My phone is dying and i also really want to increase my privacy and fully decouple myself from the google ecosystem so i was thinking of moving to a pixel and using grapheneOS. Now is the time before tech prices shoot way up from tariffs. What model of pixel should i get that isnt too expensive but isnt likely to lose grapheneOS support anytime soon? I was thinking like a 7 maybe
Can we still use a plus one if we buy it cash and thrn import it? I feel like there should be a more optimal solution to getting off android than the Google brand phone.
OnePlus sells phones direct in US markets. They're the only Chinese company with phones that have all US wifi bands too. Wifi is likely to suck with an imported phone. Only some of them support custom ROMs though, like the OnePlus 12R does, but not the OnePlus 12 (all ROMs are just now in alpha almost a year after launch).
GrapheneOS is the most secure and privacy-oriented ROM available though and because they're security first, they only support Google phones due to some hardware features other vendors don't have. Graphene devs got access to a confidential cybersecurity chat and found that other than newer iPhones, Android w/ Graphene was the best option against government cracking software if you're legitimately concerned about your phone being taken by authorities.
Personally, I'm not concerned about that, so I'm okay with something like LineageOS w/ Aurora Store, etc because Google phones are objectively worse (in hardware) than every other phone at the same price point.
Oh damn, you did your homework