I’ll believe it when the roms hit xda.
Excited, sure, just hesitant. No buy until it’s truth.
Please Moto, make a not gigantic 6in slab of a phone. Please make one ~5in with good specs.
I don’t care that much about size. Not nearly as much as the “flagship” designation bullshit. How about we don’t have to pay 5x as much, because it’s a flagship and still let us have Graphene?
Most Motorola phones in the U.S. were cheaper, but post sanctions I’m not sure.
Wish I could get it without the free watch and earbuds and take those out of the price. "Free $299 value buying a $399 phone. Can I just buy the phone for $150 please lol.
Edit: (Apparently the developers are just supporting flagships for now, so the normal phones I guess won’t be supported)
Yep. Sick of giant phones. Crazy hard to find a small phone with decent specs.
I want a new take on the Pixel 4a. Slim, light, reasonably rugged just by the nature that it’s plastic all around and weighs nothing. I miss that phone still…
Same! The only reason I moved to an 8 is bc the port ended up getting so worn it stopped charging and wireless charging took forever.
6 inches is gigantic?
That’s what I have and it doesn’t feel quite big enough. Close but not quite.
Never once thought it felt too big in my hand or my pocket…
Yes.
Your hands are large.
Maybe your hands are just smol
personally i think Moto G Power is gonna be a beast with GOS
Dual sim slots sd card headphone jack insane battery
AFAIK they’re only targeting their flagship models first. Guess we’ll see, but I don’t think the Moto G series will get it. At least not initially.
whistles
They make a $2,600 smartphone?
I’d bet that about half the price is just the RAM soldered onto the thing
It’s gonna be a premium for the folding feature or some other feature on that particular model — they list two other models that are considerably less expensive and have the same amount of RAM.
Can confirm recently got a box of 440 unsoldered Micron DDR5 memory ICs at work.
It was $140k. Not DIMMS but the chips soldered to the DIMM.
I think the foldables are all somewhere along those lines. New tech, and double the screen and such adds up.
Okay good, they clarified that they won’t ship with it. I’ve seen people saying they will but I never read anything from Graphene or Moto stating that.
Wouldn’t it be better if it DID? Wouldn’t that get around all the “tamper” detection stuff?
Right now I have Google Play disabled in my owner profile, but it would be nice if apps in secondary profiles could pass the full Play Integrity checks… even though I’m actively trying to transition away from them.
For example Cisco DUO says my device with GrapheneOS installed has been tampered with, and I was hoping that would go away if I could just buy the phone with GrapheneOS installed.
In the long term, yes it would be better if it shipped.
However, if someone went to a phone store with a stock graphene on display and anything else next to it, which one do you think they’ll choose?
Until Graphene’s stock experience (i.e stock apps and launcher) mature enough to not look out of place next to google and apple, the average Joe will pick the more polished phone. I hope improving that is a task Motorola will be able to help with, while graphene keeps doing their thing.
Additionally with the app/play store dualopoly, Motorola would be shooting them selves in the foot if they didn’t ship with the play store.
Getting an option beside a pixel for Grapheneos is pretty cool and a big step forward. I hope new demand will be high enough to show the decision makers that its an endeavor worth continuing.
However, if someone went to a phone store with a stock graphene on display and anything else next to it, which one do you think they’ll choose?
Given the past couple years I’d like to think the fraction to choose graphene would be multiple times what it would have been 5-10 years ago. But not close to a majority.
I’m not sure about that. I have been using Graphene for a bit, and its surprising due to Google just how much stuff breaks and simply doesn’t work or fails silently under Graphene. It feels like one of the old school Custom ROMs which is great, but not on your daily driver phone.
Until Graphene’s stock experience (i.e stock apps and launcher) mature enough to not look out of place next to google and apple
why, what’s the problem with it? that it’s not filled with promotional apps?
