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Phones can only last so long and my admittedly ancient BlackBerry Curve took one-too-many tumbles and now needs to be replaced. Thanks to recent changes in the cell-phone market, I'm looking to purchase a phone, outright, and get a month-to-month plan for it.
I am very privacy conscious and have, so far, avoided Apple (walled garden - blegh) or Android (tell Google everything). I suspect there are fellow Soylentils who hold a similar perspective. (My current cell provider is US Cellular. I'm open to change, but would like to avoid AT&T and Verizon --- have heard too many horror stories.)
Background: I've been programming computers since the 1970s. I've tried using Apple products, but it seems they are user-friendly to the extent that you want to do what they have already decided is okay. They seem to expose a bare minimum of controls to allow customization. That would frustrate me to no end.
So, that leaves me with Android as the other major alternative. I am leery about giving any more info to Google than necessary -- given a choice, I regularly choose an alternative over a Google product (i.e. DuckDuckGo for search, openstreetmap, etc.)
My thoughts, at the moment, are to get a phone and load cyanogenmod on it. I've read good things about the privacy capabilities it provides; especially fine-grained allow/deny access permissions. Added bonus is ability to apply updates more frequently than a telco-branded phone would provide. I have no experience with rooting/flashing a phone, so I need this process to be as idiot-proof as possible. Also, I'm leery of getting a phone only to see support for it dropped shortly thereafter.
[Continues...]
Must-have: SOLID cellular reception (my apartment seems to have plaster walls - the BB still got great reception), removable battery, removable storage (micro-SD card), WiFi, LTE (USA), good camera, and fine-grained permissions control.
Nice-to-have: hardware keyboard, tethering (i.e. use my phone to get an internet connection that I'd share with my laptop), FM Radio.
REALLY nice to have: Ability to bring up a terminal window and have full CLI ability (e.g. bash) where I could edit/run custom scripts/programs.
Size/specs: I do not want or need a phablet or the latest/greatest processors. I'm reminded of the adage to buy last-year's top-of-the-line model. For some degree of future-proofing, would like to be able to view 1080p content on it.
Other: What did I forget? What things do you wish you knew that you only found out after you got your phone?
My main system runs Win 7 Pro but I could also run a live CD with some Linux distro.
What have your experiences been? Both positive and negative? Please save me from making a mistake that you have already learned from!
I'm looking to replace my phone within the next day or so. I've been impressed with the shared knowledge of this community -- please help!
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Wednesday April 20 2016, @09:47PM
They are all unlocked, have pretty much any size and price point from $60 up to $400, and come with plain jane vanilla Android, no extra crap added. Oh and the things are built like tanks, I'm lucky if I can get a phone to last 6 months because I'm so rough on the things yet my BLU is over a year and a half old and still purring like a kitten. I haven't looked into mods for it because...well plain vanilla Android works quite well without all the added carrier/OEM garbage and with a quad core and a Gb of RAM it does everything I need it to do quite well without having to be futzed with. I have several customers that are even rougher than I am and after switching to BLU their phones have likewise taken a real beating and kept on going, one dropped his nearly 10 foot out a bucket truck onto pavement....scratched the screen a bit but the case that comes with them standard absorbed the impact and the phone still works great.
So if all you want is a plain no bullshit Android phone that is tough, has a decent screen, and at a great price? Check out the BLU phones. Oh and they also make WinPhone models as well, the wife HATES both Android and iOS so I got her a BLU WinPhone...she just loves the thing, its snappy and has a long battery life which were her main two concerns. All in all I have zero complaints about the BLU phones, I've been through Samsung, HTC, LG, and ZTE phones and none has held up as well or been as BS free as my BLU, just great solid phones.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.