A Guide for the Perplexed: Android phone for a guy like me...

Kadsura · May 23, 2026, 3:36am

We had a huge thread on phones here not too long ago, and I did look through that one. However, I want to ask for recommendations for a guy like me (smartphone ignoramus, partial curmudgeon) . Hopefully this is not a huge bore to you all…

Anyway:

I am not excited about replacing my Nokia XR-20 that has worked well since I bought it in 2022. I am not a heavy phone user, some days not even turning it on at all. OTOH, I do find the Google map (Switching to Mapy!), wireless Android auto, web, and various apps (AirBNB, Uber, a1rl1ne apps) to be indespensible, especially while traveling. So, it’s not as if I’m contemplating reverting to a flip phone or something.

According to my phone, I have Android 14, and it is up to date–as of Nov 2025. However, I believe security updates for my phone are ending very soon!

One reason my wife and I are both considering upgrading (she also has an XR-20) is that we are going to Japan soon and we want eSIM capability.

Anyway, we were looking at Google Pixel 9a, 10a, and various similarly-priced Samsung alternatives. I am interested in some of the new Chinese phones (e.g., Xiomai) as they are reported to have very good cameras. However, some are not available in the U.S. and I would only be willing to shell out $1300 on something that had very long guaranteed updates.

Anyway, I am looking for

Good camera, good image quality, a minimum of AI in-camera processing (some optical zoom would be nice)
eSIM compatibility
Wireless charge compatibility (guess that rules out the 10a and the Nothing phone)
Headphone jack (or at least ability to get a USB C to 3.5mm adapter)
At least 128 GB internal memory and/or card slot
Wireless Android Auto compatibility
Water-resistant, drop-resistant
Bluetooth (of course)
Good battery life

I would appreciate any suggestions. I/we are really not interested in paying much over $500 for the phone.

In fact, I would also like to ask:

Where can I find slightly older (previous model) new, in-the-box, full warranty phones at a discount? Any good online stores? Is this a bad idea?
If I bought a Pixel phone, I suppose this would be a candidate for later conversion to Graphene OS?
I see that a new Pixel comes with 100 GB Google storage, which I have been refusing for years. I suppose they will just give me a free introductory three months, then automatically charge my card every month thereafter “for my convenience”. Is it difficult to extricate oneself from Googles claws?
Do you think a Google Pixel phone makes sense for me? Is there something better in this price range?
Another thing I don’t understand: Even if I use DuckDuckGo browser, Mapy, Proton Mail and the like instead of native Google apps, can’t Google still see EVERYTHING I am doing on my phone if I get a Pixel??

Thanks for your advice!

priort · May 23, 2026, 4:16am

I have a pixel 9 and I am happy with it …some optical zoom would be nice esp for travel I guess… I am in Canada and use a carrier called Koodo. I seem to luck out with deals the last few years…if there is such a thing in mobile phones in Canada… I took an upgrade offer that was strange it was more service for less money and I could get a pixel 8 for like 8 bucks a month for 2 years and it was mine after that so I got the phone for about 200 bucks… Then this past year they came back with another one and I got the pixel 9 and all I had to do was sign up for prepaid with no increase in my plan and yet again more data that I don’t use… so this one was free… I really don’t like to auto pay my bills and I didn’t need a new phone but I passed the 8 along to a family member that was still using a Pixel 6…

For the most part I find the pixel phones take pleasing photos that I like… They tend to be a bit cooler as I think Google plays games with the blue channel to get some contrast enhancement… anyway I don’t like those neon saturated green leaves and grass that many phones generate and the pixel rarely does that…sometimes teh computational stuff mucks up and if you zoom in there are weird artifacts …its rare and funny enough the picture often looks really good in full preview, you only see this when you go pixel peeping so maybe its actually the computational equivalent of an improved output meant to optimize fullscreen viewing or its just bad image blending :)… but its rare…

With recent upgrades in the software now the jpgs are so good for just everyday shots that I don’t even bother to have a go at the DNG… In most cases I don’t do as good a job… I still try the odd time if I have a photo that I want to see if I can improve but most times its not worth it …

So I think you would likely be happy with a pixel if you can get one in your price range but you might also have some other quality options depending on where you live… good luck with your shopping

kofa · May 23, 2026, 5:00am

We use OnePlus Nord budget phones, and also Moto/Motorola (low end, for work). Both brands come with clean Android, no bloatware or special UI layers. The Motos have a feature we like a lot: a ‘karate chop’ gesture to quickly turn the torch on/off. It’s not an essential feature, but you get used to it quickly.

