General Smartphone Discussion Thread - What phones to recommend and which ones to avoid?

[Thiletonomics]

For those of you who live in places where Xiaomi phones are available (were they banned like Huawei phones are?), how is the quality of their phones, and has the quality of them dropped after Xiaomi started to get into the automotive industry last year? And is the demographic that buys Xiaomi cars the same one as the ones that buy their smartphones?

 

[The Repeated Meme]

I recently upgraded from the oneplus 10t to the oneplus 12. I would have been fine with my 10t; but it has one glaring issue: mine is the t-mobile variant which you can't root, but I didn't know that at the time. This is MOSTLY not a problem, but it can be very annoying; because I can't remove or disable system apps that aren't already usually able to be disabled or uninstalled. I also have to resort to VPN adblocking instead of systemless adblocking you can get on rooted phones. This means I also can't use the magisk version of revanced extended. Again, normally not a huge issue; but annoying.

So I decided fuck it. I'll have a rooted oneplus 12 as my daily driver and my oneplus 10t can be a backup phone; something you don't normally need, but when you do need it, you'll be glad you have it.

I was pleasantly surprised how easy it was to hide root from banking apps (and some other apps) and pass safetynet and play integrity checks. I don't get strong integrity of course; but you don't need strong integrity to use banking apps and apps that refuse to work with a rooted phone. I was really worried that I was going to fuck something up and it wouldn't work right or whatever. But after nearly a whole day of setting it up and getting everything just the way I like it, it's awesome.

It's everything I hoped it would be. The only major downside is; something I again, did not know at the time, but you can't get tempered glass screen protectors for the oneplus 12 because of the way the screen is designed. Holy fuck..why??? And the screen protectors you can get are hard to install even for pros; so that was kind of annoying. The screen protector is on with some very, very minor blemishes but it's fine, it's not really noticeable unless you look for it. So that was a bit disappointing, but again, minor complaint.

So it looks like this is going to be it for a while. I had an excuse to upgrade this time; but next time, I'm really going to try to restrain myself because this thing wasn't cheap, even used it cost $600 (all told) so I'm hoping to get as much bang for my buck as possible.

OnePlus is the goat. For the most part. One thing I don't like is their aggressive battery saving software that messes with the functionality of some apps. Also you can't disable certain notifications (AGAIN.WHY!!! WTF!) Disabling the battery app with Neo backup seems to have fixed this. ZERO BLOATWARE! IT'S AWESOME! ROOT FTW!

TLDR

Avoid: Samsung (no root, samsung bloat), Apple (for obvious reasons), Mobile ISP branded phones; especially T-Mobile and Verizon
Recommend: Oneplus 10 Pro, 11 & 12 possibly 13 but I have not tried it.
If you need a rooted phone, DO YOUR RESEARCH! Make sure your bootloader can be unlocked!

 

[Battlefield42]

For those of you who live in places where Xiaomi phones are available (were they banned like Huawei phones are?), how is the quality of their phones, and has the quality of them dropped after Xiaomi started to get into the automotive industry last year? And is the demographic that buys Xiaomi cars the same one as the ones that buy their smartphones?

They were always shit. Redmi Note 5 pro was ok only because it didn't have glass everywhere.

 

[Hentai-Semitism]

I got a used Galaxy S21 Ultra a year ago. It's the best phone I've had by far. Cameras were my priority and it doesn't disappoint with its 4 lenses:
- 13mm ultrawide: lowest quality, very gimmicky, barely use it
- 24mm wide: standard shit
- 72mm 3x optical: the one I use the most. everything looks way more natural than the usual, deformed 24mm fare.
- 240mm 10x optical: actually useful and the OIS is good enough that you don't need a tripod if your hands are steady.

They all have OIS and shoot RAW, which is extremely important. If you know what RAW is, then you know. If you don't... well, you're missing out and should see some comparisons because the difference between a standard JPG and manually adjusted RAW is night and day. Mostly because of lack of aggresive noise removal and forced sharpening.

