maybe my next phone will be a Motorola.
My last few phones have been Motorolas and I’ve been very very happy with them.
My only issue was that back then, I wasn’t really paying attention to alternative OSs like Graphene, Lineage or e/os and was therefore not really too concerned with ROM support/chip set. When I switched over to e/os, two of my Motorola’s (including the one I WANT to use with it) has no ROM support because it’s running a Mediatek chipset. So I’m using my second to last one while my nice new one collects dust.
Moving forward I’ll be paying more attention to Qualcomm vs Mediatek.
yeah i might focus on Android phones that have Good ROM/ support
i think their graphene OS powered phone will have bootloader unlocking.i hope Google does not take away Sideloading. (but i think graphene returns it)
Me too. I’ve always bought Google Pixels but I don’t want to give Google my money anymore.
So I’ll probably buy a Motorola if this deal gets through.
Me too. I’ve always bought Google Pixels but I don’t want to give Google my money anymore.
what about used?
What phone do you use now?
deleted by creator
I’m on a Google Pixel 9A.
But at least I didn’t pay for it, Google paid me, thanks to a clever mix of a big 9A launch discount, a trade-in discount and the fact that the older Pixel I traded in had already been partially refunded because of the infamous battery problems.
i bought a mororolla 3 years ago and it still lasts 2 days on a charge. id say go for it.
i gotta see first if Motorola/Lenovo will actually ship graphene OS and other factors.
they dont sound like bad phones and even better with this collab
Let’s see if it gets released before GrapheneOS and unlockable bootloader get outlawed
OEM, they can lock the bootloader. So at least there’s that
That’s the point, right? Google is trying to lock down Android even more, and third party vendors can see the increasing risk. If they fork now, they can maybe undercut the increasing monopoly efforts.
I am sure they are also seeing a growing demand for more privacy, the only reason own a pixel is because of GrapheneOS. If I could buy a phone with the OS pre installed I would, don’t know if they are going to do that. Also, by patterning with GrapheneOS they don’t has the development cost and they can trade on Graphenes name
deleted by creator
Well, fuck. I really hoped they would pick FairPhone. Motorola is… Okay. I guess they made the Nexus 5 ; which was one of the best phones ever.
I hope they make a SMALL one, I am so tired of this GIGANTIC pixel 9.
Fairphone isn’t available everywhere while Motorola is. It’s pretty easy to understand why they chose them.
That’s not the reason, the real reason is Fairphone doesn’t take security seriously. The GrapheneOS devs have called them out numerous times on that.
Also a good reason but you can’t get Fairphones in North America which is a huge market.
But if they partnered with GrapheneOS, there could have been a concerted effort to remedy that.
Depends on if Fairphone wants to take security ‘seriously’ by Graphene OS opinion.
I don’t know the details of these specific folks, but sometimes a security team can be wholly unreasonable and advocate for breaking useful capabilities. E.g. there are some security folks that would say the entire possibility of unlocked bootloader is an unforgiveable security no-no. They can even argue with each other, I know a security team that says password managers are a no-no and humans should remember every credential that they would have otherwise put in a password manager, while most security folks would agree a password manager is totally worth it for using randomized passwords.
So I tend to reserve judgement on disagreements between a ‘security authority’ until I hear nuance of specifics on both sides. I could easily believe GrapheneOS wants some things that are fundamentally at odds with what Fairphone wants rather than just Fairphone being sloppy about it or something.
An unlocked bootloader that can’t be relocked IS a major no no since in that case it’s impossible to verify the integrity of the operating system and prevent malware from loading during boot up.
Who haven’t the gosdevs called out? Not even OpenBSD are as callous and their work is rock solid.
Motorola gets a little bit of love from me because they were (maybe still are?) the only ones who allowed me to shout “COMRADE MOTO!” to wake my phone up
I will not say “Hey Google” in a million years. I refuse.
SOVIET ANTHEM PLAYS IN THE BACKGROUND
That’s definitely worth a fair few points. Always rubbed me the wrong way that you couldn’t change it to whatever you wanted.
I think LG made the Nexus 5, though.
Actually LG made the Nexus 5, Moto did the Nexus 6, developed while Google owned Motorola and released a few weeks after Lenovo bought them.
Depending on your definition of ‘small’, your only hope might be if they did Razr and you used it folded up. That’s credibly small, though I don’t know if Graphene would be game for bothering to do that sort of multiple display work.
That’s nice, but how much will those phones cost? Will GrapheneOS be an option on the low end devices or will they only support “some” devices, which happen cost as much as a Pixel anyway?
Android seems intent on creating a huge market for this. Chef’s kiss!
