I've had it with this damn Pixel phone, it's so bad and so is Google Fi.
Next time I have money for it, I'm probably switching back to iPhone.
Discussion
Samsung S25 Edge, the best one I have ever owned.
Might need to look into a Samsung, don't care for the UI though.
If you care even a lick about privacy, it's undeniable that a pixel running GrapheneOS is nearly the only option. If you're okay with every detail of your life known by Apple and shared with third party companies and state intelligence yeah sure iPhone is good. IOS 26 has a cool UI, very transparent and glassy.
I've tried Graphene, too buggy, was basically unusable.
NGMI
I don't know man, I gave it the benefit of the doubt, used it a couple months, just didn't work out.
Wait seriously what bugs? The only issue you'll run into are proprietary apps that don't run with the exploit protections, in which case you just disable them if you have issue. Also some banking apps and Zelle doesn't work due to certain device information apps can't see. Both of which are issues of proprietary software, not GrapheneOS. Outside of those it's just normal android, what bugs have you ran into beyond that that made you swear off GrapheneOS?
I did have issues with banking apps, but that wasn't the only issue, if it was I would have dealt with it for the privacy advantage.
But I had a lot of os side issues as well, glitching, apps crashing, phone would crash sometimes, I ended up reverting to the pixel is and all of that went away.
That's odd I haven't experienced any of the latter save for some apps crashing before I disabled exploit protections. Do you have an older Pixel perhaps? Which model are you using?
I'm on a 9a now, but I tested Graphene on the 9.
That's odd, I got lots of friends om the 9a and they don't have many issues, outside of banking apps and some proprietary apps. I'd advise trying again if you're still relatively open to it.
To counter what you said earlier, it's not just a "privacy advantage" it's the difference between no privacy (closed source iOS) and nearly 100% privacy. GrapheneOS is really one of, if not the most, user friendly FOSS privacy projects we have. If you're not willing work with it, you're going to give up without a fight as they clamp down on privacy in all aspects of life. Really we should be excercising our ingenuity and patience to constantly push for more privacy and sovereignty, not concede with minimal resistance.
Very good point, I may try it again sometime, I am trying to improve my privacy overall, I use a VPN, tracking protection with DDG, Proton services, and stuff like that.
Those are awesome steps! We need more people willing to put up a fight. Privacy enables freedom, and freedom is never free.