Hi everyone,

Currently looking at either a Pixel 8 or a S23 as a replacement for my Zenfone 8 that is slowly becoming a hindrence due to (primarily) the battery. I would replace it, but as it costs a lot to do that here and I have needs for a non-compromised water protection DIY feels like a dangerous option.

So S23 vs Pixel 8, what would you guys recommend assuming I can get either for the same price?

I like the S23 hardware a bit better on paper, but as Pixel phones generally are very flashable my anti-Google sentiments might (ironically) push me there.

I would get a fairphone 5 for the hot-swappable battery etc if they weren’t so expensive for what you get, and as Im buying second hand reuse is better for the environment anyways.

  • @[email protected]English
    1•10 months ago

    At this point, minimal anonymized data is fine by me. I equate it with walking down the sidewalk and people who don’t know me being able to know what color I want my hair to be. Not what color it is, but what I would like it to be.

    Honestly even minimal non-anonymized data doesn’t really bother me relative to the changes that an ethical company makes.

    I’m not sure what e specifically uses, I know that murena allows you to choose your app store according to whether you want to use open source apps or not, or tethered to play services or not.

    Yeah, non-expandable storage is incomprehensible to me, having used phones with expandable storage and having used phones with non-expandable.

    • @[email protected]English
      1•10 months ago

      Keep an eye on DivestOS. It seems to be somewhat similar to GrapheneOS but on more devices.

      I think the changes are a bit too many though. They support microG in the GrapheneOS sandbox, which may be pretty cool (until it breaks, or you need stuff not included in microG)

      I think 128GB is enough, but a small phone with a headphone jack, good cameras and a working fingerprint sensor…

      • @[email protected]English
        1•10 months ago

        I am pure Bluetooth, I was very happy to get rid of the headphone jack.

        Thanks for the OS recommendation.

        Oh, if you’re interested in cameras, you should check out the side by side videos of fairphone cameras with pixels and iPhones. At least half the time, I prefer the fair phone camera shots I’m seeing.

        I don’t know if it’s less processing or what, but something about the fair phone photos look better to me, even without umpteenth megapixel updates.

        128 GB is way too small for me. I can work with it, but it’s like 12 minutes of video and I take a lot of video.

        7 years ago I had an oppo with their proprietary usb charging that went zero to 80 in 30 minutes and had up to four gigabytes expandable storage, I had 512 gb on there, 6gb ram.

        The state of phone tech today is crazy to me, the one percent increase in CPU processing power every month means nothing to me if I can’t take more than 20 minutes of HD video and edit it without the phone crashing.

        Also, not really relevant, bring back front facing speakers! I want a phone with front facing speakers again so bad.