I actually bought a new Motorola phone 2 months ago precisely because i wanted a phone with an unlockable bootloader, and motorola delivered that.
Vote with your wallet.
Just wanted to echo the vote with your wallet sentiment. It’s the only power we have!
I once bought a Motorola one phone because it would have quick and lengthy updates. Motorola certainly didn’t provide that.
Other than that it was a decent phone.I have used Motorola for the last 5 years or so. They had superior battery life compared to the others and were inexpensive. I bought my last one for like 40 bucks on clearance. I won’t spend more than 100 bucks plus tax on a phone anymore. I use minimal apps, don’t take lots of pictures with it, mostly text and make phone calls on it. I don’t keep social media apps on it nor restaurant apps. I mostly use the Maps, the Notes, and the browser applications. I don’t like the android/google calendar interface but will use reminders/tasks. I also use book/reading/podcast apps (Librivox, Podbean, Kindle, and another one…). I had overly invested in Kindle years ago unfortunately. I don’t really watch video on the phone as it is too small, but have YT music on it. I could use advice for alternatives that are better.
While the Motorola/GrapheneOS news is interesting, it’s a shame that GrapheneOS’s lack of root access continues to be a significant limitation. For users who prioritize data ownership and the ability to create full, local backups (Swift Backup being a prime example), it’s simply not a viable option. Security is important, but so is control over your own data.
My biggest concern is the life cycle of the device. I almost went with Motorola for my last phone, but saw that you were lucky to get 3 years of OS updates. Is that likely to be better on GrapheneOS? If so, that is a huge win imo. If not, it still isn’t ideal because I don’t want to have to buy a new phone every 2 years…
GrapheneOS was claiming 5-year support IIRC. Apple level support is infeasible. Not sure how affordable longer firmware support from Qualcomm is.
Thats the trick, when a company supports romming, you can extend the support for however long you want!
But gos dropped support for pre-6 Pixels so not quite.
Never had graphene, but been using Lineage since it was called CyanogenMod on my Galaxy Nexus
Why do you think they are $300-500? I don’t care about “only” 3 years of updates if i don’t have to spend $1300 on a friggin cellphone.
I mean, I sort of get what you are saying but it also feels a little like Grimes’s boots thing from Terry Pratchet. Like, I can spend $200- $300 and get a phone that will stop getting security updates in 2-3 years… Or I can spend $700-$1000 to get a phone that comes with 7-10 years of security updates. Money per year, you are the same or better off if you can afford the up-front cost of the more expensive product, and we are generating a lot less techno-garbage clogging up the planet.
Generally, I hate the hard limit of use of these things. Coming from desktop computers, if you spend more money the machine is faster, but if you don’t need the speed you can use the cheap machine just as long (or longer if you really don’t need performance). All phones feel like they are just a subscription model.
Upvoted for Sam Vimes reference!
Reading the original press release might be a good Start
Their Thinkphones pretty much always had good update policy
Almost like you cant really sell a 100€ device and expect it to be optimised like a mid range
but saw that you were lucky to get 3 years of OS updates.
fucking great, less enshittification when they stop shoving the updates down your throat.
Yea, except you aren’t getting security updates either… Basically anything connected to the internet should be getting security updates…
I think most people here don’t really understand what’s going on here. Graphene OS is an Android mod with some extra security features designed to run on a hardened hardware. The main goal of Graphene OS is to protect users from some very specific attacks like some devices police uses to unlock phones or some targeted hacks by state actors. Unless you’re worried you may be targeted by such an attack and have some date you need to protect from them you don’t really need Graphene OS. You can run any of the other deGoogles Android mods on any hardware that supports it. You can already buy phones with pre-installed /e/ of iode ROMs. Many other phones support Lineage OS. Also, let’s keep in mind that GrapheneOS only supports Pixel because they don’t want to allow people to run their OS on hardware they don’t think is secure enough. It’s their choice not to support other phones.
Also, Google still controls AOSP so this does not solve any of the bigger Android issues. Motorola forking AOSP and providing the resourced needed to keep the development going would be amazing news. This is just one phone maker promising to fulfill the security requirements of Graphene OS. It’s basically like Dell offering Ubuntu laptops. Good news but it will not have a big impact on the ecosystem.
It’s not just degoogling is the reason for using grapheneos. There are many other user friendly controls. For instance, you block apps from network use, so your click farming game doesn’t track everything about you.
Nice try officer.
This is nonsense. Everyone needs the most secure phone possible, especially considering it’s the only device some people will ever own. None of the other de-Googled offerings come close to the security features that Graphene offers, some of which are custom built solutions. They go above and beyond what the typical ROM does, which is why it even supports a lot of banking apps that would normally be blocked.