My OnePlus is over 5 years old. The kids’ are almost 5. Mine is in perfect working condition, no lags etc. The kids’ phones are in worse shape, physically and software-wise. These phones are stuck on Android 12, though.

My work Moto g24 is stuck on Android 14. It receives updates very often, but no major version updates anymore.

I think OnePlus is moving away from clean Android, though. Plus, both are Chinese brands (Moto is owned by Lenovo).

My wife has a Google Pixel 7 Pro. Useful 5x tele camera. I often dislike the processing, though.

Fairphone seem to be committed to long software support:

A list with update policies (doesn’t say anything about Fairphone, though, except that people don’t send to trust them to provide support, but then that contradicts what the company says. Also, it’s about trust, not about experience, anyone can click any of the buttons):

This warranty score list from Galaxus (Swiss/German shop) might be of interest:

Ulrich_from_Germany · May 23, 2026, 5:25am

I am a long time fairphone user.
Advantage:
you can change parts on your own.
They claim long support times, but these are as long as the Pixel, counted from time of introduction)
Disadvantage
Support for custom ROMs is with FP5 not as good as with FP2. If you are really trying to avoid Google, with GrapheneOS and the Pixel you are better settled. Funny that the best option to avoid google is a google-phone.
Camera on FP5 is ok, but Pixel is better I think.

About support times with GrapheneOS: from Frequently Asked Questions | GrapheneOS

Device	OEM minimum support end	OEM minimum support length
Google Pixel 10a	March 2033	7 years
Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold	October 2032	7 years
Google Pixel 10 Pro XL	August 2032	7 years
Google Pixel 10 Pro	August 2032	7 years
Google Pixel 10	August 2032	7 years
Google Pixel 9a	April 2032	7 years
Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold	August 2031	7 years
Google Pixel 9 Pro XL	August 2031	7 years
Google Pixel 9 Pro	August 2031	7 years
Google Pixel 9	August 2031	7 years
Google Pixel 8a	May 2031	7 years
Google Pixel 8 Pro	October 2030	7 years
Google Pixel 8	October 2030	7 years

hatsnp · May 23, 2026, 7:06am

I have a Fairphone 6, we got Android 16 2 or 3 months ago, when my old Pixel 6 had already gotten it since June. While I really like the mission, how they pay their factory workers, safely procured cobalt and other minerals, etc, I am not entirely satisfied with the phone itself or the software support.

There are multiple screen bugs where it won’t respond to touch, sometimes requiring reboot. Camera is just okay, the sensor is supposed to be very good but camera software is lacking so photos are not the best. Sometimes apps runs in the background and just destroy the battery, seems like the system is not tuned very well to kill these out(this may be an android problem).

There are some good things. Plastic build, it has survived a few falls with no damage. Lots and lots of storage 256GB base + 512GB SD Card, battery efficiency is good, screen is good.

Overall I would say skip on the fairphone. For 600 euro I should’ve purchased a 300 euro Xiaomi or Samsung and sent the other 300 to a charity. I am sure the net environmental impact would be much more positive and I would have ended up with a better phone. If I was buying today I would wait for the GrapheneOS+Motorola partnership and buy that instead.

Vente · May 23, 2026, 8:08am

How are they in terms of GUI speed and smoothness? I was looking at what Samsung has to offer, like the A56 or an older base S model, but I’d prefer something with a cleaner system, like Motorola. My main preference for a phone these days is the speed and reliability of the OS and its extensions, the rest of the specs are more or less meaningless to me - especially cameras, ofc.

My Xiaomi Mi 9T is stuck on 11 and I’ve been loooong forgotten by the devs – no updates whatsoever since Aug 2021

kofa · May 23, 2026, 9:39am

I have absolutely no issues with my 8 GB OnePlus Nord. The kids did complain, though. I don’t game, don’t install/uninstall a lot of apps.

The Moto I cannot really judge. It only has authenticator etc. apps for work, MS Teams and Outlook also for work, and gets maybe 1 hour of screen time per week. The battery lasts more than a week with that amount of use.

Tamas_Papp · May 23, 2026, 9:57am

I usually go cheap, 150–200 eur. Last time I got the Realme 14x 5G with 128 Gb ram, there is a 256 Gb version for around 200 EUR now.

It is not outstanding in any aspect, but fully waterproof (mine has been dropped in the bathtub, mountain streams, pools, etc multiple times), reasonably shockproof (screen still intact). I got it for the eSIM, the only option I could find in this pricerange at the time.

