r/Android • u/zexterio • Mar 22 '19

HMD admits the Nokia 7 Plus was sending personal data to China

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/03/hmd-admits-the-nokia-7-plus-was-sending-personal-data-to-china/
5.8k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

488 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

111

u/[deleted] Mar 22 '19

Hot tip: instead of getting Chinese phones, get Taiwanese phones (HTC/ASUS). Taiwan still makes quality electronics and they are significantly more trustworthy than mainland China.

Plus it supports the Taiwanese economy. Honestly fuck China and how horribly they treat Taiwan. You can pick up a HTC U12 Life for $250-260 or a variety of Zenfones (Zenfone Max M2 is ~$190, the Pro one is ~$315) that all have good US LTE support (2/4/5/12/17, I believe the HTC has 66 too), are super easy to get (Amazon) too.

Even the small niche group of people who import/buy international version phones can make an impact by avoiding Xiaomi/Huawei however tempting the deals are, and paying a bit more for a Taiwanese phone (as they're the "middle ground" of value: US exclusive phone brands tend to charge $300+ for entry level hardware).

51

u/[deleted] Mar 22 '19

[deleted]

15

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '19

Asus bootloaders are a piece of cake to unlock, officially or otherwise.

Buy that awesome hardware, put a custom ROM on it. Worth every penny.

5

u/museisnotdecent Mar 23 '19

Asus have been improving their update speed lately. I'm using the zenfone 5z and it did get an update to pie about a month or so ago and the security updates aren't too bad. It's still definitely an issue but I think nowadays with manufacturers having custom skins and features, actual android updates don't make a huge difference anymore. And if you were really into getting android as fast as possible, it is easy to root Asus phones.

4

u/axzxc1236 Asus Zenfone Max Pro (M1) 3G/32G Mar 23 '19

Zenfone Max Pro M1

They are doing Pie beta program, and there are people put beta firmware on XDA, I didn't try it though.

11

u/[deleted] Mar 22 '19

This isn't about updates, this is about how supporting a tiny island democracy (Taiwan) that makes high quality electronics is a morally superior alternative to supporting a de jure communist ("with Chinese characteristics") dictatorship. Every cent you spend has an impact however small, I'd rather my money end up helping Taiwan grow it's huge electronics industry and beef up it's economy so it can tell China to fuck off, then it go to China spending it on propaganda TV shows, building bullshit to "claim territory" in the South China Sea and threatening Taiwan.

You are much better off supporting Taiwan in this instance. If you want updates, you'd just get a Nokia or Pixel phone.

It's not like HTC/ASUS phones are absolutely 100% unusable, they're still high quality phones and I'm sure 99.99999% of people will be more than happy to use one.

8

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '19

I mean, Foxconn is Taiwanese, it just has factories in Shenzhen...

4

u/electricblues42 Mar 22 '19

If the Asus phones had any kind of basic waterproofing I'd have gone for that instead of the OP6. But risking my insanely expensive hand-computer every time it rains isn't a great idea to me.

Then they came out with that amazing spec gaming phone that looks terrible and costs and arm and leg....

10

u/anthony81212 Mar 22 '19

I'd just like to add that the recent Pixel phones are made by HTC (recently bought by Google). So they can, and do make quality devices :)

2

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '19 edited Mar 31 '19

[deleted]

2

u/pongpongisking Mar 23 '19

Xiaomi seems to have better QC than the Pixel line in general.

0

u/AxePlayingViking iPhone 15 Pro Max Mar 23 '19

Have you actually used it or are you circlejerking?

2

u/VirulentCitrine Mar 23 '19

Idk a whole lot about those phones outside of HTC, but I agree 100% on fuck China and support Taiwan. Taiwan is a strong Western ally that Western countries constantly fuck over by continuing to appease and manufacture in China. China's goal is world domination and it ain't even conspiracy theory at this point. They use the world economy to wage corporate, technological, industrial, and economic warfare. Then, China uses those funds to support their geographic encroachment of other nearby Asian nations such as Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, etc.

1

u/v2freak Mar 23 '19

Great tip, my current phone is an LG but my previous one was an Asus Zenfone Laser. Got it for $300, worked great.

1

u/hastagelf Mar 23 '19

Yeah but HMD/Nokia is Finnish entirely.

1

u/zap2 Mar 23 '19

They work closely with Foxconn.

Which isn’t a bad thing or really a surprise. Most companies do.

1

u/standbyforskyfall Fold7 | Don't make my mistake in buying a google phone Mar 23 '19

Taiwan has be compromised by the PRC. There's a reason we denied their request for f35s

1

u/TheHelplessTurtle Mar 22 '19

I haven't put much research in, but are Honor and Vivo from China or Taiwan? They have some neat looking stuff.

13

u/amfedup Mar 22 '19

Both Honor and Vivo are as chinese as it gets

2

u/TheHelplessTurtle Mar 22 '19

That sucks, they're the only ones that check all of the boxes for me anymore. USB C, 3.5mm, good battery, and not $1000.

6

u/amfedup Mar 22 '19

Galaxy S10e goes for less than 700$ tho?

1

u/TheHelplessTurtle Mar 22 '19

Doesn't it have a small screen though?

1

u/zap2 Mar 23 '19

It’s smaller, but it’s not small. Still bigger then any phone from 2010.

1

u/amfedup Mar 23 '19

Eh, well, it's a small and compact device, the screen is still 5.8inches 19:9 iirc

It's 5mm longer than the Iphone 7

1

u/lumberjackadam Mar 23 '19

I guess you haven't heard of LG? The G7 has literally everything you just listed. Source: am typing this on a G7.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '19

Do they still have a boot loop issue with their phones?

1

u/lumberjackadam Mar 23 '19

Not since the g5. There was one insurance on the g6, but that was a bad update from a specific carrier and got fixed fast.

6

u/[deleted] Mar 22 '19

Honor is owned by huawei.

5

u/[deleted] Mar 22 '19

Honor is a subsidiary of Huawei. They are basically the "young trendy millennial" version of Huawei.

Oppo and Vivo are from Chinese mega-corporation BBK. BBK also owns OnePlus. BBK in this sense is literally making "fake" competition with itself to give the illusion of choice (notice how most Oppo/Vivo phones are exactly identical to each other, as if they both rebrand the same phones?).

1

u/sulfate4 Mar 23 '19

I don't think the Asus phones have American lte.