My body’s ready. Which device should I buy to run nostr:npub1235tem4hfn34edqh8hxfja9amty73998f0eagnuu4zm423s9e8ksdg0ht5, or Android if I can’t manage Graphene? #asknostr
Discussion
Get a renewed & unlocked device on Amazon for $200-$300 and your install should be literally a few clicks
they highly recommend that you use the official cable to mitigate any issues in installing. Otherwise, super easy.
Awesome. Thank you. What’s your take on specs? I don’t want to scrimp, nor do I need best of the best.
Pixel 9a is the cheapest version of the 9-series and it's good
Used Pixel 8 Pro from swappa.com
My experience, its less about specs and more about staying away from EOL. Graphene on my 6a is smooth, but i needed to upgrade because the touch screen isn't usable, so I got a Pixel7 instead. I also have it on a Pixel Tablet.
Amethyst is known to be a heavy app, and I get very few hickups with it.
Is it your daily driver?
Daily driver, new install on Pixel 7, everything good so far! Some caveats
I don't make much use of the sensors, most of the apps I use i can get from Zapstore & Obtainium,
Aurora Store lets you download apps without Google play. Some may not work without it, but I've been able to get by and not worry about those apps. You can however, use sandboxed Google Play (Graphene gives you an option to enable it), which should take care of those issues.
Pixel
Pixel 9a.
Graphene is legit a UX upgrade from stock Android imo and straightforward to install these days.
Free as in freedom.
GrapheneOS is stock Android with privacy/security improvements, they only support Google Pixels because these have the best hardware security.
If you are on a budget, get a Pixel 8 (they have better security then the 7). If money is not an issue, go for a Pixel 9, the Folding especialy is amazing.
Every other OEM Android is pure spyware, worse than Apple in fact.
I took the shortcut and bought an Above Phone (Pixel with graphenOs pre-installed)
Nice. Would you do it again?
You only need a cable and a browser to install GrapheneOS, it takes less than 10 minutes and only a few clicks. I don't get why people pay to have it pre-installed, it's a huge privacy/risk too.
Thanks. By “manage,” I mean the tradeoffs.
What kind of tradeoffs?
tradeoffs like running google play in a sandbox... but it doesnt seem that bad. I'm not dissatisfied at all.
Precisely.
some apps are available in the aurora store or fdroid, but don't work. Hust install them from your sandboxed google play and they work fine. Google maps and ADP both wouldn't work from Aurora, but did from google play. That was the only nuisance so far for me.
I’ve heard as much. Not sure how inconvenient this will be day to day, but I’ll FAFO.
By the way, some closedsource(spyware) apps ask for Google Play ONLY on during the first setup, you can remove Google Play after. You should still avoid them. There are FOSS alternstives for Maps and everything.
Google Play Sandbox works fine from my testings. I don't use it tho. There are FOSS alternartives for most apps.
Having to figure out all the apps and putting together your own online ecosystem can be a headache.
What?
You know... GrapheneOS doesn't come with an online ecosystem that replaces features like contact sync across phone and computer, calendar sync across devices, note sync, tasks, fileshare, etc..
And is nice to have useful apps pre-installed, like navigation app, email app, pdf reader, nextcloud suite of apps and such.
Most people don't need to sync their stuff across multiple devices, and if you are really into that kind of stuff then you should use Proton suite apps. GrapheneOS already has a PDF reader by default. Installing other apps like navigation and email takes less than a minute, i really don't see the point of having pre-installed stuff 🤷♂️
Yea I’ll also say pixel. I have an 8 pro and it’s a champ.
If I can install Graphene so can you- watched at 10-20 min YouTube video and paused it and backed it up a few times
Cheers. Installation, no problems. I’m concerned about UX + utility tradeoffs coming from iOS.
Fair. The group text messages that were previously iMessage aren’t great. I kept my old crappy iPhone on wifi for those conversations since there were multiple threads of people crying about green texts.
I also still use some of the old banking apps on that phone.
I do miss Google maps sometimes but was tired of them having so much data on me
I just switched from iOS a few days ago and my only issues are: keyboard muscle memory (I make a lot of mistakes when typing!) and the Marriott app keeps crashing. Probably because it's doing an OS check.
No autocorrect? I’ve heard good things about futo.
Thanks I'll give it a try! Main issue is actually the location of the space bar. Herebus some text without MW trying to fixnir
Get the latest. #pixel9pro