My advice: under no circumstances spend >$500 on a phone. It is a freaking phone at the end of the day. You can get so many useful things for that much money, and if you spend more than 30 min with your phone / day, you are just wasting precious time.

Vente · May 23, 2026, 10:07am

Yeah at that price the diminishing returns hit brutally hard. A 300 euro phone may do just as much as those 1500 euro flagships.

I’m really curious for how long I can make do with this phone, it’s been more or less trouble-free during the time I have had it. The data pins of the USB-C connector (losing contact) are probably the biggest trouble, though I barely need to transfer data over cable anyways… Hopefully I won’t be feature limited as some authentication services require Android 14 features.

I wonder how the lower end Moto phones do with long term performance, I’d be curious what’s the lowest I can go.

But for now I’m going to apply the “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it” strategy

bastibe · May 23, 2026, 10:26am

I, too, have a Fairphone 6, since all my phone purchases were due to poor reparability.

I like the Fairphone mission and design. But the great repairability makes it non-waterproof, and as of the Android 16 update last month, it fails to connect to IPv6 on my WiFi. I’m sure this bug will soon get fixed, but it is annoying. These things are an acceptable tradeoff to me, but I wouldn’t recommend it to a self-proclaimed “smartphone ignoramus, partial curmudgeon”.

Software security updates are now mandated by the EU to last for seven years, so that’s (thankfully) no longer a major distinction.

As for privacy, I avoid Google apps where I can, but not to a fault. At the end of the day Google does provide some valuable services. I would vastly prefer paying for them instead of my data being sold, but alas, that’s not an option. Also consider that a missing jigsaw piece is almost as well-defined as the piece itself, so there’s not much use in going overboard with privacy.

Vente · May 23, 2026, 10:32am

quote of the day right there

Yogansh_Bhatt · May 23, 2026, 10:43am

If you want to get the most out of your money then Samsungs and pixels are the furthest from your goals

.

If we speak plainly about hardware then getting even the xiaomi 14u (used/open box or whatever condition you can get) would be not just better than any flagship samsung or pixel but also a lot cheaper.

Pixels are …fine but the SOC is midrange at best and the device will throttle if you look at it too hard
Samsungs…well I don’t want to talk about oneui 8 locking out the unlocking and a dozen other quirks of Samsungs especially for videographers and photographers. Unless you go RAW (and not Uraw or whatever but unstacked single frame RAW from third party apps and similarly RAW video…a few apps support it now with one leading for a few years) everything is cooked. I’ll leave it at that.

You can do great things with minimal specs but if you really care about what you purchase then that’s what my experience and experiences of almost all the samsung users who shoot concerts and stuff like that with challenging conditions compel me to put this out here. Their image processing pipeline is probably the most overcooked one you can get right now.

Now to the suggestions part:

If you want a pixel… Pixel 8 pro is the best deal you can get. Sure there are improvements here and there but it is insignificant if you compare the savings with the gains.

If you can find the xiaomi 15u ( or even the 14u ) or the vivo x200u for an acceptable price, Both have GREAT hardware almost indistiguishable from the current flagships and provide great value for money. I’m speaking purely from Hardware point of view.

OnePlus 12 is also nice, the tele OV64B is 16mp in contrast to the regular 12mp you get. You’ll get nice crisp details although the sensor itself is much smaller when compared to the other options I suggested above. (The vivo and the xiaomi have the largest tele sensors currently paired with 1" type and 1/1.28" type main sensors)

This and the motorola edge 50 ultra are in my opinion one of the best deals right now, especially if you shoot RAW. The Mics are great on Motorolas and the experience itself is a lot nicer. The signature they launched is …fine but looks like a downgrade with a flagship price. Skip the 60 series with mediatek SOC.

You can look at xiaomi 14 ultra if you are okay with a 2 gen older model. It still has a 1" main sensor and the SOC will keep up with most tasks and might even be closer to your budget. Battery life Hasn’t been as good on this one .

Samsung base models are also nice but nothing fancy…at least you don’t pay ultra price as you would have to for their flagships.

OnePlus has good SOC but mediocre camera HW even with the current flagships. So there’s that.

Checkout the options and see what you like and don’t. You can get WAY MORE out of any Android from the past 5 years although the OEMs lock it down from the users so you’ll have to fiddle around more but the above suggestions are good enough from the get go .

I’ll try to answer some of the questions you added at the end.

