< chasing that elusive N900 successor
I like using my desktop as much as possible.
My phone should be a utility more so than a convenient and comfortable entertainment device. It's very good at the latter though much to my attention span's demise.
To be a truly useful device on the go, it *must* run an AOSP (I use Graphene OS now) so as to be compatible with
Things like these can't be done on a "dumb" phone unfortunately, so I'm stuck using a smart phone which comes with the unfortunate side effect of also having a wealth of distraction at my finger tips.
I'd like to try using a phone as a computer hooked up to a monitor someday, but that day is not today.
i have a lightphone that i really want to use but i can't seem to get any cellular network to support it properly. it's tiny, with an eink display. it does: voice, sms, podcasts, gps navigation, and lte hotspot. the touch keyboard is just enough to type in an address or a query or a quick response. the battery lasts weeks. it's perfect for me because i hate to use my phone and i don't want to use it more than necessary. i've usually got my laptop with me anyway, so my phone is just for things my laptop can't do.
at&t don't seem to offer compatible sim cards. verizon insists it's a "wearable" and won't give me a full cellular plan. on the wearable plan, sms doesn't work.
Yeah, I don't think I could ever truly "degoogle" myself, as I have banking/travel apps dependent on the GSF, as well as whatsapp which my family continues to insist on using.
So what I do is I have an old phone handed to me from my mother, running LineageOS with some microg apps, loaded with the above apps so that I'm not disconnected from the world. That phone lies on a shelf and never leaves the house. I just check on it from time to time.
Then I have my daily phone, this is completely just LineageOS + F-droid apps, no GSF, no tracking (afaik). I love this phone, it has my Anki, Element, Orgzly, Syncthing, PianoOli, OSMand, and other apps I love. I take this phone everywhere, such is my trust in it.
But it *is* a google phone still, it *does* still phone home to base, as do all phones based on the AOSP. That's why I'm trying to move away from it. I will likely lose the mentioned apps in the process, but maybe there are alternatives on the openapp store that are decent-enough alternatives.
As far as I'm aware, you can still emulate beloved GSF-free android apps on the pinephone with Anbox, though I've heard its super slow. Nonetheless, maybe its usable enough.