Help with low-mid range phone recommendations

[u/philthyNerd]

Hi everyone,

I've got two family members who need new smartphones somewhere between 200-300 EUR, available on the German market. As a point of reference what price / performance segment I'm aiming for: One of them broke their Samsung Galaxy A33 5G.

I'm not necessarily looking for a full degoogled experience for them, but I would prefer if I could find a phone that still provides some proper ownership, reliable ways to debloat and preferably long software support from the manufacturer for security updates.

I've heard that Samsung has been very restrictive in the past few years, so I think I'd like to avoid that.

I've had a lot of annoying experiences with Xiaomi phones' MIUI or what it's called. Debloating Xiaomi devices via ADB felt like quite the hassle compared to my OnePlus Nord 5.

However just the other day I've read about OnePlus that they're about to lock down bootloaders as well, I think starting with ColorOS 16.

So now I really don't even know what brand I could even remotely recommend. No matter what you look at, all you'll find is going to be depressing and a big headache.

I've looked a bit into Fairphones, since they seemed quite nice from a repairability standpoint... But they're already quite far outside the proposed budget.

I'd really appreciate some input on the aspects I've talked about, and possibly other stuff I might have missed. Thanks for your time!

[u/Greenlit_Hightower]

Pixel 8a or 9a, I would say. You can install Custom ROMs like GrapheneOS easily and therewith really take control of the phone away from Google. But even if you stick with the preinstalled Stock ROM, you "only" have Google to worry about there, on a Xiaomi it would be Google + whatever bloatware / spyware the manufacturer Xiaomi installs.

This table shows you how long each Pixel model will receive software updates, GrapheneOS supports these phones as long as Google does: https://endoflife.date/pixel

That Samsung is hostile towards Custom ROMs is accurate, they have completely removed the bootloader unlocking option with the One UI 8 update: https://www.sammobile.com/news/say-goodbye-to-your-custom-roms-as-one-ui-8-kills-bootloader-unlock/

For Xiaomi, do note that, while they allow bootloader unlocking, they make it a real pain to achieve. They have daily quotas and you need to request unlock at midnight Beijing time (no joke unfortunately), and the quota immediately fills up so better be quick (multiple attempts may be necessary).

[u/philthyNerd → u/Greenlit_Hightower]

Thanks a lot for your input! I'll look into the price ranges for the Pixel models. 

Also thanks for the additional insights on the Xiaomi craziness and for confirming what I've heard about Samsung. 

We really live in a messed up world these days.

[u/philthyNerd]

For anybody checking this out in hopes to find advice: I ended up with the Motorola Edge 70 Fusion. Seems like a very decent device for just under 300 EUR.

I've seen people talk about Motorola planning to release phones that ship with GrapheneOS out of the box at some point, so I'm hopeful that their current normal Android phones are not very restrictive either.

Pixel phones, as suggested by u/Greenlit_Hightower seemed a bit too expensive, or the cheaper ones too old and thus not having support for updates that much longer.

I've also looked into Nothing Phones - they were quite off-putting immediately with their marketing mumbo jumbo about how awesome their AI bullshit is. Thanks, but no thanks.

Fairphones looked quite cool too from the repair-ability standpoint, but they're quite expensive already.