Unfortunately it looks like the S23U is the last phone with a 10x lens. Neither S24U nor S25U have it. What a shame.

 

[Car Won't Crank]

I've been daily driving the BLU branded phone for a year and have nothing bad to say about it. The phone is made by a Chinese ODM but the android flavor is as vanilla as possible and is super stable. The basic phones come with all the essentials like headphone jack and microsd card slot. You really can't go wrong for under $200

 

[The Repeated Meme]

Let me preface this by saying OxygenOS is the worst operating system developed for android, ever; and LineageOS completely blows them out of the water. Let me explain:

OxygenOS gets really fucking offended for some reason if you try to disable their annoying battery and permission notifications; if you try to disable the app that controls them, it bootloops. Finally, no more annoying ass notifications about shit nobody cares about, and holy shit, the app switcher actually works the way it's suppose to!! Imagine fucking that!! You want app labels in landscape mode with nova? No problem!!! Oh you don't want to see silent notifications that you can't disable so it doesn't shit up your notification area? Sure thing, buddy, just toggle this setting! Oh you want to disable these notification altogether? Here you go, fam; enjoy freedom, stalker child! Imagine that! I can actually choose TO PERMANENTLY DISABLE NOTIFICATIONS I DON'T WANT TO FUCKING SEE! HOLY SHIT LOS DEVELOPERS; YOU'RE FUCKING GENIUSES!!!!

LOS fixes all that gay shit. God, I should've done this from the beginning. Want to turn off our overly intrusive battery saving bullshit? No problem, buddy; here you go! One fucking option cans the whole thing! What a novel fucking concept!!!!

Fuck OOS. And fuck the dumb gay nigger programmer that added that stupid 5 second delay to your bootloader to inform you that your bootloader is unlocked. No shit, retard! I unlocked it! I fucking know!!!

Why is everyone at the OOS development team a bunch of retarded nigger monkey apes? This is not hard. Fix your laggy ass app switcher, and let me remove shit that I want to remove!

Bro, fuck me. I am so glad I upgraded to oneplus 12 and installed lineageos. No more bullshit! Just stock android, hallelujah, praise yahoowa.

Oh right, I forgot to mention that stupid safe audio warning that oxygenos forces down your throat and you have to use fucking shizuku and ui tweaker to disable. Not In LOS! Yet another persistent, petty annoyance GONE!

 

[Pokemon Conquistador]

I've got a tracfone pay as you go dumbphone since I only make like one call a week. Texting on it is a nightmare so I'd like a cheap smartphone that I could hook up to my wifi to get and send texts. Does anyone know where I could find such a thing?

 

[Betonhaus]

I've got a tracfone pay as you go dumbphone since I only make like one call a week. Texting on it is a nightmare so I'd like a cheap smartphone that I could hook up to my wifi to get and send texts. Does anyone know where I could find such a thing?

Just learn T9. Your ancestors did it and could hammer out texts without even looking at their phone

 

[Kamway]

Got a Pixel 9 Pro, rooted it & installed CalyxOS. Ideally I will never need to get another phone but I guess we'll see.
The privacy aspect is nice but I mainly did it just to de-bloat, de-Google & actually have control over my device - nothing makes me crash out harder than electronics telling me "no"
Turns out smartphones can actually be fun when you remove the retard railings.

 

[XYZpdq Jr.]

a year or so back I got a Alcatel c21, going for a big ninety bucks of chinesium instead of my usual thirty

when I got it I was big mad it didn't have a headphone jack but tbh I think I've run into it being a problem literally once so maybe it's not such a big deal for me

 

[teriyakiburns]

Bro, fuck me. I am so glad I upgraded to oneplus 12 and installed lineageos. No more bullshit! Just stock android, hallelujah, praise yahoowa.

Your words have convinced me (that and the flash sale OnePlus was having today) and I've expensed myself a shiny new oneplus 12 in silky black. I was considering a Nord 4, but the reviews were a bit iffy and there was very little info on how easy it was to root or debloat. Such is life. I'll try out oxygen for a little while and then see where that takes me.

