I would have liked an affordable midrange device (like Pixel 4a) with the option of graphene os preinstalled. That would unlock it as a device recommendation for my family members: Everything still works, and the device is good enough for all expected workloads. And with a growing user base comes mainstream relevance for graphene os.
Avant-garde nerds hacking their phones with custom roms may clear the path, but the normies can bring the necessary financial volume.
Honestly, I’d replace this fuckass Google device in a heartbeat, but I will never in my life understand why people want flagship phones. I got a b-ware 9a for 300 bucks and even this one is way overkill for what I want in a phone. Why can’t there just be a low-spec one instead of ones that cost more than an entry class laptop?
> even this one is way overkill for what I want in a phone. Why can’t there just be a low-spec one instead
Exactly this.
My solution is: dirt-cheap bargain-basement Chinese phones.
They do the job and you can get a lot for under £150.
My best buy was an Umidigi F2. Stunning device for £125. I have bought dinners that cost more than that.
*But* you’ll never get an OS upgrade, they’re unsupported by all the alternative OSes, and there is the everpresent risk of spyware.
For me, that’s worth it, but I get that it’s not for everyone and so I do not unequivocally recommend them.
9a for 300 bucks
And the battery life of that thing is excellent
yay!
i wish they released mid-range phonesThe upcoming Moto devices won’t ship with GrapheneOS, but they will be fully supported by the project with help from Moto itself.
Doesn’t unlocking the bootloader on a Motorola device void the warranty?
It can’t in a lot of jurisdictions.
It couldn’t, but it does.
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Show up to a repair center with a phone running a custom ROM and try to have the people working there give a single damn about what EU law says about bootloader unlocking. I’m talking from experience, because I had to.
Anyway, I’m not even sure that Motorola could sell a smartphone with Graphene OS as its stock firmware, because Google would probably get pissed off about it.
I would be happy to support any competition to Google.
If they’re expensive but worth it that’s fine. Graphene powered Motorola is the only device I’d ever consider switching back to Android for.
Lenovo is just always killing it. Guess I’m getting one of these next.
Alongside this we need Posh based mobile system or Enlightenment Desktop environment based one
Gonna buy one, gotta support the cause. We need this phone to do well.
Edit: @[email protected] pointed out that Motorola is in fact split into two separate companies. The phone company is effectively Lenovo, so Chinese, and not related to the American surveillance technology branch.
Not sure I’d trust Lenovo/Motorola Mobility either, but that’s a different story.
In June 2026, Motorola bricked its whole line of routers without any explanation, leaving their customers with broken hardware.
The main thing you’re supporting is Motorola, the second biggest provider of surveillance technology in the US after Flock. Deflock lists 5% of the cameras as Motorola, but the share is increasing as backlash against Flock is growing and Flock cameras are replaced with more low key competitors.404media has reported on how Motorola cameras are used by ice.“Gotta support the cause” is one hell of a dangerous sentiment under capitalism.Different company?
Motorola was split into two independent public companies: Motorola Solutions (its legal successor) and Motorola Mobility (spun off), on January 4, 2011
Damn I guess most of us didn’t know that, thank you for sharing.
They’re keeping a low profile on their surveillance technology while successfully marketing themselves as a privacy alternative in consumer tech. Its pretty fascinating to watch. I wouldn’t blame anyone for missing it.
It’s also worth reading up on Aviglon, a subsidiary of Motorola specializing in surveillance technology.
You’re supporting diva devs selling out.
We don’t need GOS to do well. We need a fully open ecosystem for phone operating systems. GOS devs don’t let anyone incorporate their code.
They also refuse to provide basic functionality like inverted navbar buttons. Because they’re diva devs.
…don’t let anyone else incorporate their code.
Is it not open source?
You mean they won’t work to support your device for free, right?
One thing I really dislike about the Mobile ecosystem is how much different each device is to each other.
Imagine owning a laptop and not being able to install linux without the manufacturer permission.
They really messed us up with how they created the phone architecture, so closed and restrictive.
It used to be the same with x86 computers, but over time a standardized interface was developed.
ARM is already getting something similar, but most companies aren’t interested, precisely because they’re perfectly fine with the restrictions.
The ptoblem is that all the phone manufacters don’t release any drivers, neither close or open
Imagine owning a laptop and not being able to install linux without the manufacturer permission.
Fairphone 6 ?
The exception proves the rule.
Capitalism
One thing I really dislike about the Mobile ecosystem is how much different each device is to each other.
I thought you were sarcastic when I first read this part, since way back when phones used to be innovative in both hardware and software. The current market offerings are all carbon copies of eachother with a strong trend towards converging into the exact same lineup.
Multiple cameras, one in front, 2+ in back. A power button and two for volume. Reader apps may hijack it for scroll. Gesture movements. Fingerprint and face id. Less and less conusmer freedom in software choice. Irremovable battery. No removable back plate. A rectangular brick. A near-100% display area. No headphone jack or SD card, with SIM on the way out.
Covers the vast majority of offerings on the market, with a few slight adds/subtracts. Dumbphones are a rounding error.
This definition covers even tablets, and it isn’t even deliverately vague.
Without much experimentation and development on the hardware front, no wonder software’s behaving exactly the same.
