically experienced people complain that Xiaomi’s phones come with bloatware and are less able to adapt to their MIUI ROM, however if you’re interested in switching ROMs I doubt this would be a problem for you. I don’t have experience using custom ROMs, as I haven’t felt the need.
I’m a fan of Motorola as I’ve become accustomed to their gestures feature. I am so used to being able to turn on my phone’s flashlight by just “chop-chopping” instead of having to use the GUI. Although there is probably an app somewhere that allows you to accomplish something similar without using a Motorola phone. Motorola puts out some very high performing phones for their price. For example the Moto G50 and Moto G60s are available to me for £170-£180 through their site and cheaper elsewhere, both are 5G compatible, have good performance benchmarks (if the listings are accurate), with good storage space and decent cameras. They also offer sub £100 smartphones in their E family, not that I’d usually recommend that, since they will be inferior performance-wise.
Any phone that supports DivestOS, and as a second choice LineageOS.
I will still prefer my SIM on a Huawei Kirin device rather than on a Snapdragon device though, and if needed will route my data and run the custom ROM device from the Huawei phone’s hotspot.
Personally a big fan of the pixel series. Running a P7P unlocked right now. Google doesn’t attempt to hamper the bootloader unlocking process in the least. I pre-ordered this phone and had it rooted on day one. I run stock (other than root) but I’ve played around with some others, like graphene and lineage.
One downside is that TWRP doesn’t support tensor yet, so P6 & P7 aren’t supported, but flashing is still easy without it.
Pixels seem to have a very long community support, I gave my sister an old P2XL with pixel experience on it so she had the latest security patches and she seems to really like it.
I’ve seen complaints about the P7 series overheating. I’ve had mine shutdown twice because of thermals, but this was in the sun while I was running nav on Android Auto. Moving it to the shade and letting it reboot seemed to fix that.
All of the pixels released so far don’t have DP Alt mode which is a real bummer, but I’ve seen rumors that the P8 (October 23?) Will include it, so I remain hopeful.
Tbh I would probably buy a Zenfone 9 and wait for Lineage to come to it. Love the smaller form factor
As a dream: I would really like NothingPhone with lineageOS. I think is one of the best-looking phones out there.
As something more realistic:Probableysomehigh-end Pixel that can last about the resto of my life and LineageOs
:)
I recently purchased a used Pixel 3a for ~$150. It works excellently with GrapheneOS, which I chose because it is touted as the most secure. As to why, I needed a new phone on a budget, and quite a few FOSS projects support Pixels.
Chances are, someone you know has an old, but still 4G capable phone they upgraded from a few years ago and wouldn’t mind selling.
Ubuntu Touch support for the 3a is good as well.
Lineage is the only rom I use, I don’t know that there is any particular reason for this. The first place I’d look for a phone is to OnePlus, I’ve tried a few different brands over the years, and OnePlus has been the best overall experience I’ve had so far.
I would buy I pinephone and run pmOS. Unfortunately they don’t ship to my country.
The poco f3 is a new phone that has pretty good hardware. It’s around $400usd and you can put an official lineage rom on it.
If fair phone will support a locked bootloader and Calyx supports it, then, that’s it.
