LineageOS 18.1

Wow, Nexus 7 2013 is still supported. For reference, it was a budget tablet with $269 MSRP, introduced eight years ago! I've been running some older LineageOS build on mine, but I think I'm going to do the repartitioning and install the latest and greatest. It is admittedly becoming a bit sluggish with modern apps.

Definitely Fairphone: https://www.fairphone.com/en

I've been holding on to whichever build was based on Android 8

Mostly because it was the last one that allowed a custom kernel with overclocking support. At 2Ghz the Nexus 7 is still absolutely buttery smooth for most uses

I just settled on a pixel 3 xl. It has still one of the best camera quality available. Got it on ebay for 135€. OS Lineageos microg ROM. But kept stock camera app.

I was not happy with the selfie quality on the pixel 3a xl although I would have liked the audio jack.

I've been using LineageOS since the good ol' CyanogenMod days and I am very grateful for how much work the developers put into it day in and day out.

Thanks to them, I managed to get rid of Google Apps in my day-to-day life almost[0] entirely and drastically improve privacy for me: Instead of Google Play Services I use MicroG[1] and instead of Play Store, I use Aurora Store[2] and F-Droid. For syncing files there is Syncthing[3] and for backups there is Seedvault[4]. To isolate apps I don't trust I use NetGuard[8] and Shelter[9] and practically no internet-facing app has access to my internal "SD card" on which my photos and documents reside. As a bonus, getting rid of GApps and using LineageOS has increased my phones' battery life and their overall lifetime tremendously. (I've only owned three smartphones in my entire life, the original T-Mobile G1, the HTC One M8 and the BQ Aquaris Pro.) I couldn't be happier.

That being said, I've closely been following GrapheneOS[5] because I find its additional security guarantees very attractive. In fact, just a few hours ago my new Pixel 5 arrived and I'm looking forward to giving it a try. Though I already know I will miss MicroG… Maybe I'll end up building my own custom Android ROM, using Hashbang or RattlesnakeOS[6, 7]?

Overall, I don't really understand people who criticize Android for not being open while loudly claiming a "pure" Linux phone would be so much better. (There was yet another discussion here on HN just a few days ago.) Yes, Android is a not your typical open-source project and clearly in the hands of Google. Yes, most phone and chip manufacturers still haven't open-sourced their hardware binary blobs. We definitely have to fight these fights. But with a Linux phone I'd probably be struggling with window-manager-related bugs in the worst possible moments (say, an emergency call) and risk all my data getting stolen whenever I install a new app.

As much as I like Linux – I dabbled with it the first time almost two decades ago and have been using it as a daily driver for more than a decade – but its stability and security guarantees are orders of magnitude worse than Android's.

I secretly hope that Fuchsia will find its way to the desktop at some point and be able to replace my Linux system.

[0]: I still use Google Maps every now and then

[1]: https://microg.org . See https://lineage.microg.org/ for LineageOS images that come with MicroG pre-installed.

[2]: https://auroraoss.com/

[3]: https://syncthing.net

[4]: https://github.com/seedvault-app/seedvault

[5]: http://grapheneos.org/

[6]: https://github.com/hashbang/aosp-build

[7]: https://github.com/dan-v/rattlesnakeos-stack/

[8]: https://netguard.me/

[9]: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/net.typeblog.shelter/