I remember my original Moto G. It was a good phone for the time. I will follow Graphene wherever they go until a Linux phone is ready.
Hello Moto!
This is crazy big news.
W Moto ❤️🩹
Let’s see if it gets released before GrapheneOS and unlockable bootloader get outlawed
That’s the point, right? Google is trying to lock down Android even more, and third party vendors can see the increasing risk. If they fork now, they can maybe undercut the increasing monopoly efforts.
I am sure they are also seeing a growing demand for more privacy, the only reason own a pixel is because of GrapheneOS. If I could buy a phone with the OS pre installed I would, don’t know if they are going to do that. Also, by patterning with GrapheneOS they don’t has the development cost and they can trade on Graphenes name
OEM, they can lock the bootloader. So at least there’s that
deleted by creator
What’s the likelihood that Motorola will eventually lock down GrapheneOS though? Imho it’d be a bad move if they did. The FOSS mobile OS community has matured to the point that we don’t need to rely on for-profit monoliths any more. Motorola would be smart to lead the way to where the mobile device economy will be.
matured to the point that we don’t need to rely on for-profit monoliths any more
Which phones are we using for Graphene OS at the moment? Ah, yeah… Google… well known for its non-profit behaviour… I say: Give me alternatives which we aren’t to try to get rid of in the first place.
Jesus dude let them get compatibility before you bring out the assumptions.
I always thought Pixel was the platform to have for fucking around with the OS and stuff. Of fucking course I was an idiot.
Don’t be too hard on yourself, they definitely put money and effort into influencing opinions in all the subversive ways they can manage. But also, let this be a lesson to always check alternatives and their reason for existing. I consider it part of best practices.
“Embrace, Extend, Extinguish”. When have they ever done otherwise.
Point of order: That was Microsoft rather than Google.
Yeah, I’m aware that Microsoft coined that phrase, but Google seems to be doing something quite similar.
Google embraced the creation of an open-sourced Android project, extended its capabilities with centralized software distribution, and is now extinguishing by forcing developers to comply with its new requirements and banning third-party app stores.
My biggest concern is the life cycle of the device. I almost went with Motorola for my last phone, but saw that you were lucky to get 3 years of OS updates. Is that likely to be better on GrapheneOS? If so, that is a huge win imo. If not, it still isn’t ideal because I don’t want to have to buy a new phone every 2 years…
Thats the trick, when a company supports romming, you can extend the support for however long you want!
GrapheneOS was claiming 5-year support IIRC. Apple level support is infeasible. Not sure how affordable longer firmware support from Qualcomm is.
Why do you think they are $300-500? I don’t care about “only” 3 years of updates if i don’t have to spend $1300 on a friggin cellphone.
I mean, I sort of get what you are saying but it also feels a little like Grimes’s boots thing from Terry Pratchet. Like, I can spend $200- $300 and get a phone that will stop getting security updates in 2-3 years… Or I can spend $700-$1000 to get a phone that comes with 7-10 years of security updates. Money per year, you are the same or better off if you can afford the up-front cost of the more expensive product, and we are generating a lot less techno-garbage clogging up the planet.
Generally, I hate the hard limit of use of these things. Coming from desktop computers, if you spend more money the machine is faster, but if you don’t need the speed you can use the cheap machine just as long (or longer if you really don’t need performance). All phones feel like they are just a subscription model.
but saw that you were lucky to get 3 years of OS updates.
fucking great, less enshittification when they stop shoving the updates down your throat.
Yea, except you aren’t getting security updates either… Basically anything connected to the internet should be getting security updates…
Well, fuck. I really hoped they would pick FairPhone. Motorola is… Okay. I guess they made the Nexus 5 ; which was one of the best phones ever.
I hope they make a SMALL one, I am so tired of this GIGANTIC pixel 9.
Fairphone isn’t available everywhere while Motorola is. It’s pretty easy to understand why they chose them.
Motorola gets a little bit of love from me because they were (maybe still are?) the only ones who allowed me to shout “COMRADE MOTO!” to wake my phone up
I will not say “Hey Google” in a million years. I refuse.
SOVIET ANTHEM PLAYS IN THE BACKGROUND
That’s definitely worth a fair few points. Always rubbed me the wrong way that you couldn’t change it to whatever you wanted.
I think LG made the Nexus 5, though.
The reason I got my ZFold5 was I like the fact that it could open up and give me a larger area to view and bigger keyboard. I have gotten the biggest phone I could get for the last 15 years or so because I have a hard time seeing the tiny screens. I would be happy to switch to a new OS but my old ass needs a bigger screen.
This is actually supported by GrapheneOS currently, if you need that extra push. 😉Gonna be my next phone for that reason. Oh, and it’s bendy. XD
You need one of these!
WTF who makes that? EDIT— Samsung. I really want something I can put Graphine on.
