I usually look for a phone that has proper LineageOS support and a strong xda community of third party ROMs, Kernels and what not.
I usually go to LineageOS's download page, and browse through the phone list for a not so old phone that has builds for the newest version. Afterwards I check its xda page, read the specs for the phone, check reviews on YouTube and finally decide.
I used to like Pixel phones, but sometimes even the Google experience is too much for me.
These things are a matter of personal preference, take the community's opinions then decide on your own based on your use cases.
These days it's very easy to use Google Play on LineageOS as if it were an official ROM. Usually because you're telling Google you are to pass SafetyNet.
I've used Okta Verify on Lineage 19 without issue. Although I managed to get Okta to spit out a regular MFA string so I could dump Verify and use my regular MFA app.
I enjoyed my Motorola devices in the past. Possibly a good amount of rose tinted glasses, but the 2014 Moto X was probably my favorite Android phone out of the box so far. They usually don't modify too much of the base Android experience and the few things they tend to add, such as the camera app and some gesture support, seem to work better than the AOSP stuff. I didn't like NFC support had been pushed to only their higher end devices, as I really enjoy tap to pay from my phone and other NFC features.
The last two devices I've owned have been Pixel devices. They've been pretty solid. I still think I liked the 4a over the 6a; I've had some touch accuracy/sensitivity oddities with the 6a.
I own a Motorola and I've had a very good experience (other than the fact that it's got Google in the OS, like all Androids, and the time I upgraded to Android 12 and decided I hated it).
One Plus is ok for a generic android experience, but there are some caveats.
I couldn't for the longest time do simple things like scan a QR code. Everybody else in the world just points their camera app at the QR code and it works. I have to open Lens explicitly to do it.
It's still much better than Samsung's crapdroid experience. Google Assistant or ... Bixbsy routines? Nobody wants that shit, Samsung.
The OP6 was their last great phone. Now they're just generic android device that cost the same as any other brand and miss the same feature (Remember when OP were joking about apple removing the headphone jack. Guess what happened with the OP6T ?)
Really sad that mine got water damaged and no longer works. Even though it no longer had software update, running custom roms it was perfect. It was 3 years old and could probably served me at least another 3. I got the OPPO x3 lite but I miss my OP6 everyday. I'll probably end up fixing it when I get the time
I think the major caveat for One Plus is that they are a Chinese company and are required to comply with Chinese law. Google is likely required to comply with various legal regimes as well, but they're not required to hand over my data to the CCP. One Plus is.
I've had a few Motorola phones and they've always seemed reasonably close to stock Android. A few oem shell addons, but nothing that I found annoying or intrusive. Currently using an Edge 20.
The Pixel 5 is still to me the most pleasant Android to use. It's made of non-cheap plastic that's really light, especially when carried without a case, and is the perfect size for me.
In several years, I haven't seen a flagship Android that's lighter, smaller or that isn't brittle glass.
>anything that gives smooth, AOSP, non-flashy experience?
For that, I bought a used Galaxy S9, and but /e/ OS on it. The project essentially forked LineageOS, replaced Google references with their own services, and built a fully working out of the box experience out of it. It's not hard to install the OS yourself, but if you don't want to tinker, you can order phones with the system preinstalled:
At least for the foreseeable future, I'm going to be buying a Pixel and immediately installing GrapheneOS on it whenever I need to upgrade my phone.
The experience is not perfect, and especially if you opt to not even keep the sandboxed Google Play Services, lots of apps just won't work. But it's a trade-off I'm happy to make.
My Pixel 5 is exactly what I wanted. The problem is that Google only gets it this right every few generations, and it doesn't always coincide with me needing a new phone.
Either they forget the size of human hands, the EUR:USD exchange rate, or some other obvious thing that makes their current generation a no-go.
Beyond simple support for your carrier's specific cellular bands, a lot of smartphone functionality is tied into the carrier's implementation/integration with your phone.
This used to be more of a problem ~5-7 years ago or so. I'd buy an obscure Android phone and I couldn't use things like Visual Voicemail, Voice over LTE, or WiFi Calling.
Verizon used to be and may still be picky about which phones they activate as well. My Nexus 5X supported all the bands required to work with Verizon, but they refused to activate the phone on their network, despite ordering a plain SIM card for BYOD.
Only think making me hesitate to buy a Fairphone is the fact that the quality seems low for the price. I understand why that is, but I worry it would feel like too much of a downgrade coming from a Galaxy S10, and particularly if the whole idea is that it lasts a long time, how out of date will it feel in a few years time?
Do you have one, and if so does it feel reasonably snappy?
Feels reasonably snappy, but then again I always picked up midrange phones in the past.
You really have to be sure that you want a Fairphone for their ethics. Display and camera are particularly very much not great. My past Nexus 5X made much better photos (not sure how much it's just Google's camera app processing at play).
And also if you're not in the EU I would definitely avoid getting one as there's gonna be a lot of hassle with warranty shipments.
My spouse just got a pixel 7 in fall. Good price, adequate specs and zero carrier/vendor bloat. The only regret is living in a cold climate (Quebec!) where the glass over the camera could potentially shatter at any moment and google doesn't acknowledge the design defect. Oops.
I went from a "flagship" Pixel to a midrange Motorola (the moto g100), and I'm very happy with it. I got a nice performance upgrade, a microSD slot, a headphones jack, battery for days, and an unlockable bootloader - all for less than half of what I paid for my Pixel.
(While most Pixels have unlockable bootloaders, including mine initially, Google screwed me when I sent mine in to repair a broken USB-C port. The phone I got back had a permanently locked bootloader, which basically cut it's usable lifespan in half. Annoyingly, I replaced the battery shortly before realizing this!)
Nova launcher on the Pixel is a great combo for a non-rooted clean Android experience. You can disable many Google tracking/privacy things at that point, have a clean UI and quick security updates. One issue I have run into is Google breaking app switching on occasion because they want to use their launcher as the app switcher. Haven't seen this issue in the last year thankfully.
I have an old refurb pixel 3 I bought to put linage OS on but it was a verizon device and has a locked bootloader. sigh so no alternate android for me.. Anyway I am using it as a daily driver with the stock pixel android package and have zero google accounts. I mainly use f-droid and adb.
For stuff that can't use fdroid, check out obtainium, it can pull releases directly from GitHub, etc. Shizuku is also useful for background-installing apps via some of the fdroid alternative clients (and some apps like Tachiyomi can use it for extensions and other local-adb things), as is App Manager for background-installing apps via local adb.
I have a Moto G5plus that I would still be using if only the battery hadn't died. So now I use it as an Internet radio and I bought a Moto G30: cheap, reliable, decent cameras, fast enough, 128 GB storage, dual sim, more than two day battery life unless I record hours of video. And Moto don't add much bloat.
It wasn't worth the effort when the Moto G30 with a much better cameras, four times as much storage, faster processor, was only 1199 NOK, less than 120 USD. Much less than I paid for the G5plus
It's convenient to use the G5plus as an almost dedicated Internet radio and podcast player.
