Does anyone have any advice they would give… for someone who just wants a smart enough phone, usable in the US now, that isn’t locked to apple or android? Even any android phone (with a replaceable battery?)… that can run with root? (Keeping my data from being a product). Just looking for freedom. And a good battery life. Even if it is overpriced… and ideally could work on Verizon.
Phone with text and internet. Ideally emulates Android… my VZW 5S cannot be rooted. So if I need to buy a phone before (April?)… What phone would give me some root access and allow a custom OS? (Last I looked sailfish is not an option)
I know how to use Odin and replace an OS, provided the phone bootloader isn’t locked.
Not expecting a perfect solution… but bet i coukd make a few steps in the right direction. Won’t be super private, but will be an improvement.
I welcome any ideas, or referrals to other pages or topics. Thank you.
I’ve been daily using UBPorts on a Nexus 5 without issue for several months.
The community there is robust, the dev channel has frequent OTA/automatic updates, and the OS itself is stable and usable.
Installation is mostly painless once you’re rooted as there’s an installer that does it all https://ubuntu-touch.io/get-ut
you can get an N5 used/refurbished for ~100 USD
I know there’a an anbox implementation (<= probably out of date info) for android emulation, but I’ve not looked at it.
Finding a phone with current hardware with a user replaceable battery is essentially impossible. All hail the Librem 5.
I would love to find a phone to hold me over as my current is really getting ready to croak. My phone is just very fast and going back to something painfully slow or based on android from 4 years ago is just depressing.
I have a Note 4 I can use but Android 5 is painful, and samsung has really made it slow. On top of that I have the AT&T version and the bootloader to this day still hasn’t been cracked.
Hmmm, so was looking at BQ phones now and they are all android and look to be sealed batteries. Do you know if the reason you bought the e4.5s so long ago are still valid with the BQ of today?
I bought two as new from bq.com as UT devices in 2015, each for around 150 euro, the others are 2nd hand ones, also with UT; in August one of them git broken (did not react anymore on touch screen) and bq.com replaced the screen for around 100 euro;
I dont think that they still sell any UT devices; I was part of a beta tester team of BQ M10 UT tablet and this was canceled too from one day to the other
Re OM Fr, the X11 made the GUI slow, but the display was resistive and one could address a single pixel with the stylus. I loved it, still have a bunch of them.
And it was Linux pure w/o any Android blob as kernel.
Maybe I need to find ny old Motorola Droid or bionic LOL. Sad truth… that might actually be my best option for now. I need check compatibility… and see if batteries are available still. I KNOW the phone could get multiple days of battery life if the OS doesn’t chat in the bg all day and night.
Using a Nexus 5 with UT here and quite happy with it. The wireless charging kind of makes up for the lack of battery. AND you’ll be able to run UT on the Librem 5 so it will be more familiar.
If it’s unlocked it should work. UT probably wouldn’t work (they’re working on porting it but it was proving to be problematic). Plasma mobile might work, but I’m not sure how far along/functional that is as a daily driver yet. Could also do Lineage on it if you want to stick with Android.
