Android

I HATE my Samsung S22+ - it is literally the only phone I have ever regretted purchasing.

Probably most of that is b/c I refuse to make a Samsung account:-P.

Hear me out:

Samsung Galaxy S5

Pros:

• User replaceable battery
• water resistant and dust resistant
• Custom OSes available, easily flashable*
• Headphone jack
• IR blaster
• Heart rate monitor

*Flashing will vlow the eFuse and disable Knox. It will also make it a bit more difficult to use some apps.

Negatives:

• Its old hardware is prob gonna struggle to run most things these days.

(I'm half kidding. My S23 Ultra is hot garbage for features. Fuckers even stripped the SD card support out so my storage just got cut significantly unless I pay for a subscription instead of a single payment on an SD card that I can access in a Faraday Cage if I wanted to. Idk why they care so much about camera quality - especially when they've just made it more difficult and expensive to store images in bulk. If you want pro pictures, get an SLR and take pro pictures. You don't expect that from a laptop, why do we expect it from a pocket computer?)

Pixel 8 Pro. Google's current flagship device, arguably the most secure device on the market, and is first to include Memory Tagging Extension (MTE). As such, it is supported by GrapheneOS, which I highly recommend due to the increased security and control over your own phone (starting with sandboxing the Play Store if you use it, and not giving Google full system privileges like stock/OEM OS does).

When fully integrated into the compiler and each heap allocator, MTE enforces a form of memory safety. It detects memory corruption as it happens. 4 bit tags limit it to probabilistic detection for the general case, but deterministic guarantees are possible via reserving tags.

In hardened_malloc, we deterministically prevent sequential overflows by excluding adjacent tags. We exclude a tag reserved for free tag and the previous tag used for the previous allocation in the slot to help with use-after-free detection alongside FIFO and random quarantines.

https://nitter.net/GrapheneOS/status/1716945639198880037

I'm gonna say Moto 5G Stylus 2023. Disclosure: biased because I got one recently.

Pros:

• Relatively cheap for a 5g phone at $250 new
• Seems pretty fast, Qualcomm chipset, 6GB ram, 512GB flash, NFC, pretty good camera and screen (not top end), 5000 mah battery holds up pretty well. Connoisseurs will have to make their own judgment about the cpu and chipset since idk what else is out there. Android 13.
• SD slot supports up to 2TB card (I don't think those exist yet), 3.5mm headphone jack, has better sound than my Moto G4 did, though maybe still not great (idk).
• The stylus is actually useful for poking tiny UI elements even though the graphics apps aren't there afaict.
• Not from Google or Apple or Samsung
• Claims to support 20 watt USB-C charging (haven't tested, but I do get 15W with a 5V 3A charger)
• Battery replacement not too difficult according to ifixit. Replacement batteries readily available.
• Moto Gestures (make a chopping motion with the phone to turn on the flashlight) comes in handy
• Cameras are decent. Regular, and wide angle with macro. Not high end but I didn't want to pay for that so it's fine.

Cons:

• Much bloatware (mostly removed now). Moto used to be better about this
• Not many software updates promised. No LineageOS support (yet), though some older Moto devices have it, so it might arrive someday
• I don't know the rootability situation, haven't really looked into it, but I hate the idea of downloading binary rootkits from rando authors on file sharing sites
• Claims to support 20 watt USB-C charging but comes with a 10 watt USB-A charger and an A-to-C cable. This works ok though, and slower charging is probably better for the battery.
• No swappable battery though almost nothing has that now.
• Doesn't support Boost Mobile even though the lowest model of the series (Moto G play) supports it
• It would be nice to have an external (e.g. on the edge of the phone) temperature sensor, though I don't know of any phone with that. There is an internal sensor to monitor the batteries and electronics, but those are usually warmer than the ambient air.
• No USB-C HDMI video out

I really don't know the difference between this phone and a flagship, other than wireless charging and fancier cameras.

I love my Zenfone 10. An amazing package.

Sony Xperia XZ1 Compact.

The very last true compact phone with a 3.5mm jack, FM radio, in-device noise cancelling (only with proprietry 5-pole earphones) and hardware camera shutter button.

Oh, not to forget tool-less sim tray removal. This phone had it all.

Since the death of my YotaPhone 2 I'd been so unhappy with every phone purchase until I got a Blackview BV6600 pro.

The battery is enormous, both in capacity and physical size but I still only charge it every 2 or 3 days.

It has an FLIR thermal heat camera built-in. It's so much more useful than I imagined. I used it at work today to find where a mouse was hiding, I used it at home to find a hidden power cable behind a wall.

It's waterproof and shock proof and I can forgive it for not having an e-ink screen on the back.

I'm really happy about my ZenFone 9. It's small, fast, has headphone jack. A mini flagship.

Nice initiative

OnePlus 6

I know it's from 2018 but it's still the most modern smartphone with an almost perfect linux mainline support, hence the very good support by alternative mobile operating systems (not only LineageOS, but also PostMarketOS or even mobile NixOS!).

It still is powerful enough for all usages, it has a good enough camera, great battery and the design still looks quite modern.

Fairphone 4

Hisense A9 with full root + microG

A minimalist eink anti addictive machine that brings smartphones back to an actually useful tool removing literally all the bullshits.

Pixel 7a

There's not really any innovation going on at this point. Pixel A series will get my vote every year for a few basic reasons:

• relatively affordable
• runs GrapheneOS
• Many years of software support received very early.
• Bonus: best smartphone camera money can buy