I’m using a Pixel 6 Pro right now, and I’m looking around to see if there are any good phones. However, I have heard that there are ads in the newer flagship phones (Samsung, Xiaomi). I am willing to spend around USD$750 on a new phone, but I just don’t want any crazy ads or preinstalled apps like Facebook. Are there phones that don’t suck nowadays? I can buy a phone that is sold in the US, Canada, or EU.
(I don’t want to go through menus to disable ads (Xiaomi), and I’m currently looking at phones other than the Pixel lineup to see if there’s a better option for me)
(I also don’t want to mess around with custom bootloaders/systems, I rely on Google services way too much)
EDIT: If it wasn’t clear enough, I am not looking for things like GrapheneOS or LineageOS or others, I am looking for a phone and judging based on the stock system on it.
I just want to see if other phones don’t suck nowadays, I’m not switching to a different brand just yet (I own too many Google things).
They do poorly. Securitywise (which also means update lifespan and ease of creating a custom OS with full support) Google Pixels are unbeaten.
Samsung actively prevents custom OS from using many security features.
Most other phones have nonexistent update spans.
Fairphone maybe, they are still worse softwarewise than Google.
They’re behind on software and security updates, as well as don’t have a secure element.
https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/7208-8y-security-updates-on-fairphone-5-will-the-devs-consider-porting-grapheneos