De-googling is not hard, keeping google away from you is. For example you can simply flash a custom rom on day one with no google no nothing and it’ll be fine. I won’t comment on graphene OS but even without it you can remove a ton of stuff.
For the price you get the best camera2api support so you have all the bells and whistles on the software side but it all goes to the bin because of the HW. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not bad, it’s just not worth the money even used because at that point any chinese last year flagship will make a ton more sense .
Pixel isn’t directly “google telemetry heaven” because the entirety android space is Google’s heaven🙂. You get a samsung, you get spied by Google as well as Samsung.

On the brighter side, pixels are incredibly easy to unlock UNLIKE Samsung’s now. Xiaomi made it harder as well so although it was absolutely the best OEM for a while in terms of what you can access both on HW and SW side for a long while, now you’d have to pay someone with exploits to unlock on day one or wait till your luck shines in the lucky draw of fortunes.

OnePlus and motorola are still relatively easy to unlock. So yeah. There’s that. If you unlock bootloader, it is usually fine but rooting will break your device integrity and Google will again make sure you don’t get a good long sleep not worrying about your temporary fixes to be broken by Google the next morning.

If you want to purchase a device it is not hard even through this jungle of choices, owning a device you purchased is the hard part.

Terry · May 23, 2026, 1:03pm

I upgraded my Samsung phones for Oppo. Not the usual choice people discuss, but it represented a good tech level at a fairer price than most. I also live in a mobile phone black hole and it was reported as having stronger reception, which I can luckily say it does. It also has two sim slots so I run a physical sim and an eSim for travelling. Works well for me. It can also go swimming with me if I am so inclined. Camera is decent for a phone.

gjgj · May 23, 2026, 1:31pm

I don’t have an answer for you on the phone side, but following the thread because I feel the same about needing a phone! I ended up getting a used iPhone SE (2020) for $100 off of FB marketplace and it suits required smartphone things. I’ve had good luck with refurbished phones through eBay as well.

This is why I’m trying to migrate away from Google (although Apple’s no saint, either!). I had a Pixel 3a years ago and loved it, along with the grandfathered photo storage offered through having a Pixel device.

I can’t find a source, so it must’ve been a rumor… Some suspect Google’s Nano Banana the best AI image generator because it was trained on infinite amounts of user Google photos…!

Yogansh_Bhatt · May 23, 2026, 5:26pm

And it now asks if you want it to look at your entire library of photos on gphotos for personalized suggestions.
yeah, no.

for @Kadsura and @gjgj or tbh anyone who has similar thoughts and doesn’t really know for sure then here are some comments from other people deep in the jungle for years. I already explained that a degoogled pixel with no GMS on a custom rom would be a lot better than other options .

“A Pixel with replaced Google apps not logged into a Google account should be somewhat private, at least as far as subpoenas from wannabe totalitarian governments go”

“You buy a Jolla, or any of these other crazily overpriced phones, or just use burner dumbphones, there’s always a way depending on how much commodity you want to loose
You don’t need to use Android, there are other options. You just want the commodity of it.”

These two are a few of the comments I want to share. As mentioned You can either get one of those linux phones and pray no google ever touches your soul or read what I share below.

" If a user is not
signed-in or does not have a Google account, then Google assigns a “Browser Cookie ID”
number based on the individual characteristics of the computer involved. Id. ¶ 7. Both the
GAIA ID and the Browser Cookie ID are personally identifiable with information available to
law enforcement with a subpoena. And in both cases, Google also retains the user’s IP address,
which law enforcement can use to subpoena subscriber information, including names and
addresses."

this is from Source 1

and this is Source 2 for feeling a violation of your privacy. I do not live in USA or Europe so I may not have any understanding of it but you can probably find way more documents where google itself goes on about the meticulous ways your data has been exploited for years…decades whatever.

So even if you are logged out you cannot think for a second that you are in the world as God created it, You are very much in the same world all our combined ignorance in ways contributed into making it a reality.

The first comment I shared should have a lot more context if you go through these.

I can probably find better documents but that shall be enough as a hint.

Just get a phone, unlock it, cleanse it with all the rituals (you can learn if you care enough) and with enough awareness you won’t worry much. You can never be carefree though

mikae1 · May 23, 2026, 5:52pm

Not gonna lie, I think they’re all crap. Control over DOF is quite nice, no camera phone is going to give me that. There are phones with 1” sensors, but they’re almost always paired with something like a 23mm equiv lens (or wider), which is the most horrible general purpose focal length, for me.

Get the cheapest Pixel (they run GrapheneOS) and (if possible) bring a small camera instead. The Pixel 10a will have upgrades for almost 7 years from now. I don’t think that’ll be the case for a Xiaomi.

paperdigits · May 23, 2026, 6:20pm

I think a pixel with graphine is your best bet. I am happy to help you install graphine, if that’s the path you choose.

martin.scharnke · May 24, 2026, 1:53am

I, too, have had good experience with Oppo; I bought 2 A74 4G handsets in November 2021 and both are still working fine; have roamed in multiple overseas countries seamlessly.

