GrapheneOS on a Pixel 6a and iOS on an iPhone in the other pocket lol
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CalyxOS on my Pixel 3. Love it. Runs better than the standard Android crap.
Who knew getting rid of all the tracking bullshit helps? This is my surprised face -> :-/
I've never had a stock android experience except for two weeks with an original Nexus phone when it came out. Hated it so much, I returned it and got Blackberry. When I was eventually forced into Android, I immediately loaded CyanogenMod and have never used a stock ROM. My friends talk about their phones, and I have no idea what they're talking about. My experience is totally different. I couldn't use a stock ROM.
/e/os on a Fairphone 3 for a few months now. It's my first custom ROM, and it's been a breeze so far :)
Some quirks that I don't actually mind : when the phone is turned off and charging, the animation on screen doesn't update the current battery level (but idc, usually the phone charges at night), the phone calls volume is really loud (but I usually plug my headset in for calls) and the integrated vpn is sometimes slow enough to cause websites/apps to timeout (I can live with that).
I still have my old android phone mainly for my bank application.
Edit : typo
I have Arrow OS A12L on my Cepheus, been quite good so far.
I miss custom ROMs. I haven't messed with them since 4.4 KitKat.
Back in the days of CyanogenMod!
None ... yet. Hadn't even looked into the possibility since my Pixel 2XL, and I have no idea what I dug up all those years ago.
I'm now on a Pixel 6 Pro and would love to move to a privacy-focused OS; I'm already on KDE Neon on desktop for both my production machines as of May. Rexxit has motivated me to at least dip my toes in on mobile, but as with desktop Linux, I fully expect my first attempt to bring into specific relief what I'm looking for and then go try things until I find what I like.
Graphene and Lineage seem like the best starting options at this point, but I'd love to hear from anyone else on my hardware on their experiences. My use cases are vanishingly small: Signal for text, voice and video; the local transit app; music app (still haven't found one that makes be forswear any further experimentation) for my commute; mindless games (currently Royal Match) for my commute; 10-15 texts a week; and a phone call or two. I barely even use the camera except for work, and yes, I'm aware I purchased a phone utterly overpowered for my needs, but I'm picky about pixel size.
What recommendations do y'all have, either as a starting point or — perish the thought — an obvious daily driver?
ArrowOS with MicroG on Poco F3
Unofficial crDroid with Poco X2. No real issues, although I haven't been able to get SBC-XQ working which it supposedly supports.
Honor 10 with some old rooted Lineage Android 8.1 without gapps, wife has Xiaomi Mix 2s running some old Xiaomi.eu I think Android 9 with gapps (plus she has company S20 FE with official ROM), actually upgrading to new phone would bring pretty much zero benefits to my daily life besides having better camera
couldn't be bothered to upgrade to newer one, it's available for wife's one, but there is no point, if it wouldn't improve her life at all, as for me I would need to go to EMUI to have slightly newer Android but I will rather have clean Android, anyway looking for years for replacement compact phone with decent camera (4a seemed great but asymetrical punch hole and crap battery and all other pixels had either this problem or they are too big already, zenfones unreliable hardware without software support), currently Xiaomi 12 seems like best option for 400EUR
I'm running Evolution X on my Xiaomi Mi 9T Pro and have been for the past 3 years or so. The main maintainer uses this phone so it has always been pretty polished and feature rich.
Grapheneos for years now
I've been using CrDroid on my Poco F2 Pro (LMI) for a long time now , have also dabbled with Elixir , Nusantara and a few others which was fun, I love custom roms and tinkering plus MIUI sucks badly.
Also the mire I tinker the deeper I go, I made my first magisk module this year , git pretty good at debugging and root files etc , plus I can restore my phone pretty fast now (I brick it every now and then lol)
This year I also got into battery replacement , I switched out my battery and my camera module, and switched out a samsung s9 plus battery, was pretty fun.
Where can you find camera modules? I had to switch phones as my last phone's camera got damaged by vibration. Everything else on the phone is in fine condition
I just got one on Aliexpress , since apparently the better Poco F2 Pro Zoom edition had a better camera that fit into the pcoo f2 pro so I just switched out the models and bam it worked.
I don't know anything about Magisk, but I really should learn. Replaceable batteries, or a battery that I can replace without totally destroying the phone, is a requirement for any phone I get.
Oh they aren't replaceable easily , I bought all the required tools and pried the phone open in order to replace them.
Oh I know!
I was using Arrow OS Android 13 until 2 weeks and then my bank decided that even though i wasnt rooted and just unlocked bootloader my phone is a security risk and i couldnt access the app so ive had to go back to MIUI for now. I actually noticed on the custom rom that it only ran on V12.5 firmware when Miui is on V14 firmware which I think added APTX Adaptive and other things. So im really on the fence about ever sticking a custom rom on this Poco F3 again
I actually noticed on the custom rom that it only ran on V12.5 firmware when Miui is on V14 firmware which I think added APTX Adaptive and other things
You can normally update the firmware independently (or just flash stock then go back to custom after) as long as the custom ROM doesn't replace it. See: https://xiaomifirmwareupdater.com/
Am using Elixir on my Xiaomi phone, I really like the customization stuff. It would be ideal if it would come in a variant without Google services :/ Otherwise it runs pretty nice.
Yes, Google Services is a no-go for me unless it was sandboxed, which I understand is how GrapheneOS handles it.
I'm running a pixel 4a 5g and have thought about switching to a custom ROM. I'm a Linux user and big open source software fan. Privacy is a plus, but I don't know if I need Fort Knox levels of privacy. What custom Roms out there would be a good fit for me? Many thanks in advance