There just isn’t enough interest for proper innovation and experimentation.
Oh that’s 100% true.
I was just thinking on the firmware of the thing. And how incompatible are they between models that are almost the same.
And as you say all phones are basically the same, there’s no excuse for how little normalization there is in the software they carry.
Just because they have the same function in the OS doesn’t mean the hardware is the same. That’s where custom ROMs falter, with closed sourced hardware drivers.
The issue isn’t normalisation, it’s inaccessibility to understand the core functionality to drive the hardware.
And we’re not even talking about iphone
There is a reason we are putting up with decades of legacy stuff still from the original x86 architecture in PCs… the compatibility of hardware and the standardisation even if it’s through several extensions build off each other is unmatched.
ARM architecture might be much simpler but you constantly need hardware specific adaptions, which makes support for different mobile devices this mess.
IOW closed source drivers are the problem.
I think you don’t really understand how hard it is to standardise everything. Just because IBM managed it in the 80s doesn’t mean it was easy.
What the hell are you talking about? We have standards almost for everything now. It’s just ARM ecosystem messed up as it were on purpose.
It is on purpose
For me the most interesting piece from the Mastodon thread is the fact that the Motorola partnership was born out of Google making it more difficult for non-OEMs to get access to AOSP source code (emphasis mine):
Google replaced pushing Git tags for certain source code with obtaining source code via Google Drive after making a request through Google Forms. It’s completely ridiculous and they’ve gradually become very slow at handling requests. They’re in clear violation of the GPLv2 now.
[…]
These changes won’t negatively impact GrapheneOS on upcoming Motorola Mobility devices. In fact, it’s a major part of why our partnership exists. It only negatively impacts Pixels and hurts Google more than anyone else. Google wants to make Pixels worse for no apparent reason.
This also means that in the future Motorola devices will get faster security updates on GrapheneOS than Pixels.
This is exactly why I’ve waited to get a Graphene OS phone, Google can’t be trusted.
Please Motorola, please make something like Pixel 4a sized or iPhone SE / 8.
The 4a was the last light one. When I tested the newer Pixels every of the a models was much heavier. I can’t get around it, why would engineers think it’s a good idea to make a successor heavier and not lighter?
Bigger screens for doomscrolling needs bigger batteries. But if you don’t do that… My Pixel 3a used to lady 3-4 days easily when it was new and running GOS.
Because people want better battery life?
Did it improve? Seems not. An e-ink display would improve it.
Yes, devices now can last 24 hours with like 8 hours screen on time
This wasn’t the case before, I remember I would need to top it up when I got home
My experience was that phones lasted two to three days back in the day. Before "smart"phones it would be easily a whole week.
e-ink has terrible refresh rates and can barely handle color. It’s not really a comparable display tech to oled.
e-ink has terrible refresh rates
Fun fact: it seems that it’s not a limitation of the type of the display itself but a limitation from either the controller or the firmware of the display, someone on youtube managed to make an e-ink display to run at 60hHz
https://youtu.be/nHbA2-_qzH4It doesn’t look as good as an LED or OLED screen of course but it’s good enough
I’ve actually seen that video before, and the main limitation is still the pixel transition time. It’s something like 200ms, so any sort of motion will have heavy ghosting. It’s definitely a huge improvement over most controllers though.
If all you do is read/look at static content, e-ink is great, and that’s why it’s used on all the e-readers. I wouldn’t want to be taking a video call on one though.
Tandem oled screens are also starting to become more of a thing, and that improves the usability in direct sun. But I don’t have any problem using my phone outside as it is. I’d rather just have a bigger battery than a worse looking screen for what I do.
Everything has pros and cons. Try OLED in the sun. To me refresh rates and numb coloring are irrelevant to what I need to do on a daily basis. Most of my work on the phone is speech and reading/texting anyways.
I’m actually kind of excited about this, despite it meaning my next phone is going to be more expensive than I want (or can really handle, so I’ll start saving now.)
I figured this would be the case, too, for the exact reason stated in the article, the Moto G devices aren’t secure enough.
BUT why I’m excited is usually Moto’s flagship phones have expandable storage!!! I want nothing more from a phone than a grapheneOS phone with a microSD! I’m still mad at the cell phone market for killing expandable storage. Now if I could just convince them to give me two USB-C ports so I don’t have to wear my charge port to use wired headphones…
I took micro SD for granted! I miss being able to just pop a card in and upgrade.
I had (still works, just retired now) the last Samsung flagship with a micro SD as my phone until 9 months ago. Note 20 Ultra. 8 miss my s pen, still, but Samsung has been charging too much for lazy trash phones for too long now, so I bailed.
Unfortunately once microSD, headphone jack, and removable batteries were gone I moved to iPhone.
My thought was if I lose all the the things I like about Android, why would I not be in the more cohesive ecosystem?
I use Linux for gaming and Mac OS for work. I waited years for Android/chromeOS to catch up, but Google can’t even get a messaging app/video chat app right.
The day memory cards and removable batteries come back I’ll think about leaving.
I still like the options and alternatives I can get from android over apple.
Also, I got a thousand dollar android that stomps the hell out of what you can have from apple for $1600. Hopefully their will be better alternatives by the time I need another new phone.