Xiaomi is coming out with the Mix Trifold in Q3, xiaomi phones are unlockabke, though its a pain. You might be able to install LineageOS on it.
Guess who just added 5 different AI Sloperators into their OS lmao.
Nah, this is Huawei’s offering. Came out in late 2024. It’s called the Mate XT.
And it’s China exclusive. You definitely can’t put GraphineOS on this baby.
Oh geez. I bet thats expensive
Can’t you get data on some tablets? Sounds like that’s what they need!
maybe my next phone will be a Motorola.
Me too. I’ve always bought Google Pixels but I don’t want to give Google my money anymore.
So I’ll probably buy a Motorola if this deal gets through.
What phone do you use now?
My last few phones have been Motorolas and I’ve been very very happy with them.
My only issue was that back then, I wasn’t really paying attention to alternative OSs like Graphene, Lineage or e/os and was therefore not really too concerned with ROM support/chip set. When I switched over to e/os, two of my Motorola’s (including the one I WANT to use with it) has no ROM support because it’s running a Mediatek chipset. So I’m using my second to last one while my nice new one collects dust.
Moving forward I’ll be paying more attention to Qualcomm vs Mediatek.
yeah i might focus on Android phones that have Good ROM/ support
i think their graphene OS powered phone will have bootloader unlocking.i hope Google does not take away Sideloading. (but i think graphene returns it)
i bought a mororolla 3 years ago and it still lasts 2 days on a charge. id say go for it.
i gotta see first if Motorola/Lenovo will actually ship graphene OS and other factors.
they dont sound like bad phones and even better with this collab
This is great news. While I still think we should make a push towards Linux phones being mainstream so that we don’t keep this duopoly on OSes, it’s nice to know that at least one manufacturer is currently defying googles obvious goal of suppressing third party ROMs and marketplaces.
Thanks for the reality check. While this a good development, I share your concern and we should not stop,or even slow, developing any fully free as in freedom OS. I tried PostmarketOS on an old Oneplus 6T recently and I estimate we have one or two more phone replacement cycles until I think it’ll be ready for me to switch.
I have a 6T and was thinking about getting postmarketos on it, what didn’t work for you? Which “desktop” did you choose for it? there’s like 5 options for that and I really have no idea what to do.
I used KDE because that’s what I use on desktop. I hear some of the others are further along. Flashing was easy. I could not set up my SMB shares in dolphin and if it wont talk to my NAS, it’s not terribly useful to me. I will play around some more with it sooner or later. I believe I used Android- tools on Linux to send the partitions via fastboot commands. It was a 2 gen old phone for me (had the OP9 after it) so I wasn’t worried about anything going wrong. Feel free to shoot me a DM if you get stuck and have a specific question. I will try to help.
Volla phone (has choice between ubuntu touch and android rom) seems pretty cool.
I recently picked up a 2024 model moto g power 5g. The main reason is that I needed the cheapest smart phone I could find locally to test a new provider (phreeli) before committing. That, and to serve as a ready backup if one of ours dies. $115 at a big box store.
It’s… fine. Even after debloating I get about half the battery life of my galaxy s20 which is now 5 years old. I haven’t been able to figure out what’s eating it, or maybe it just has a smaller battery… I should check that.
All my phones have been Motorola, the first one was the Moto X - OG !
Very well built and great batteries. Quality phones with close to stock UI for a snappy experience. Love the Moto Actions as well.
Only negatives were updates and cameras. Both are much better these days.
Especially now with an upcoming OS alternative!
I also had the Moto X and loved it. The wood back was neat. After then I kept getting bigger phones, from LG and Samsung, but nowadays I kind of miss smaller phones. I was also sold on the better cameras of these other brands. Depending what they release I might make my way back to Motorola. I’m pretty ingrained in Samsung at the moment.
I’ll second this, me and the wife keep breaking or losing phones and have gone for cheap motorolas as replacements. Doesn’t have much bloatware, and can be easily purged.
EDIT : If you hate the amount of bloatware, it does have, compare it to the samsung galaxy amounts of bloat.
Moto X4 was an amazing phone, I hope they bring back smaller phones, I don’t want to use a tablet.
Android seems intent on creating a huge market for this. Chef’s kiss!
Any non Google phone running graphene would be epic.
Motorola Mobility belongs to Chinese Lenovo but headquarters are in Chicago. Not sure if that makes it better or worse regarding privacy and surveillance compared to USA only.
Having a vendor explicitly supporting it…epic is an understatement.
I had completely forgotten Lenovo bought Motorola from Google some 10 years ago. Honestly haven’t seen a Motorola phone in at least that long …
Been using motorola for a long time. I bought Moto Z in 2016 and it booted with “Motorola company” text in the end of the boot video. After Lenovo acquisition, phone updated and video now said “Motorola, a Lenovo company”.
Thankfully, Motorola haven’t entshittified over these years. Still a solid phone. Almost no bloat.
