If you had asked me a couple weeks ago, I would have said Unihertz. I loved my tiny little Jelly Star.
Unfortunately, the backlight for the screen died. It is still technically under warranty, but the options they gave me were 1) We’ll ship you the part, and you can pay a local shop to put it in. 2) Pay to mail us the phone, and we’ll fix it and get it back to you in the next month or two. or 3) Buy a replacement phone at a discount.
It irks me that the only option that won’t cost me more money is having them ship me the part and trying to replace it myself.
I still like the little phone, but there is no way in hell I am giving that company any more of my money.
Sorry for the rant. To actually answer the question: I like my Google Phone. I don’t love Google per se, but the phone itself works pretty well.
Whichever ones allow bootloader unlocking and make it not a PITA to unlocked.
For a while that was Motorola, but I’ve read recently less models are allowed to be unlocked. OnePlus is also pretty good about unlocking the bootloader.
Just checked their website, all 2024 models are unlockable.
I hate them all, but I hate some less like Motorola.
This feels like the correct answer.
Motorola and a couple others feel like at least they haven’t jumped on the “let’s charge them whatever the hell we can get away with” train. They’re still relatively inexpensive and are essentially just as capable and nice as the Samsungs and the Apples of the world. Hell, I get far more comments on my Motorola Edge 2023 with it’s textured faux leather back than others get with the latest Sammy or Apple identical square.
It feels like these smaller producers are able to take a few more risks in design.
Don’t you only get the years of security updates with that phone?
Sadly yes. That’s the drawback. But its balanced by the fact that its pretty easy to find good custom ROMs after it ends its software lifespan
Right now I really like my OnePlus 9, but if it has easy unlocking and LineageOS support my next phone will definitely be the HMD Skyline
I know the it’s pretty repairable but I think the bootloader is locked.
Yeah but hopefully they’ll make it easy to unlock like oneplus and motorola do. If they don’t though then yeah that cancels out any other nice things about it
HTC 7: front facing speakers, microsd slot up to 2TB, 469 ppi , full brushed aluminum casing, smoooth OS, best phone i ever had, especially at the time, blew everything else out of rhe water.
still can’t believe big companies aren’t making phones with front facing speakers.
Most new phones have at one front facing speaker. Does it really make a lot of difference with one more?
Sony Xperia still have front facing speakers.
I really like that Sony didn’t abandoned good features just to follow the hype. Some of those features are a headphone jack, an SD card and a small screen (big screens also available in the 1 series).
The xperia is more expensive then what I would usually spend on a phone, but it is probably the only phone that still has all those things you mentioned, which are nearly all dealbreakers for me. (Asus zenfone why did you have to become big :( )
Have a look at the Xperia 10 Series (for example the Xperia 10 VI), they have all those features for what I find is a reasonable price.
Apple actually makes good hardware, believe it or not. The only real shortcomings of the iPhone are the software and the reparability. Say, hypothetically, you could load a custom ROM on an iPhone. It would be my favourite in that case.
We don’t live in a good world, though, so it has to go to Google. It will continue to be Google until Apple fixes their business. I dislike the buttons being on one side, I dislike the gap between display and the border, and I dislike the cameras being covered when I try to get a grip on the back–but alternative OSes exist. The software is everything. I have far more utility here than on the more expensive iPhone.
Though, I have to say that I might genuinely consider an Xperia if they had alternative OSes. Good cameras, headphone jack, nice build… it’s a shame I can’t put CalyxOS on one.
Now that I think about it, every phone I’ve owned has had significant issues: lousy camera (HTC), overheating (LG), poor battery life (Samsung, Google, HTC), steadily degrading performance (Samsung), boot looping (LG), weird colour handling on photos (HTC, Google), etc. So I guess they’re all bad?
I wouldn’t say “favourite”. I’ve bought two Pixels because I like the photos they produce.
My current phone (P8P) has the fewest issues so far. It’s only a year old, so I’m sure they’ll appear.
Google Pixel, not because the company is in my good standing or anything, just good hardware.
And if you buy unlocked you can just flash unless you want some of the first party pixel exclusives (which I use along with gpay)
Samsung. Before I get dunked on let me explain. The Galaxy XCover 6 Pro is an industrial phone so it lacks a bunch of the standard bloat that comes with consumer grade equipment. It comes with 128GB onboard memory, 6GB RAM, SIM card slot, SD card slot, headphone jack, and even a removable battery! It definitely meets my need to carry around almost a TB of music and videos without needing to resort to streaming services.
the xcover is a great phone. not the fastest or with the best camera, but the other features make it fantastic. it’s also pseudo-ruggedized, I carry it without a case and it’s held up great to a few typical drops and such
pro tip: you can host your own music streaming service! Navidrome is one of the bests ones, in cause you didnt know.