 

[depressed_kiwi]

My galaxy s7 is the best one I've had so far... It's been thrown and dropped so many times and it's still good.

 

[Betonhaus]

Update: the folding screen on my phone finally started to die so I ended up ordering a 2024 Motorola Edge to replace it. I like the folding phones, but they're still fragile and expensive. The outside screen is still fine so it'll hold me over ig the internal completely dies before the new phone arrives

 

[Cemetery Support]

I've got a tracfone pay as you go dumbphone since I only make like one call a week. Texting on it is a nightmare so I'd like a cheap smartphone that I could hook up to my wifi to get and send texts. Does anyone know where I could find such a thing?

All you really need to make a dumbphone is blocks. Delete everything and use software to block stuff.

 

[ForgedBlades]

UNIHERTZ IS FINALLY MAKING A REAL PASSPORT CLONE WE WON BLACKBERRY BROS

 

[Ibanez RG 350EX]

I just use the regular Moto G whatever the fuck models. this year's basic model is like $150, the stylus version is $250, the slightly more swag version is $300. they're cheap and reliable, I've been using Motorola phones for going on two decades - not because of any specific brand loyalty, more due to a combination of carrier availability (when I was poor) and compelling price point - and I've never been disappointed. but I also fucking hate smartphones and use them for as little as possible, so YMMV. folding phones are shit, get one of those shockproof phone cases i.e. Unicorn Beetle and clean the dust out of it periodically. your phone will never die.

You couldn't convince me to buy anything but a Moto G/Moto G Power these days. They're cheap, they're powerful enough, they have big batteries, they have 3.5 mm jacks and SD card slots, they're compatible with every carrier, it's painless to root them - it's as if Lenovo makes an entire line of phones tailored to my specifications.

 

[Slav Power]

UNIHERTZ IS FINALLY MAKING A REAL PASSPORT CLONE WE WON BLACKBERRY BROS

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Call me when Unihertz gives proper software support and/or someone makes a custom ROM with long term support, then I might consider getting one. Also, being able to run Magisk is key. After installing BCR and LSPosed I can't ever go back to unrooted Android.

Speaking off, I had issues with running LSPosed where I wasn't able to open the manager. I found a fork of it that works so I could finally pimp out my phone with Iconify once more. BCR also saved my ass a few times when I could just play back a phone conversation to remember something and now I can't have a phone without call recording anymore. Plus, having root means I can run AdAway without VPN trickery, Tasker can do even more than it already can, and it opens up many many other pathways for customization.

But yeah Unihertz sucks since their software support is worse tham Sony's.

 

[I'm Retarded?]

You couldn't convince me to buy anything but a Moto G/Moto G Power these days. They're cheap, they're powerful enough, they have big batteries, they have 3.5 mm jacks and SD card slots, they're compatible with every carrier, it's painless to root them - it's as if Lenovo makes an entire line of phones tailored to my specifications.

out of curiosity, how would you recommend rooting a Moto G, and what apps would you recommend installing on a rooted phone? I've been thinking of doing it for years, but I've never really looked into it.

 

[Ibanez RG 350EX]

out of curiosity, how would you recommend rooting a Moto G, and what apps would you recommend installing on a rooted phone? I've been thinking of doing it for years, but I've never really looked into it.

You pull a code off the phone using Fastboot, then put that into a field on Lenovo's website and they'll unlock your bootloader, then you flash a small .img file and you're rooted. It voids your warranty, but otherwise it's the most painless rooting procedure I've ever seen. There's no fucking around with circumventing security measures from a hostile manufacturer - Lenovo just lets you do it.

I use it primarily for Adaway (system-wide adblocking), my file explorer, and Flux or Redmoon (nighttime screen dimming that looks infinitely better than non-root versions). There are a fair number of applications out there with optional root-only features that just make using them a better experience.

 

[Betonhaus]

Second day with a non-folding phone and I swear to God I'm going to accidentally snap it in half trying to close it to put away