Additionally with the app/play store dualopoly, Motorola would be shooting them selves in the foot if they didn’t ship with the play store.
they could just ask in the setup flow whether to install the play store
Honestly I can’t tell the difference with the launcher compared to what shipped on the phone, not that I used that very much - but I upgraded from an LG G8 and the whole thing looks very familiar. The camera app feels very much like the one on my LG but I suspect someone who is more into photography than me would be frustrated by it. But the standout awful stock app has got to be the clock, the ui is clunky and feels awful to use, the tones are obnoxious, and it has all the visual flair of a C student project.
I’ve mostly just replaced it with the alarm on my smart watch.
if someone went to a phone store with a stock graphene on display and anything else next to it, which one do you think they’ll choose?
People consider the phone features too. For example Huawei has built a really solid following due to their phones’ quality and that following didn’t go away when Google started sabotaging their phones. Eventually banking apps started releasing versions for Huawei AppGallery (the Huawei Android app store).
So the Google monopoly can be bent if there’s sufficient demand.
It doesn’t even need to be in the store, just let me order one online and check off a “GrapheneOS” box, the same way that I can order a Framework laptop with either Windows or Linux.
But I get your point, I can see how someone could get confused when their phone arrived and required some extra tinkering to get Google stuff to work.
It wouldn’t go away. It will only go away if Google signs grapheneos images. Grapheneos on all supported devices support the required attestation already. It is just Google pettiness.
I believe the play services agreement
MotorolaLenovo signs to get the play store on their devices would forbid that.Yes sure. I was merely commenting on the misunderstanding surrounding this.
Man, I would be all over the is of it was on lower end models so I can run graphene as my sketchy international travel phone. But I don’t really want to pay flagship prices for that. And I still believe in having a curated primary digital fingerprint.
And I still believe in having a curated primary digital fingerprint.
Could you please elaborate? I know what digital footprint is, minimizing and compartmentalization techniques, but not primary and curated digital footprint.
Functional and hypothetical only example usage of a curated digital footprint, for story purposes:
You keep, use, maintain, and preferably daily drive technology interfacing gizmos in a manner that results in a footprint where the conclusions drawn from it resolve to a “curated” set of… whatever the beholder is looking to ID from the footprint.
Functional example:
You keep and use devices in a manner that is at most “normie+”.
You own a Pixel Phone but keep stock android on it and add just enough to it not make you hate your life. You use a couple of normal sub services.
You still show some of your silly, like use an account on a porn website that federates with the world you care to socialize with. You still post how The Man better watch out.
Same as everyone else. The fingerprint looks like what you want it to look like.
So that it remains separate from what could happen/be happening elsewhere inside a Faraday cage with other devices there. How they are configured like, or who they talk to, the networks you utilize and the level of silly you display in your other accounts that have never so much as shared a trace route in passing together.
That’s hypothetically separate from the curated digital identity, depending on how careful and good at it your set up was.
So when the friendly folks with the mass surveillance pull up your file, it’s composed of what you wanted there to begin with.
It’s just another implementation layer of minimizing and compartmentalization, really.
Hypothetically. For a friend.
Thanks, this makes sense
Having no footprint is as obvious as having a unique one. It’s easier to hide in the crowd.
You could still buy a second hand pixel series a.
You could probably find something under 300€ with 5-6 years of updates left if you seek for a pixel 9a.
On lower end you could go with lineageos, it’s not as good as graphere but it’s good enough IMO
I 100% understand and support why the moved away from google.
And Motorola was a good choice. But they really should have supported some budget phones.
A pixel series a could easily be found for under 500€ new. These flagship motorola phones are all way over 1000€.
And the developer clearly said they had currently no intention to support cheaper motorola phones. Among other things because Motorola won’t offer 7 year updates for anything but these flagships.
So, I get it. But let’s face it that people on a budget will keep using pixels for GOS while they are maintained.
The 2027 models will likely be flagship only however Graphene has tweeted that they plan to support cheaper Motorola phones in the future.
They didn’t specifically disregard budget phones. The budget phones just won’t have the hardware required to meet GrapheneOS requirements. They’ve states that as the next gen flagship hardware trickles down to the budget phones, there’ll be more options.
I keep hearing this thing about the necessary hardware.
What is this exotic piece of hardware that the GrapheneOS needs? Please, someone tell me what it is.