Thanks for the tip! Gonna have to try it out one day. My problem is I have to go work in places with very spotty service without WiFi so it helps to just have everything on board.
I see. I do too. Some apps (Tempo, Dsub, Ultrasonic, ecc) let you download songs/albums locally from your server. I have a 300gb music library; but my devices have only 256gb, so I just rotate the albums I have sometimes.
Hell yes brother! Same. It’s always nice when I’m on the bus or an airplane and I can just break out wired headphones. No worries about charging them, they just work!
I ordered a Fairphone 4 and had it shipped over to the US before they officially supported US carriers and got their reseller state side to fix some minor issues.
And its also cute I get to play the “Organic” card for a piece a tech. The device itself is good enough and with the repairability focus I can take my battery out as a party trick. (I have seriously done this, it works best for Iphone people)
How is camera on that? I remember earlier Fairphones were pretty bad in this regard, which was a deal breaker for me.
If the camera is that important, then look for a phone where the camera is the primary feature. Samsung has some nice ones these days, Fairphones offerings are generally average across the industry, many claim they are over priced, but that is due to their picky component/vendor selection (See their attempts at ethicaly sourced parts).
It’s not that it’s that important, but what I saw from Fairphone 1 or 2 (I don’t know which model exactly, maybe even 3) was really underwhelming. Not that my current phone makes epic photos, otoh it cost me about third of a Fairphone. Their mission is great and that’s why I’d consider phone from them. I wouldn’t mind slower CPU or less storage for my needs, but not improving camera from my current phone doesn’t make sense for me to switch.
For me it’s Motorola because they are one of the free companies still iterating and throwing different weird designs at the wall to see what sticks.
Hopefully they’ll throw one at the wall with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard lol. Whoever does that again (that’s not a niche device full of other issues) will get my money immediately.
Same. The Motorola Droid 4 is my all time favorite phone, not viable as a modern daily driver, but damn do I miss being able to pop the keyboard out for longer messages, compose mostly coherent messages without looking, or just reclaim screen real estate.
Yes, to all of that. Also, I remember using my HTC TouchPro2 as a pocket SSH terminal to log in and check/fix random issues from anywhere. Sad that slide out keyboards on phones were a casualty of the thinness wars.
can they do it with butterfly keys to keep it silly thin? or would they just rattle in your pocket?
Agreed.
$300 for the g84, I’m quite happy. Dual sim Call recording Stereo speakers Headphone socket Oled display Sd card Fast charge 5Ah battery Thin and light. 5g
Only downside is mediocre camera. Ok if you don’t need to zoom in.
can they do it with butterfly keys to keep it silly thin? or would they just rattle in your pocket?
I used to be a Samsung fan, but they started coming 75% full of bloatware, so I tried the first Pixel when it came out. I’ve bought nothing but Pixels since then.
they must have changed a lot since i had one… didn’t have a gallery app, forced me to use the cloud storage, no secure folder, and it smashed to smithereens the first time i dropped it on a sidewalk. it was completely trashed. i am clumsy and drop phones often, and never had that experience before or since
Motorola without a doubt. One of the few companies that still believe that a high end phone doesn’t need to cost 2000 dollars.
I’m in camp moto as well. The other lovely thing is gestures. Shake your phone to put on the torch, turn it around and back twice to activate the camera.
The shake for the flashlight option my Motorola phone had was by far the best thing every. I can’t believe other manufacturers haven’t added that as an option.
Love my G31 as a daily driver and Music player. Does all it needs to, and for a very reasonable price. Also, has a headphone jack and an SD card slot :)
Gotte be Fairphone. I bought the FP5 when it was out pretty new from Murena. It came with a de-googled android rom called /e/ preinstalled. Couldn’t be happier. I love the way you can just open the back and exchange any part with a simple phillips head screwdriver as well as exchangeable batteries. It’s still splash resistant tho. I love knowing neither google nor apple are tracking me and supporting open source software monetarily. It works a bit different from stock android but its nice to use. I also like how they have long software support and care about where their parts are sourced. For their performance they might be a bit pricy but it aligns with my ideals so I support it.
Does /e/ play well with bank apps?
It works well enough with my banking app at least. /e/ supports a locked bootloader but I don’t know if all banking apps play well with a non-stock android rom.
Fairphone, as their hardware is comparable to other phones, while still supporting many custom ROMs. And they’re very repairable.
