~$150 Budget Android Hardware [Suggestions Needed]

Just because it’s split up doesn’t make it less expensive

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We might have to consider that most cheap Android phones would come with little to no official ROM update support from their manufactures. Without custom ROM support, they will be outdated quickly with OS security issues left unpatched.

I don’t know whether Google Play system update could make up for that, though.

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For people with low incomes, oftentimes their priority is spending that money elsewhere. Its not just about the total cost but also the opportunity cost

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That’s what I meant by this

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Ahh, I just remembered DivestOS has a list of ‘golden’ devices, that at least narrows things down a bit for me to look at all their prices lol

Edit: not really actually since it’s mostly expensive devices, or some that are priced very well on the used market but quite old like the Essential PH-1 or OnePlus 6T :sweat_smile:

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Let’s just not make people run phones with unlocked bootloader and spyware, bloated OS’s, such as MIUI. Good software support would be good too.

If I was in a situation where I couldn’t afford a Pixel, I would go with a phone that can run DivestOS with bootloader locked or just a budget Samsung device.

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The point of unlocking the bootloader is to replace MIUI. And the risk of unlocked bootloader is still minor when compared to the benefit

You honestly just don’t get being poor, we want privacy to be available to a lot of people. And making being not poor a requirement is just fucked up. Even a 350$ pixel is more than 2x the monthly average wage in my country

Have you ever actually used a budget samsung device?

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I think that’s what I’ve seen a lot of people say on Matrix/etc when asked this question, but what phone (in a budget price range) is this? I’m not totally sure such a device exists at the moment, everyone just theorizes that it does.

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Pixels and some oneplus, which costs near a pixel :skull:

We should ask @SkewedZeppelin.

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Blockquote Well since Pixels aren’t available in every price range it’s not really an option, unless the suggestion is to just ignore poor people

Although - I would imagine it is more often that poor people find themselves in a marginalized group and to be careful not to compromise security in favor of a perception of inclusivity.

Consider setting minimum security standards, regardless of price.

You do not know who is on the other end of your statements. Poor people deserve privacy and security, but that doesn’t mean a sufficient android device is available on the market today. That is not to say other devices don’t exist in other form factors.

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Yes, and we are talking about security and privacy and not performance. This is not a forum for general phone buying advice.

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You must be joking if you think a phone with who knows how much random background process/tracker and preinstalled tiktok is good for privacy

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And I agree, that’s why we still need a decent stopgap solution. something like “we don’t recommend you getting this if you can afford our recommendation, but if you can’t here’s something that’ll still help a lot”

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This is true, I should clarify that it is an option to (continue to) not recommend a budget phone if no budget phones are found to be suitable. I was just saying it’s not an option to not recommend a budget phone solely “because the Pixel exists” and no other reason, because the Pixel doesn’t exist within the budget phone category.

I don’t believe that our minimum bar should be the Pixel either, but perhaps it will turn out nothing exists above what our minimum bar should be besides the Pixel at the moment, because the current market is so bad. I hope not though.

Ultimately the question of whether a suitable budget phone exists is what I’m looking to answer here :slight_smile:

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Your phone getting instantly compromised if you lose it or someone get access to it and malware being able to easily gain persistence instead of being gone after a reboot is a minor risk? I don’t think so.

Your phone getting corrupted and instead of rolling back to a previous working state, it just stays corrupted is a minor risk too? I don’t think so.

I vote for the Lineaged Motorola

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Evil maids aren’t that much of a risk for day to day people, and malware persists in userspace just fine

A/B partition isn’t really a thing in budget phones, even if it is you can still just reflash lineage if your update got corrupted

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Completely disagree, locked bootloader should be a hard requirement.

The Motorola Moto G32/G42/G52 is also my favorite option discovered so far, but in that case I think we’d either need to re-add CalyxOS (for locked bootloader support, which I think would be preferable to official Lineage in this case), or beg DivestOS to add them to their supported devices (or clarify why they aren’t already, if a point against these devices exists) :innocent:

Edit: actually I’m not sure if they support relocking on Calyx, looking into it…

Edit 2: I think it does support bootloader locking on Calyx, yes.

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