Searching would probably have been quicker than commenting :)
(nothing I am about to say is necessarily personal; I am genuinely grateful for the link!)
Is there a table of these requirements as columns and vendors as rows?
I think most of this list is acquired by having a modern CPU or SoC, no?
Much of the list is software requirements.
There is one item that sticks out:
- Support for disabling USB data and also USB as a whole at a hardware level in the USB controller
Just how much of the hardware list is satisfied by say having a Snapdragon SoC?
I would prefer if people said such and such vendor is missing such and such feature which we need. Always NAME the SPECIFICS. A link to a web page with the exact specifics missing for the most popular phones would help, imo. This is clear and educational. Instead we get “they don’t got no good hardware maaaan.” It’s annoying. Looks handwavy even when it is not.
I haven’t seem anyone respond in the way you’re complaining about.
There’s a long list of requirements, with a big one being hardware memory tagging.
The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 — the chip inside the 2026 Motorola Signature — introduced MTE support, but only in the Elite variant. The Foundation has characterized MTE in the non-Elite Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 as effectively broken for GrapheneOS’s purposes. This is why even Motorola’s current flagship lineup cannot qualify: the chip is close but the specific hardware feature GrapheneOS treats as non-negotiable is not reliably present across the Snapdragon lineup.
I understand the annoyance of just having the list of requirements without having vendors, models, etc as it puts the burden of effort on the reader.
On the flip side, the list would be crazy and more work for the devs, plus the definition of “most popular phones”. Having that list would be informative but I don’t know that it would be that helpful considering it wouldn’t make a difference with regards to the devices that Graphene supports?
they didn’t abandon pixels though. they just take a little extra time because they have to manually update the old device trees now.
I just got a pixel 9 refurbished for 350CAD and, a part from the irony of needing a phone made by google to have a degoogled phone, Graphene is a great OS. It just does what any basic phone os should do, and that’s make it gold in the current dystopia.
What will US do if lenevo is Chinese and owns Motorola and now the US doesn’t have backdoors like they do on Apple and Google devices.
Sanctions and tariffs?
Google buys Motorola, strips all the parents, then sells the hardware to China. Company makes a potentially profitable decision and gets banned from selling in the U.S. That would suck. I would have really liked to have them here.
Edit* -Motorola, accidentally typed Lenovo, the company they sold tol
I thought google already bought Motorola back in the day…
Yeah I meant to say bought Motorola not Lenovo. They bought it, took all the patents and resold it to Lenovo
How about 6 camera lenses, so it doesn’t wobble?
I’m waiting for the “whoops!! All Lenses!” Version
The onion needs to do for phone cameras what it did for Gilette razors:
https://theonion.com/fuck-everything-were-doing-five-blades-1819584036/
I was hoping that when Apple released thr iPhone 17 with a horizontal island it would end the wobble on a lot of phones, as others tend to copy Apple.
Unbelievably and fucking annoyingly, the iPhone 17 still has one of it’s fucking camera lens jut out enough to fucking wobble still. Which fucking engineer okayed this fucking shit.
I still want a google pixel for the visor, but last year I bought a S24 Ultra as it was cheaper and I don’t like the performance of the Pixle 9 overall. (I always buy the previous gen of current year, when I need to). Oh well, after my S24U breaks maybe when pixel 14 or 15 comes around I’ll get a pixel. Or some other phone with a visor camera island like it.
This is great and all, gives more device options for GOS. However, being only flagship, this will put GOS out of reach for alot of people due to the cost of flagship phones and the current economy. Especially if Google starts making future Pixels unable to have GOS flashed onto them.
Inb4 Motorola CEO “falls” out a 30 story building window.
Interestingly, Motorola itself is doing “a large portion of the work of porting GrapheneOS to their devices”.
…and Motorola is owned by Lenovo, which is effectively controlled by the Chinese state.
I love GrapheneOS but jumping into bed with the CCP is bad, bad idea.
Edit: I’m not a fan of US tech either, and this isn’t an “I hate China” post. They are both awful countries.
Canadian here, I’ll take CCP over GOP.
I don’t really want either. Its not a binary choice.
