Not sure if this is even worthy of a post, but I'm in the market for a new phone now and I only see Huawei, Google (specifically the Pixel, because you can't avoid Android really) and Apple on my boycott list. No gimmicky "privacy" phones (Librem etc), I need something fairly normie.
Recommend apps too if you have any suggestions, I use Microsoft everything currently.
Buying used is a great option. Lots of idiots sell their perfectly fine phones so they can have the latest gadget.
Repairing is also a valid option. Do a bit of googling to see if your device can be fixed. Replacing the screen or the digitizer is possible. Replacing battery is also possible. Chances are it can be repaired, unless you ran over it or something.
Buying used is definitely a good idea.
It white light of deathed, hard bricked. I doubt it'll come back to life. I'm trying to wipe it now but it's staying dead so far. Slightly concerning that it'll have all my data when I return it.
if you're that worried then fuck returning it, just smash it with a sledge.
I'd be out a lot of money if I did that.
Depending on what your goal is there's some choices. If you want to avoid something made in China, there's not much. Samsung generally doesn't as well as the limited selecton of Asus phones. Otherwise, I've generally liked my Motorola and Nokia phones. Yes, Nokia is still around and I was super happy with my Nokia 7.1 until I broke the screen, a particular bargain for $250 at the time. I currently have a Motorola One Action (also $250) and I liked the Nokia better, but it's still a fine phone.
So in short, if having a top-of-the-line phone is super important to you, I'd get a Samsung Galaxy S20. If you're like me and want something cheap and decent but are not a power user then I'd check out the Nokia 7.2.
All of this is Android, but I just disable as much Google as I can. If I ever get to the point I feel I really need to hide then having any cell phone is a bad idea.
Yeah, I was hoping that would take off. I lived just a few miles from that factory at the time. It might have but they sold the phones division off to China.
I've had more Motorola phones than anything and pre-Lenovo I'd recommend their smartphones backwards and forwards. The Lenovo one I have now is not a bad phone at it's price point, but it's not like they used to be.
what do you mean? I would much rather give my data to Chinese than to google or apple
I mean if trying to avoid Chinese manufacture. Phones are almost totally made in China.
Avoiding Apple and Google while meeting OP's requirements is pretty much totally impossible. Perhaps Lineage OS would be the closest you can get, and it's still Android but the open source parts.
Avoiding China is pointless anyway, I'll probably install the Epic app onto it to party with my friends, and as everyone here will remind me, they're owned by Tencent so I'll be compromised by the CCP regardless.
I didn't know Nokia were still around, honestly. Last time I heard, they werè making those terrible Windows Phones. I remember when I had one. Awful.
I was thinking about a Galaxy but I had really bad experiences owning Samsung phones so far.
Get the cheapest, dumbest piece of shit phone you can, so it doesn't track you as much. If you need GPS, buy a GPS without an internet connection. If you need cellular internet, buy a standalone mobile hotspot. If you need something like a smart phone, get a tablet without a cellular module.
I'm too much of a "power user" to do that, to be honest.
Depending on where you live, the features you want and the budget you have, Samsung, OnePlus and Motorola are all good brands. Only Motorola seems the most woke out these three with general pride support, but none of these three support Fuck Whitey.
Had very bad experiences with Samsungs so far. Had a few Motorolas, with hit and miss results. One is still with me from 5-6 years ago, one bricked after an Android update and one got stolen by a woman sitting behind me on a train. (No, really...I'm not kidding.) Never had a OnePlus so far.
They're nearly always lacking in basic features or app compatibility. Your phone will track you anyway so why compromise for a false sense of security?
Had two Samsungs, both bricked in under a year.
Never had a OnePlus but that sounds annoying as fuck.
I bet TikTok is whitelisted though. Alongside all the other spy apps.
This is BS. Google is even worse at fixing bugs than Samsung. Their "fixes" usually add more bugs than they fix, and often remove features too. Google is a cancer upon humanity.
This is a non-sequitur. Samsung adds features that aren't always in AOSP - this doesn't mean they are bugs. It means Google is shit at writing OSs.
See above.
Drivel. If Samsung were making such major changes as you claim, it would at the least have different bugs, and more likely, since they aren't as incompetent as Google's Android devs, fewer bugs.
I see I'm doing the equivalent of trying to explain algebra to a sack of potatoes.
I'm a professional software engineer, and you are an idiot.
I have a Motorola phone, the good thing about them is that they come with almost stock Android, very very little bloatware, they are usually not very expensive as well.
Seems like nearly everyone recommends the Motorola. Time to see what's the most expensive one with a headphone port still included.
Samsung, and LG are fine. Plus, they are Korean brands that, last I checked, don't use slave labor to make them, unlike Apple, Huawei (or anything Chinese phone for that matter), or the Pixel. I've heard good things about the Sony Xperia too, but you might wanna avoid them because...ya know...Sony.
I loved the Moto G and bought two of them before upgrading to my current phone (not a Moto G this time).
Motorola's owned by Lenovo now, so no idea how much CCP fuckery is about.
If you have a legacy line, get a used Casio Boulder. A phone that's actually a phone.
Phones are woke now?
Give how they now have built in tracking API's, because COVID, yeah. And they're listening. I can't tell you the number of times we've noticed in the last two years where we're say standing in front of the Burts Bees display at a Target, make a comment, then the very next ad we see when we get home on Youtube is for burts bees products. Yet something that we never search for or otherwise even purchase.
Just the other day we were talking about something over lunch out at a restaurant and get home and guess what the ads we saw were. Again never searched it or anything like that or even talked about it around the house before.
Consider getting a nu-BlackBerry, like a Key2. They run Android now, and they should be relatively cheap, seeing as they're not popular. Surely that's normie enough.
https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/
What did I say about these gimmicks?
I should have probably read past your title lol
I'm sure its full of spyware but I've come to like the LG phones.
Xiaomi.
Chinese people hates sjws.
As a picky phone user myself (Up until fairly recently I was one of those unicorn BBOS Blackberry Z10 users), here is what I would recommend:
Peruse the LineageOS current hardware list, and pick something introduced about 2 years ago that you can get fairly cheaply used via e-Bay. I personally went with a One Plus 6T. Make sure it can work on your cell service. Verizon is the oddball here, as they still use GSM, and not every phone does.
Next, add your device to your current cell plan via "bring your own device" option. Be prepared to ask for a new SIM card; I had to ask Verizon to send me a new SIM card, as the 6T would not receive SMS messages with my old SIM card.
Going this route tends to avoid all the bloatware that cell vendors put on their branded phones. It also gives you the option of flashing your handset to LineageOS, should you want to try that out (not for novices, high potential of bricking your device.) You can probably continue to get security updates from Google (I got one from One Plus in November last year)