Hardware far outlasts software in the smartphone world, due to aggressive chronic designed obsolescence by market abusing monopolies. So I will never buy a new smartphone - don’t want to feed those scumbags. I am however willing to buy used smartphones on the 2nd-hand market if they can be liberated. Of course it’s still only marginally BifL even if you don’t have demanding needs.

Has anyone gone down this path? My temptation is to find a phone that is simultaneously supported by 2 or 3 different FOSS OS projects. So if it falls out of maintence on one platform it’s not the end. The Postmarket OS (pmOS) page has a full list and a short list. The short list apparently covers devices that are actively maintained and up to date, which are also listed here. There is also a filter tool to easily specify your criteria of what must function to obtain a custom shortlist:

https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Special:Drilldown/Devices?DeviceType=handset

Then phones on the shortlist can be cross-referenced with the LineageOS list or the Sailfish list, which seems to be exclusively Sony¹.

So many FOSS phone platforms seem to come and go I’ve not kept up on it. What others are worth considering? It looks like the Replicant device list hasn’t changed much.

(update) Graphene OS has a list of supported devices

(and it appears they don’t maintain old devices)

Pixel 9 Pro Fold (comet)
Pixel 9 Pro XL (komodo)
Pixel 9 Pro (caiman)
Pixel 9 (tokay)
Pixel 8a (akita)
Pixel 8 Pro (husky)
Pixel 8 (shiba)
Pixel Fold (felix)
Pixel Tablet (tangorpro)
Pixel 7a (lynx)
Pixel 7 Pro (cheetah)
Pixel 7 (panther)
Pixel 6a (bluejay)
Pixel 6 Pro (raven)
Pixel 6 (oriole)

(update 2) Calyx OS has an interesting list some of which overlaps with pmOS

Calyx OS list

Device /Latest CalyxOS version /Release date
Pixel 8a /5.12.2-2 /2024-11-04
Pixel 8 Pro /5.12.2-2 /2024-11-04
Pixel 8 /5.12.2-2 /2024-11-04
Pixel Fold /5.12.2-2 /2024-11-04
Pixel Tablet /5.12.2-2 /2024-11-04
Pixel 7a /5.12.2-2 /2024-11-04
Pixel 7 Pro /5.12.2-2 /2024-11-04
Pixel 7 /5.12.2-2 /2024-11-04
Pixel 6a /5.12.2-2 /2024-11-04
Pixel 6 Pro /5.12.2-2 /2024-11-04
Pixel 6 /5.12.2-2 /2024-11-04
Pixel 5a (5G) /5.12.1-2 /2024-10-11
Pixel 4a (5G) /5.12.1-2 /2024-10-11
Pixel 5 /5.12.1-2 /2024-10-11
Pixel 4a /5.12.1-2 /2024-10-11
Pixel 4 XL /5.12.1-2 /2024-10-11
Pixel 4 /5.12.1-2 /2024-10-11
Pixel 3a XL /5.12.1-2 /2024-10-11
Pixel 3a /5.12.1-2 /2024-10-11
Pixel 3 XL /5.12.1-2 /2024-10-11
Pixel 3 /5.12.1-2 /2024-10-11
Fairphone 4 /5.12.1-2 /2024-10-11
Fairphone 5 /5.12.1-4 /2024-10-11
SHIFT6mq /5.12.1-2 /2024-10-11
Moto G32 /5.12.1-2 /2024-10-11
Moto G42 /5.12.1-4 /2024-10-11
Moto G52 /5.12.1-2 /2024-10-11

So Graphene’s mission is a bit orthoganol to the mission of Postmarket OS. Perhaps it makes sense for some people to get a Graphene-compatible device then hope they can switch to pmOS when it gets dropped. But I guess that’s not much of a budget plan. Pixel 6+ are likely not going to be dirt cheap on the 2nd-hand market. Worth noting that these phones are supported by both pmOS and Calyx OS:

  • Fairphone 4
  • Google Pixel 3a
  • SHIFT SHIFT6mq

¹ Caution about Sony: they are an ALEC member who supports hard-right politics. They were also caught using GNU software in their DRM shit which violated FOSS licensing in a component designed to oppress. Obviously buying a new Sony thing is unethical. But perhaps a 2nd-hand one is fine. It’s still dicey though because the 2nd-hand market still feeds the 1st-hand market and rewards the original consumer. Sometimes it’s clear you’re not buying from an original owner, like someone on the street with a box of 100+ phones.

(update) It would help if we could filter out all the phones with non-removable batteries. I can confirm that these have non-removeable batteries:

  • BQ Aquarius X5
  • @solrizeEnglish
    2•2 months ago

    Ah thanks, I had thought it was the same frequency but different protocol. Good to know. I do see phones starting to have satellite capabilities now, though at first just for texts.

    • @[email protected]English
      2•2 months ago

      The guy you answered to is actually not correct, see my reply to him. 5g can and does use the same frequencies as 4g, the upper frequency limit is just higher but those are only used in dense cities. Rural 5g installations use the same low frequencies as 4g and get better range than 5g at those frequencies

      • @[email protected]English
        1•2 months ago

        Yeye i wrote a reply correcting myself with an excerpt of wikipedia. Thanks for pointing that out.

    • @[email protected]English
      1•2 months ago

      As Anivia pointed out 5G does apparently come in lower frequency aswell for higher range. That does drop the bandwidth quite a bit, but its still gonna be as good or better than 4G in terms of bandwidth. So my original comment was a bit too critical maybe.

      5G can be implemented in low-band, mid-band or high-band millimeter-wave. Low-band 5G uses a similar frequency range to 4G cellphones, 600–900 MHz, which can potentially offer higher download speeds than 4G: 5–250 megabits per second (Mbit/s).[3][4] Low-band cell towers have a range and coverage area similar to 4G towers. Mid-band 5G uses microwaves of 1.7–4.7 GHz, allowing speeds of 100–900 Mbit/s, with each cell tower providing service up to several kilometers in radius. This level of service is the most widely deployed, and was deployed in many metropolitan areas in 2020. Some regions are not implementing the low band, making Mid-band the minimum service level. High-band 5G uses frequencies of 24–47 GHz, near the bottom of the millimeter wave band, although higher frequencies may be used in the future. It often achieves download speeds in the gigabit-per-second (Gbit/s) range, comparable to co-axial cable Internet service. However, millimeter waves (mmWave or mmW) have a more limited range, requiring many small cells.[5] They can be impeded or blocked by materials in walls or windows or pedestrians.