Oppo runs a customised Android OS called ColorOS. The only significant caveat is that some apps will not install on an external Micro-SD but only on internal RAM.

Kadsura · May 24, 2026, 3:37am

Thanks very much for all the information! I will have to take some time to digest and consider everything here. We are leaning toward some type of Pixel (comments here reinforce that inclination), and later I will consider switching to Graphene OS.

As for the camera aspect of the phone–on vacations and photo outings I always have either my Nikon D7200 or Z50, so I certainly do not rely on a phone for all of my photos.

I played around with raw images on my Nokia, but did not like all the screen clutter and felt it kind of a waste to try and exert any type of manual control. This is especially annoying with no hard controls–I like physical buttons, switches, and dials! Also, I think 12 MP jpgs are adequate for even 8x12" prints, and pretty much any on-screen display.

Some of the results I have obtained are surprisingly good, and some are trash, with overly aggressive sharpening, noise reduction, etc. Hence, I just treat it as a point-and-shoot device and am content to be pleasantly surprised by some images, while trashing others. I do really prefer the phone to any type of “real camera” for street photography. This type of photography is not really my thing, but I am enjoying it more and more because of the freedom and unobtrusiveness a phone allows.

Also, there is a certain pleasure in just point and shoot/shapshooting. It is still photography, and still an artistic process, but engages a different set of thought processes than dSLR or mirrorless photography.

Also agree with what was said above about not paying more than $500. At least for me, I really do not see the point, and of course, have better things to spend my money on. (I am not really even sure what you even get in a $1000+ phone.) As such, the seven years of support offered by the Pixel line is very appealing–not only from a finacial perspective, but also because I hate the idea of all the endless waste we are producing from disposable everything. My first smartphone was an LG K7 I got for $50 as a T-mobile special in 2016 (they were blowing them out!). I kept that phone for six years. However, my current Nokia, bought in 2022 was a worthwhile upgrade.

Yogansh_Bhatt · May 24, 2026, 11:24am

I agree, there are options from Vivo and Nubia which are 35mm and actually have good DOF! The tele on both the current and last gen vivo ultra is the biggest you can get (HP9 or HPE) and tbh I’ve seen enough people using those and sharing amazing content to have them as the top recommendations for someone who wants it. The price isn’t very inviting but then there are cheap phones with 1" sensors and many have even done some nice DIY C mounts and then great glass to show that it’s not the hardware but the acceptance of it that is lacking.

People keep buying Samsungs and pixels and they keep using the same old hardware whereas you have phones like xiaomi 12s ultra 3-4 years ago with 1" main🙂

I tried the grain app on playstore, GPU preview of the RAW stream so you get what you see, auto+ manual mode , you can import your Luts, has a Fujifilm inspired looks already available which you can tweak…like Fujifilm…

Finding a good gcam fork would probably give you the best images in terms of what you can leverage out of those computational algorithms minus the stock processing. Essential best data with no manipulations from your OEM.

There are other apps like Motioncam which has AgX & ACES tonemapping, DCP & lut support, shoots RAW video but that is limited to 5 second on trial. Dev is starting to work more on photo side so you can expect bracketing and other features (probably all free ).

Just don’t use stock camera regardless of which android (or iphone) you pick. There are many open source apps that will provide a simple experience removing all the processing that goes on with stock ISP pipeline.

You can get those photography kits with xiaomi and vivos if you get those. They extend battery life and provide Good manual control + you get to attach filters on the 17mm or whatever thread there is.

My final thoughts would be to get a last gen ultra from motorola, xiaomi or vivo but if you are liking the pixels then 8 pro will provide you with massive value as the hardware is essentially the same. Same ISOCELL GNK sensor but at a fraction of the latest gen pro’s price.
Focus on which apps you use and getting used to them. Once you look at untouched RAW from these phones you’ll never touch stock camera and assuming you may already have done so, it makes little difference which device you get because the difference with RAW is nowhere near as big between these smartphones as the jump to a larger format sensor (and I mean APSC or full frame).

I daily a pixel 8 pro myself btw, it was a rare deal for me at the time and I got the 512 for super cheap. I wanted to get the xiaomi 14 ultra but the price was too good to let go so I just got my first pissel. Honestly it is great for me and I will not change it soon but I still don’t feel like suggesting it knowing the value you can get with the same money but a different device is a lot more .