I don’t care which OEM as long as the phone gets an “RMS blessed” certificate.
1 Like
6.1” to 6.3” - or let’s say a size like the standard iPhone and Samsung S phones - would be the best I hope for. It seems that all the Chinese brands and budget phones start at a minimum of 6.7” nowadays. It’s probably cheaper to make giant phones, for some reason. So there’s a good chance that the GrapheneOS phone will be a big clunky phablet as well.
1 Like
Blasphemy! Take that back
/s
Let’s wait and see people. Some speculation is healthy and exiting but let’s not go overboard. Like I said.. this is game changing news.
2 Likes
Nope Brands like vivo like Oppo and Oneplus and Xiaomi have normal sized phones. (Except the budget - midrange yes)
For vivo the most notables are
Vivo S30 Pro Mini/X200 FE, X200 Pro Mini, Vivo X300
Xiaomi Non-pro or Pro and standard (for the 17 the second one because Xiaomi and their infinite wisdom copied Apple naming on the 17)
OnePlus 13T/s
Oppo Find X8s
1 Like
Yes but they are friendly to allow OEM unlocking, has SD card support though the chips in the phone is lacking behind.
I dunno about that. Sure you can’t be held over a barrel in terms of hardware support but you still have an awful lot of Gandroid dependencies to deal with should screwgle decide they want to turn the ‘screw’ some more.
Also do we have any confidence that there will even be a Pixel Tablet 2?
Nope. They were cancelled due to poor sales of the original Pixel Tablet.
I saw a lot of positive reception online to the Vivo X300 Pro since its camera is arguably one of the best in the market with a flagship SOC as well. It reminds me of what an ideal Google Pixel phone would be (minus the bloated OS and bootloader-unlockability features),
It’s disappointing to see that Chinese phones are getting more locked down. They used to be incredibly friendly to custom ROMs and tend to innovate more with hardware specs. The trade-off appears to be a bloated OS for price-effectiveness and good hardware
Do we know if support for Pixel will continue for the same time as Google’s support?
The developers confirmed that they will support current Pixel devices until EOL, including the Pixel 10. No confirmation on the Pixel 11 yet.
2 Likes
FYI even though devs have confirmed the Pixel 10 still does like all other pixels bootloader unlockable and can still lock it with avb keys. due to the lack of Android 16 QPR1 stable source code, it is still not supported:
but correct, older pixel devices will be supported till EOL
I know about that! The GOS developers confirmed that they will support Pixel 10 once that update gets pushed, especially until EOL. I’m not saying that it is currently supported but they will do so once that situation gets sorted out
We literally were waiting for 2 months now, nothing happened:
It was supposed to come “in the coming weeks”, it didn’t
But if they still don’t release AOSP updates, it wouldn’t just mean a problem for Pixel 10 support, but for any Android device. Correct me if I’m wrong.
3 Likes
They can technically hold back QPR updates without holding back AOSP or changing its open source nature, by only releasing major updates to AOSP while allowing OEMs and partners access to QPR updates internally. Not saying they are doing this (their statements say they will continue old practices), but it is possible.
My question is: could you run down the requirements GrapheneOS has for hardware on which they will make the OS available.
Frequently Asked Questions | GrapheneOS provides a nice non-exhaustive summary. I know you have already mentioned knowing this, but it may be nice for it to be summarised in written form as well with a little bit of extra context:
- Support for using alternate operating systems including full hardware security functionality
This is requirement #1 for good reason. Fewer and fewer devices across the Android OEM landscape support this nowadays. The best way to find out tends to be through custom operating system projects that have tested and released their OS on those devices for example Install CalyxOS , https://web.archive.org/web/20250117034458/https://divestos.org/pages/devices & Supported devices · Issue #299 · chenxiaolong/avbroot · GitHub . Essentially if you piece it together only Google have consistently supported and documented support for this. Newer Fairphone, Nothing, Motorola and Sony devices seem to generally also have support.
- Complete monthly Android Security Bulletin patches without any regular delays longer than a week for device support code (firmware, drivers and HALs)
Ha…
In all seriousness, I suspect this has improved a lot since 2017-ish when Android had an atrocious reputation for this. From a quick browse it seems:
- Fairphone 6 and some Motorola Razr models may still be on Android 15 and non-current security patch levels (not October 5).
- Sony upgraded the Xperia 1 VII to Android 16 recently and on the September SPL.
- Nothing is on Android 15 and on the September SPL.
So 1/4 on Android 16, and 0/4 on the latest Android SPL. Seems about right.
- At least 5 years of updates from launch for device support code with phones (Pixels now have 7) and 7 years with tablets
- Motorola 3 years of OS upgrades, 4 years of security updates (5/5 depending on model)
- Sony 4 OS upgrades, 6 years of security updates https://www.sony.eu/presscentre/sony-introduces-its-latest-flagship-smartphone-xperia-1-vii
- Nothing 5 OS upgrades, 7 years of security updates (only for Nothing 3 flagship)
- Hardware memory tagging (ARM MTE or equivalent)
I think this was supported in Exynos and Mediatek SoCs around the time Tensor G3 released in the Pixel 8. It should be available as an option for any processor packages using reference Arm cores. Qualcomm use their own custom cores in their Snapdragon SoCs which is partially why MTE support wasn’t accelerated/requested by Google. Until now…
- StrongBox keystore provided by secure element
- Hardware key attestation support for the StrongBox keystore
- Attest key support for hardware key attestation to provide pinning support
- Weaver disk encryption key derivation throttling provided by secure element
- Insider attack resistance for updates to the secure element (Owner user authentication > required before updates are accepted)
I think the main sticking point here is the Weaver feature support for the secure element. This is how Pixel (Titan M) and Samsung (eSE/Knox) enforce throttling/rate-limiting on attempts to guess the encryption PIN for their devices, which is a major reason why GrapheneOS are comfortable recommending people can use 6-digit access PINs for their Pixels.
4 Likes
The new Sony will have the chip in question. Would be amazing if they’re the OEM. Although they are definitely not a “top 10” OEM.
1 Like
They were once, when I was younger. Perhaps its time for a comeback.
1 Like
Back in their ‘art deco’ period they had some very popular models such as the XA2, XZ1c etc and no one could touch them when it came to compact phones. Now that compacts are regarded to be any phone around the 6” screen mark they seem to have lost their edge, but the quality is still there.
A deal with a high end manufacturer such as Sony would be good for GOS as they have always pitched themselves as the OS for elite users and celebrities that have a vested interest in keeping their data secret. As for all the ‘pond dwellers’ such as ourselves, we’ll just have to fight it out on ebay for second user Sony’s in a couple of years time. 
1 Like
I get it. We folks are joyous over the case that it will be a major OEM with stock ROM like Pixel where GrapheneOS is supported. But did you think of this ?
The devil in the house - Play Integrity API is crippling many apps such as WhatsApp a widely used because of network effect. They blocking and even banning account for using GrapheneOS.
WhatsApp "You need the official WhatsApp to log in". - GrapheneOS Discussion Forum - this seems to A/B - some are lucky where it isn’t a problem at all and account works as is.
Major apps using Play Integrity API would be blocker to switch to Graphene if the apps they use don’t work.
3 Likes