What’s enslaving hundreds of millions of people to work 6 days a week 12 hours a day compared to the US president that says mean things eh?
Source: made it the fuck up
Homie, ITS ALL China, Vietnam, Taiwan, south korea or maybe malaysia made. I’m speaking to the level of spying I want on my phone.
I’ll take my chances with the CCP over ICE any fucking day of the year.
We are always under more threat from our own governments than a foreign one and I do not live in China or China-aligned country. I’m safer with my data in Beijing than in Redmond.
And that’s the worst case scenario. Likely, it’s enough of a win for China to have an OS that the US doesn’t have backdoors into without China needing their own.
You know the two aren’t really the same, right?
That’s the point: I don’t even know the name of the Chinese agency I would even theoretically need to worry about.
Back when Grindr was owned by a Chinese company there was concerns that data from the platform could be used to blackmail western politicians and civil servants.
I can’t remember the details but my point is - just because you don’t live in China it doesn’t mean you’re risk free.
I’m neither a politician nor a civil servant, and if I were, as a leftist, I’d be more threatened by Trump having my data than Xi Jinping.
Do I just keep repeating this or…?
Edit: yeah, as yourself point out: the threat China poses is giving your data to your government. lol
That’s worse, not better. Ignorance of the danger is not an advantage.
I find your inability to understand why an American is more afraid of ICE than a Chinese government agency really perplexing.
But, in honor of your concern, I will forthwith carry a rock that keeps away Chinese agents.
I find your inability to understand why an American is more afraid of ICE than a Chinese government agency really perplexing.
that’s. not. what. you. were. saying.
you are just ignorant and proud of it.
Honestly, that was the sum totality of my intention. If you would like to review the logs and tell me where my language reflected differently, I would love to know about it because I never had an intent to say anything else.
are you proud of not knowing something?
Not proud, not ashamed. I’m just using my ignorance of something to evaluate a risk, which is certainly a flawed and lazy algorithm, but probably operates better than chance.
Your data is going to the US government and data brokers, even if you don’t know it.
Source that China is using its backdoors to share information with the US? I mean, it very well might be, at least it’s an extra step. I’m saying I’d rather not share my information with anyone, but if i had to choose, it would be a foreign government ahead of my own.
I’m not sure where I’m going wrong, there.
Not what I meant, the US is grabbing all the information on their own, don’t think they aren’t. Maybe some of you more sophisticated computer heads can avoid it, but I wouldn’t expect it.
They have everything compromised on a basic level, basic levels. China could sell your information back to the US too though in some kind of deal.
But yeah I agree, I’d rather have foreign governments having it than mine own. But it’s near impossible for a layman, or person without substantial resources, to keep their information out of the hands of the NSA and data brokers, I strongly suspect, as Edward Snowden informed us.
Yup. And if I were a foreign government interested in collecting data, I’d definitely start up a low-cost VPN. You can’t trust anyone.
Your argument is extrapolating way too much. You constructed this overcomplicated chain of thought that supposedly proves GOS sold out because… They got a manufacturer to build hardware that meets GOS requirements?
This is no different from ZOG, deep state or Blackrock conspiracy theories.
You constructed this overcomplicated chain of thought that supposedly proves GOS sold out
Actually, that’s not what I’m saying. GOS is a small team, and they’ve confirmed that most of the work has been left to Motorola/Lenovo. Given what we know about the Chinese state, its not a stretch to imagine that interference has happened.
And I’m not arguing anything. All of what I’ve said is possible based on what we know (through verifiable information in the public domain) about the activities of the Chinese state. If you choose to call that a conspiracy theory thats up to you.
Damn the CCP for building secure hardware!
And jumping into bed with the NSA?
…and Motorola is owned by Lenovo
Huh, you’re right. I had not realized that had happened.
It looks like it’s just their phone division, Motorola Mobility.
Sorry to be the party pooper but they’re also expected to be above 1200$
Which flagship isn’t though?
What if I agree to let them spy on me? Can we work out a deal?
The first goal is to threaten Google’s monopolistic goals. This does that. Of course cheaper would be better, too.
