What is the best cheap cell phones that support Lineage OS (or your perfected Privacy rom)?
I was considering getting a LG G5. Some models support an older version of LineageOS and I love the replaceable battery.
What do you recommend?
Motorola's Moto G series is usually supported and relatively cheap.
However, if you're willing to spend a little bit more I recommend getting a Fairphone, if you can. Simply because they guarantee 10 years of device support after release and you can easily get original replacement parts.
So you won't have to get a new phone just because the battery died.
So I was about to say "I love my Fairphone 5 and recommend it wholeheartedly but it's not supported by Lineage is yet, which is really frustrating, especially after its been out nearly a whole year", but then I checked and - well, I'll be damned - LineageOS does support the FP5 now so I know what I'll be doing later on: eating chicken wings. But after that, upgrading my FP5 to LineageOS.
I'm using LineageOS 17 on a used Samsung S8, which I bought ~1 year ago specifically because it was listed as having first class support for the OS on their page
Lineage17 on Samsung j3 2016. This 8 year old smartphone still works flawlessly.
LG phones tend to lack good support for roms. That is probably not true for every device but I personally would avoid them along with Samsung. However, if the device is listed on Lineage OS wiki it has maintainers and support so it should work decent at the minimum.
From a brand perspective I would look at the device page and find the manufacturers with the most devices. Companies like Google and Motorola Mobility are good examples.
There used to be a really good website that allowed you to filter Lineage OS devices to find devices but I forgot the URL
i was wondering the same, my pixel 2 has a dying battery
Sidenote…I loved my LG G5. The modules you could get for it were so cool. I had three batteries just because I could lol. I was sad when they went away from the removable battery.
Why did you stop using the G5?
I upgraded to the G6. I honestly don’t remember what my reason at the time was.
@TheDorkfromYork i use calyx with the moto g52
Lineage supports the phone not the phone Lineage. Okay, not the important thing.
What is cheap? For me, the Fairphone is the cheapest because the /e/OS support is announced at least for five year (FP 5: 8 years). So the device is not the cheapest but buying a new one whenever firmware updates run out is more expensive.
in case you go for a cheap new phone, around here the best option are some Redmi ones. recently got a Redmi Note 9 and slapped LOS on it for a friend, for about 170€. since none are very recent models, sometimes I had to spend a good time searching for them in shop stocks
Don't Redmi phones require an online account to unlock the bootloader?
Xiaomi ones do. Does Redmi require that too ?
yes, they do (redmi the same as other xiaomi phones) and that's an important thing I left out.
I did create an account long ago with an alias email that i've used for the unlocking of several phones' bootloader. it also requires a phone number for "verification" when you start the unlocking process, so for anonimity you'd need an unregistered burner phone number
so it does leave a trace in their books
Dunno if it is a viable new phone choice these days, but my op7 pro is still going strong with crdroid.
Still going strong with my op6T.
Same with One Plus 8. The only thing I miss is a SD Card and Jack port...
I flashed Calyx to a refurbished Pixel 6a recently. It was quite straightforward and I love it so far.
Its going be very hard to move away from my One plus 6T. Has been the best phone for trying out custom Roms, currently running /e/os on it. Just make sure you get an unlocked version
unlocked version? how do i tell if its an unlocked version or not? is there a good starting point to learn more about custom roms?
Lg no longer gives out bootloader unlock codes, so lg phones are essentially useless unless you can get one that's already unlocked.
While the ad blocker integrated into Iodé is nice, their freemium model turns me away. Putting some ad blocking capabilities behind a subscription feels shady. Also they're rather slow with updates. I've used it for a while and watched the ad blocker going from blocking virtually everything to blocking 66-75%.
Pixel with GrapheneOS for me.
I personally don't care for Graphene but the Pixel does have good support from Lineage OS
And the hardware is great IMO. Pixel 6 was my first Pixel after only buying iPhones, and I swear the thing survives so much abuse. (Although I heard the 6 in particular had many issues, I love mine)
Why don't you care for GrapheneOS?
As the matter of fact, I'm curious about the differences now.