As the title says, I want to finally degoogle (completely) my life. I’ve found a Pixel 7 8/128 for ~270€ (or pixel 8? ~470€ but no white :c) it’s refurbished so google doesn’t get a shit from me.

I’m curious to know if:

  • You can change the default icons color (black and gray-ish in the image) or is based on the wallpaper
  • The camera app is good. Not going to make professional pics or videos but I still want to use it to take pics and a good quality is important. Tried their camera on a phone and the bottom menu to switch mode (picture/video/night mode/etc) was buggy
  • Battery life is better/worse than stock Android (if anyone tried that)
  • How the sandboxed play services work
  • Anything else that I should know about. Some people say it’s good, some it’s bad so I’m curious to know.

I’m still looking for a good maps replacement, Organic Map is not the best because it’s missing a lot of places where I live. I wish there was a google wallet Foss alternative… I needed it to use my card with the phone (rare but still possible!)

Help a new user to fully leave shitty phone companies

Edit: Does it have some kind of cross profile notifications? Can I see notifications of another profile on the main?

GrapheneOS supports forwarding notifications from users running in the background to the currently active user. Forwarding notifications to other users is disabled by default and can be enabled within each user profile where forwarding to the active profile is wanted. Notifications forwarded from other profiles are displayed by default in a standard local notification channel.

It does

  • Dyskolos@lemmy.zip
    1·
    1 month ago

    No wonder, as they’re the only phones left (to my knowledge) that don’t demand half your soul just to fucking own your own phone. I was so damn fed with all the hurdles samsung & co throw in your way, just so you can’t even root your damn phone.

    Who would buy a flagship gaming-pc without the admin-pwd and without being allowed to change the os? Noone. Except maybe pure gaming-kiddos.

    I hate google with all my heart (since they ditched the “don’t be evil” - slogan), but what else to buy? Seriously asking… Which other phones allows that AND has at least a decent camera and an oled?

    • Saizaku@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      1·
      1 month ago

      No wonder, as they’re the only phones left (to my knowledge) that don’t demand half your soul just to fucking own your own phone.

      Literally who outside of samsung and Huawei? I guess xiaomi is a bit annoying with the wait time but pretty much all other phones are dead simple.

      Oneplus, Nothing phone: literally the same process as on a pixel, no code required to unlock bootloader or anything like that. Just fastboot flashing unlock

      Vivo: The exact same thing, just get vivo’s binary for fastboot since the unlocl command is different

      Motorola, Sony: Just go to the website and you get the unlock code instantly, then just run a fastboot command and you’re done

      Realme: Download their app, apply for unlock, gets approved within an hour. Unlock with a fastboot command

      Xiaomi, poco: Get their app, wait a couple of days for the code, unlock bootloader with fastboot command.

      Honor and huawie are a pita, but there is an open source unlocking tool for certain devices which makes it deadsimple.

      So there are still plenty of options if the goal is unlocking bootloader and rooting a phone, all of these brands offer phones with oled 120hz screens, with cameras ranging from decent to some of the best on the market depending on the model. There are probably some brends I missed, but you get the point.

      • Dyskolos@lemmy.zip
        0·
        1 month ago

        Never had a oneplus or nothing, so can’t judge at all. But great they’re allowing it.

        Don’t remember sony being cool about it. But also good to know they seem to have changed their stance, i always liked their phones hardware-wise.

        But ok, phone market is full of phones, and i gave up on non-pixels a long while ago. Cool to hear they mostly are simpler now.

        But besides, being able to unlock bootloader is great (even though root is way more important to me), but if there is no really well working daily-driver-alternative to truly de-google (or at least working googled roms), what’s the point to unlock other than making your own rom?

        • Saizaku@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          1·
          1 month ago

          But besides, being able to unlock bootloader is great (even though root is way more important to me)

          My bad I thought you were generally up to date with how rooting basically works nowadays. The defacto rooting method today is systemless root using magisk, which works by patching your boot.img. So on 99% of phones today if you can unlock the bootloader, rooting is as simple as installing the magisk, patching the boot img from the app and the flashing itl. You can also just flash magisk from recovery too. That’s why I focused on bootloader unlocking in my previous post.

          Now I can’t claim that every device from these manufacturers works flawlessly with magisk, but most do. And a quick glance at the xda page of the specific model would be an easy way to find out before buying.