this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2025
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Privacy

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Whats the most affordable smartphone that can run a privacy-focused mobile OS? (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) by agio@sh.itjust.works to c/privacy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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Important note: im not from the US so any Google devices are out of the picture given they keep threatening/putting on/off tariffs and some countries are bound to retaliate (which is fair), yes i know there are used ones being sold for cheaper but its still a no from me

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[–] glitching@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 days ago

a few points to consider for the usual "get a refurb pixel" crowd:

  • a "refurbished pixel" is often a channel for the manufacturer to sell old stock and returned merchandise. so, yeah, you are giving money to google
  • an "independent refurbish thing" is such a brain-strain concept. just visualize them getting the phones (where? how?) and analysing the issue (really?) and fixing it (lol) and thoroughly testing it (double lol) and (hopefully) cleaning the filthy thing and reassembling it in a way that looks good and maintains some water resistance and... give up? yeah, it's that likely that's a thing
  • the falsely stated fact that the only way to be safe is to use pixel + graphene is a pet peeve of mine and I use every opportunity to shit on the concept's head. you're perfectly safe using lineageOS or one of its many derivatives and up your security and safety dramatically
  • you're buying an used, easily breakable/stealable/losable thing, that was spat on, got sweated on, rubbed all over, taken and used in the shitter and dogknows what else. bear that in mind when they ask for a "reasonable" $200 or whatever

my view is - yeah, get an used phone, unlock bootloader, flash lineageOS. but do it for $50, and not a fucking multiple of that.

e.g. here's one of my sub-$50 acquisitons: Poco F1 - SDM845, 8 GB RAM, 120 GB storage, excellent LineageOS support as well as postmarketOS, mobian, Ubuntu Touch. on top of that, plastic back that's easily removable and the battery swap takes like two minutes.

so, the usual answer to your question was to a get an Xiaomi/Mi/Redmi/Poco Snapdragon phone, unlock it, and flash whatever LineageOS variant you like - you get very competent hardware, very good battery, and they are widely available. plus, they ship with a dogawful skin (MIUI/HyperSomething) that's bloated and shitty and makes the very competent hardware sluggish - a lot of people sell them because they're dissatisfied.

however, they've progressively made unlock process as hostile as possible - waiting periods, windows-only unlock tools, artificial limits on number of phones you can unlock, etc. also, they have been dicks about releasing source code (apparently, the one guy who did that got fired or sumsuch) and this limits the alt ROMs you can get.

so, my advice - go to LineageOS website, and filter for "LineageOS Version" which is 22.2. as of now. that will show you all the devices that are officially supported and based on that you can pick a model that is available for cheap in your region.

happy hunting and let us know what you ended up with.