There’s a good reason people talk about GrapheneOS a lot lately, and not any of the many alternative Android ROMs that exist.
Also, let’s keep in mind that GrapheneOS only supports Pixel because they don’t want to allow people to run their OS on hardware they don’t think is secure enough
Obviously. That’s the point: Graphene isn’t just any de-Googled ROM, it’s specifically a product designed for security-conscious users. If someone doesn’t care about security and just wants to dick around on an old Android device, they can use one of the many toy ROMs out there (like iodé)
The main goal of Graphene OS is to protect users from some very specific attacks like some devices police uses to unlock phones or some targeted hacks by state actors.
That’s simply not true. It does do those things, but that’s not “the main goal”. Not sure where you got that from?
Reproducible builds and lack of telemetry, plus hardening against compromise (by any actors) is my personal use case. I only run free/libre infrastructure privately, and hope to move on to open/libre hardware in future.
If you live in the united states, then you DO need protection against police and state attacks.
W Moto ❤️🩹
I remember my original Moto G. It was a good phone for the time. I will follow Graphene wherever they go until a Linux phone is ready.
Hello Moto!
SailfishOS runs in Jolla phones (linux) and PostmarketOS is doing strides.
Unfortunately, SailfishOS is not FOSS, and FOSS must be the basis of all trust, or else you have no idea to tell what kind of software (spyware) the vendor is operating on your phone. At least Jolla is starting to open-source some traditionally proprietary components.
I looked at their latest phone on their website. The specs look better than some of the other Linux manufacturers. They finally ditched the 720p display that was holding back the Pine, Jolla, and similar Linux devices for an FHD panel. I appreciate that they are differentiating on user-benefitting hardware features like swappable batteries, SD cards, and headphone jacks seems like a smart strategy as these are things mainstream manufacturers largely refuse to implement but are popular among a good chunk of users. Sure, there will be a mainstream phone with a brighter screen, faster processor, better “features”, but it looks like the hardware is finally on par with the rest of the market. I’m really happy to see this!
a future smartphone to have GrapheneOS pre-installed
I’ll not trust Lenovo (Motorola is Lenovo) preinstalling stuff on my phone. They’ve already ship Windows laptop with literally malware and backdoors (even in UEFI, so persistent across format) preinstalled.
I will rather install it myself.
Fully agree on that. Always better to start fully fresh, even without such problems.
That said, it’s still important that it will ship pre-installed. That way app-developers who block GrapheneOS cannot excuse their actions anymore by saying that it was your decision to use another OS, and therefore not their problem.
Good point you got there.
This is crazy big news.
All my phones have been Motorola, the first one was the Moto X - OG !
Very well built and great batteries. Quality phones with close to stock UI for a snappy experience. Love the Moto Actions as well.
Only negatives were updates and cameras. Both are much better these days.
Especially now with an upcoming OS alternative!
I’ll second this, me and the wife keep breaking or losing phones and have gone for cheap motorolas as replacements. Doesn’t have much bloatware, and can be easily purged.
EDIT : If you hate the amount of bloatware, it does have, compare it to the samsung galaxy amounts of bloat.
Moto X4 was an amazing phone, I hope they bring back smaller phones, I don’t want to use a tablet.
I also had the Moto X and loved it. The wood back was neat. After then I kept getting bigger phones, from LG and Samsung, but nowadays I kind of miss smaller phones. I was also sold on the better cameras of these other brands. Depending what they release I might make my way back to Motorola. I’m pretty ingrained in Samsung at the moment.
Guess I know which brand my next smartphone upgrade will be.
If they did some nice 7" tablets too, that would be perfect.
Lenovo/Moto is weird about that… The android phones and android tablets have next to nothing to do with each other.
I do have a couple of their tablets and like them well enough, but you might as well consider them an entirely different vendor versus the Moto phone part of the business.
Well that’s a shame.
I’ve been looking around for a replacement to my aged Samsung A6 (which has been given an extended life by replacing the factory ROM with something with less bloatware, but is still pretty limited in terms of memory) which is not a Surveillance Outpost for just who knows how many nations and just about any companies willing to pay the 3 cents of whatever for the data, and all the Linux and degoogled Android makers only have 10"+ ones, which are too big for my use case which carry a tablet on a coat or trousers back pocket when I’m going to be sitting down somewhere and waiting for something so that I can read books and maybe browse the internet on their free WiFi.
Personally I would LOOOVE a small Linux tablet, but I’m OK with some kind of privacy respecting Android which isn’t riddled with backdoors mandated by governments which have Information Courts issuing Secret Bulk Information Collecting Orders, like the US and the UK.
