There is no date of arrival for the motorola yet. I only read beginning of 2027. That could also be delayed. And if it is a phone with underwhelming specs, I wouldn’t want to buy it either. But buying a pixel now means not buying a motorola soon.
Neither. Either get a used Pixel supported by Graphene on the second hand marketplaces, or flash whatever other device you have already with a degoogled AOSP ROM (e.g. crDroid, Lineage, /e/, Iode), or alternative mobile OS (Ubuntu Touch, Sailfish, Droidian, Mobian, Plasma Mobilrle, PostMarketOS) that is compatible with it.
Buy it now if you’re ready to make the switch. That timeline sounds a bit optimistic. Last I heard Motorola had confirmed they’re working with GOS on bringing a phone to market, but no release date has been announced, unless I’m mistaken.
It’s a great OS. IMO, it works better than most OEM Android OS’s, aside from a handful of quirks and a few app issues. I get that buying a Pixel seems antithetical, but it’s really just a hardware “shell” for GrapheneOS.
Even if the Motorola GOS phones arrive as soon as you hope, keep in mind it’s an initial launch. It may not be as smooth or stable as the current Pixel GOS experience.
Honestly however releases a flip phone on which I can install GOS
Dont buy a pixel new. 11 pro is underwhelming anyway, weak af
What specs do you need? The cheapest GrapheneOS compatible phone you can get for before the Motorola release is a Pixel 6a, or 7/7 Pro if you need better specs. I use a Pixel 6 Pro and the specs are fine if it weren’t losing support in October. If you want more longetivy get a Pixel 8.
If you understand what graphene is for and you need that then you wont wait.
Even if you don’t understand what graphene is for or if you need it and are trying to make a decision: graphene on new and used pixel phones works as expected now. It has been tested and proven against many different intelligence and surveillance apparatus. Motorolas new phone may not come out at all (it’s more likely than you might think!), may not end up supporting graphene (or graphene may not end up supporting it!) or it may have serious flaws that need to be addressed (it is a new hardware platform after all!).
If you need it now don’t wait.
I’ll on the opposite side: will the Moto GOS be more affordable than a Pixel one? It seems they’ll go the way of the Signature and beyond
I’m hopeful. I want my next phone without Google or Samsung - and I really hope Motorola will deliver their promises.
And also that the upcoming phone have to have an extendable storage for me to buy. It is my main principle - unfortunately I had to give up on headphone jacks…I have a Motorola that runs Android 15. It would be great if GrapheneOS would work on it.
If you want GrapheneOS without funding Google, why not get a secondhand Pixel?
This is what I did but you do need to be careful with it - in the US ar least you can’t unlock the bootloader on a Verizon-issued pixel which are very common. Always ask the seller where they got it from, since most wouldn’t be technical enough to check the bootloader for you
This is very important and deserves its own post. Resellers typically either don’t specify or don’t know if the bootloader is unlockable on a Pixel so the buyer has to find out for themselves. Sadly “Unlocked” in an eBay post often refers to the carrier rather than the bootloader. Thanks for mentioning this!
Yep I made this mistake but luckily was able to return the phone via backmarket. Was more educated the second buy and am happy with the phone.
you’re still supporting google if you still do this via resale value.
and that’s why i’m waiting for motorola
How many GOS users are out there, you think? They have zero impact on the resale value.
How does resale value “support Google”?
Google phone sales don’t even register as change
I’ve had to accept that I’m too careless to have expensive phones, and I don’t need new hardware, so I’m staying at the oldest supported pixel and upgrading in that area second-hand. Currently I have a pixel 6a (with a cracked screen…), but might move to a pixel 8 next year. Somehow I wish I could support Fairphone, but I keep reading things like people having issues with it and I want my phone to “just work”, and graphene has been great for that.
wait like a month and the pixel price will go down to like 600 dollars. that’s what I did for my pixel 10.
FWIW, am using a pixel 7 pro, and don’t feel any need for higher specs. Though I’m not doing any kind of demanding gaming.
Same here on a 7A, which is slower than the pro version. Although OP should know that the 7 series is stopping support in 1-2 years: https://grapheneos.org/faq#device-lifetime
7a user here. I think the device is getting slower and I have very minimal apps installed almost none aftermarket. Only 2 extra profiles set to run only when active. Minimal background usage and still its slowish. The battery is decent still so long as it’s used like a phone and not browsing much or on dimmer brightness. It’s ok.
I think ram and cpu are the same on 7,7a, and 7pro. It’s just camera, battery, screen, and misc that differ I think.
You’re not missing anything whatsoever. I got a great deal on a lightly used Pixel 10 Pro and other than the telephoto camera lens (which is admittedly nice) there is literally no functional difference I notice day to day from my previous Pixel 7 (not pro).
For the most part you can’t really do demanding gaming on a pixel. For emulation and playing PC games you pretty much need a snapdragon.
Most mobile gaming people do are with apks through the playstore and flagship phones from 8~ years ago can still run those games pretty much maxed out besides frame rates. Pixel will play your call of duty mobiles and gebshin impact fine.
Even recently I learned termux now allows gpu pass thorough on snapdragon phones from 610+. Most projects I cone across favor the 645 if you don’t have one of the new series. And those chips are ancient and still put up good performance even if it is short lived due to thermals/boosting.
Not saying its not possible or you can’t have a good experience with things like gamecube. I think for most people you really don’t need anything past like a oneplus 5/6 in terms of specs. Just if you wanted to get into fex/switch emulation you are probably going to want to go with a snapdragon device. They have arm based hand helds with dual screens and controllers built in, and just having a dedicated device for gaming might be a better option. Out side of that having a more performant phone has minimal improvements to your average experience, in the play store there isnt much of anything that can really utilize it. There’s maybe 5-10 graphically demanding games, and they where all made to work with phones from 10 years ago.
I will wait for Motorola.
Unless I needed a replacement now, I would wait. It’ll be the first phone designed with GOS in mind but also Motorola’s recent track record isn’t amazing. I’m also hoping they have multiple phones supporting GOS. If initial reviews aren’t great, then refurbished Pixel it is.
Aside from how the phones actually compare, I think it’d be good to show there is a market for a factory graphene phone. I want companies to see the difference (financially) when they start taking privacy and other pro consumer ideas seriously.
