I thought the (most expensive) Pixels are high end flagships?

They are, but historically they've been at an unusually low price point for what they offer. I think the latest upcoming Pixel is the first to be priced more "normally".

The CPUs in Pixels are kind of average because google uses their own design. So a highend Qualcomm or the like, will be better.

I really wish Graphene OS worked on other phones.

My current daily driver is an HMD Skyline also have a Motorola, Sony Xperia and a Nokia Android from 2017-2018 with a shattered screen but might still be repairable and can be used as is but none are listed as compatible.

They are not. I was very disappointed that it was a step down for pixel 10 pro over a phone I already had for five years.

They are mediocre in every way.

Because they don't have the TPM lock they want for enhanced security. It's a nonstarter for GrapheneOS devs and the reason only now they're starting to branch out. However they mentioned literally Qualcomm by name integrating it on their latest elite series, so I'm thinking more devices might be compatible in the future?

I wish there was a budget, say 200 Euros, phone that supported grapheneOS. I never buy a more expensive phone than that, as I find phones in that price range more than enough...

Also, fuck the size of today's phones. They are way too big.

Could somone ELI5.

When discussing other ROMs I was told ROMs would be dead given that need to keep android open. I took that to mean micro G and many, many, other apps would break due to Devs unwilling (or unable?) to support non play store apps.

How then would gOS continue, especially with a hardware partner? I understand the Google lockdown is upstream so gOS will be in the same boat, with things Accrcent (store) and Vanadium.

Thanks.

There are basically 3 types of OSs out there:

• Google-approved android (these come with Google apps, and most importantly Google services, which are basically what is going to BD doing the blocking for the cause Keep Android Open is concerned about. Google services already has some additional attestation stuff in, which many banks use, which only work if you've got a stock google-approved OS)
• Non Google approved android (generally based on AOSP which is the actually open source code Google publishes for android, these don't come with google services so they fail the play store attestation, generally people will be needing microg to use stuff like YouTube, which is basically a light google services replacement)
• Graphene OS (it gets its special category because it sandboxes apps so you can use Google services apps in a way that doesn't give them access to the rest of your system and therefore shouldn't be able to mess with what you want to install, best of both worlds but it's not foolproof).

There are a few other projects like /e/ but that's just AOSP with a coat of paint, graphene is a much more substantial change to how your phone locks down app access.

So does microG work good enough to run banking apps? That's really the big question for most I think.

Not really cause you need to patch those apps to support microg instead afaik, at least you do with YouTube, and banking apps probably have ways to check if they've been meddled with.

To expand on that if you're curious, there are afaik 2 types of attestation to verify it's a safe device, device attestation (which checks for a locked bootloader and some specific fingerprints), this is safe to fake for custom roms. The other one is the one i mentioned done through the software side with Google play services and such. That's impossible to fake currently (afaik, been a minute since I could install a custom rom).

You use the plexus app to find out essentially. Can be installed from fdroid.

Thanks. What a shame. I blame the banks really.

Thanks. Well surprisingly even banking should be working, except one "broken" review for the latest version.

Used Pixels are awesome! I believe anything from the Pixel 6 to 10 is all supported, I know lots of people like the "a" series (like the 8a or 9a)

It's really Google's fault for implementing this, the banks do get some of the blame for using it too when it has nothing to do with security though.

Yes. But the dev lockout stuff that Google is forcing will apply to all three. As I understand it.

It works through the Google play services afaik so it won't.

Thanks.

It seems that

The rule only kicks in on devices that come loaded with Google's own apps and services, known as Google Mobile Services or GMS.

That said, LineageOS flagged one gap worth watching which is if someone sideloads a third-party Google Apps package onto their device, that package could theoretically include the verification system bundled in

I wonder of we'll see more banking (and other) apps lockout ROMs that don't have GMS, or bundle it in when installed on something like gOS.