Xiaomi and similar (like Poco) I like because of their higher performance and usually including both headphone jack and IR blaster. Currently have X3 Pro.
What I do not like about them is the tracking. Ads I don’t mind, honestly, but data collection kinda bothers me. You also need a Mi account to unlock the bootloader with a proprietary Xiaomi tool, plus there’s a waiting period. Yuck. Also, the software feels like unfinished rushed project. I am pretty sure Alpha releases of most custom ROMs are more stable. Anyway, I kept the stock ROM on this one anyway.
Moving on…
Google. Yes, you read that right. They not only allow easy bootloader unlocking, but also relocking with a custom key, thus being the choice of Graphene OS.
What I outright hate is no headphone jack and Micro SD card slot. Otherwise, I’d just get one of the Pixels pretty damn quick.
Lastly…
Pine64. Easy to obtain spare parts, pogo pins for hardware expansion (like a keyboard or LoRa module), possibility to communicate directly with the modem over internal serial interface because that’s possible too, built mainly for GNU+Linux distros.
But the whole idea is very much experimental.
Could have been Nokia up there if they kept it up with N900.
Ooof, that’s hard. There’s no single favorite.
Xiaomi and similar (like Poco) I like because of their higher performance and usually including both headphone jack and IR blaster. Currently have X3 Pro.
What I do not like about them is the tracking. Ads I don’t mind, honestly, but data collection kinda bothers me. You also need a Mi account to unlock the bootloader with a proprietary Xiaomi tool, plus there’s a waiting period. Yuck. Also, the software feels like unfinished rushed project. I am pretty sure Alpha releases of most custom ROMs are more stable. Anyway, I kept the stock ROM on this one anyway.
Moving on…
Google. Yes, you read that right. They not only allow easy bootloader unlocking, but also relocking with a custom key, thus being the choice of Graphene OS.
What I outright hate is no headphone jack and Micro SD card slot. Otherwise, I’d just get one of the Pixels pretty damn quick.
Lastly…
Pine64. Easy to obtain spare parts, pogo pins for hardware expansion (like a keyboard or LoRa module), possibility to communicate directly with the modem over internal serial interface because that’s possible too, built mainly for GNU+Linux distros.
But the whole idea is very much experimental.
Could have been Nokia up there if they kept it up with N900.