Pixel 10 was so bad I had to trade it in after using for a month. The version I got was 128GB for a whopping $600. This was my first Google device after Nexus days and I was bitterly disappointed with weird performance bugs and battery drain issues. The software does little to make up for the issues.
The replacement I got is a Motorola razr ultra folding phone.. similar perf point with 16G RAM and 512G storage. This phone is legit.
We plan to support future versions of the Motorola Signature, Razr Fold and Razr Ultra. We'll have at least a non-folding Signature successor in 2027 but aren't yet sure if the folding devices will provide what we need.
We're confident it's going to be much better hardware than Pixels and that our users will be happy with it. Our initial goal was only providing competitive security with Pixels but it's now clear we can do better in most areas. Google will likely have a significantly better secure element for a while but that can change too.
What's the point of the Pixel 11 and later now that they aren't supported by AOSP and are no longer going to be best in class for security? The updates and security features are why GrapheneOS uses them. We have ~500k users on the Pixel 6 through Pixel 10a and many of those users had multiple previous Pixel and Nexus devices for GrapheneOS. Our userbase is rapidly growing at an increasing rate and was already significant for Pixels.
I worked with Moto on simple security improvements a few years ago and while they understood the competitive advantage they would get, being a now-small player - I also wasn't convinced that they were fully committed, their support apps and base image were still full of software i wouldn't recommend to say the least.
Does this mean we might finally get a phone with 3.5mm jack, microSD slot and GrapheneOS support? I believe I've been asking for that for 10 years now.
The last Pixel with a 3.5mm jack was the Pixel 5a launched in August 2021. The 3rd/4th/5th gen Pixel 'a' series headphone jacks had horrible audio quality far worse than using the decent USB-C DAC included with the Pixel 2 and Pixel 3. They stopped bundling that with the Pixel 4.
Extendable storage is usually provided via the SIM tray. Physical SIMs are being phased out which is not good news for the feature you want. Realistically, you'll still need to use USB-C for headphones or an external drive.
You can look at the Motorola Signature (2026) for an idea of the initial device which will be a successor to it. Their high end devices don't have 3.5mm audio or microSD. They have devices with those but they're nowhere near our requirements.
I have been using Sony Xperia's since the Pixel 1 phased out the headphone jack, and the Xperias have had better 3.5mm jacks than even many dedicated DACs.
Physical SIMs being phased out seems to be primarily a US thing right now, but if that happens I'm just gonna stop using phones entirely.
If you want to glue a usb hub, DAC and card reader to your phone, go ahead, but I'd consider that a little bit inconvenient.
Seriously, the latency on wireless and usb-c headphones is so unpredictable that for lecture recording at hacker conferences they've now been banned for both live video/audio production and for video editing, with 3.5mm as the only option going forward.
Great, could you tell me which headphones I can use without adapter on Zoom F6, Yamaha DM3, Behringer Wing panels, Focusrite Scarlett interfaces and smartphones?
Currently we're using Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro and some MDR-7506.
They'd also need to be fully passive, as any active processing introduces unpredictable delays of up to 16ms, which is unacceptable when the goal is to check sync on audio and video signals.
It sounds to me like you only see everything as consumer devices for media consumption, ignoring the needs of people using computing devices to create things professionally.
Please consider trying to bring Graphene to the Moto G. Security is not the only reason someone might want to use Graphene - some of us just want to untangle ourselves from Google.
The option to have supported Graphene as well as an SD card slot and headphone port would be wonderful.
> Security is not the only reason someone might want to use Graphene
I was thinking about this and am curious if the Graphene team are specifically treating 'more secure than stock Android' as a non-negotiable for the purpose of having a strong pipe to swing at Google should Google ever play the 'third party distributions need to be shut down... because security' card.
Historically Motorola is a solid product. The Nothing Phone 4 pro looks interesting. Is grapheme in an official relationship with above phone? You can ship them your phone and they set it up for you.
I have multiple Pixel 7 phones GrapheneOS in my family with close to zero issues. It's a good choice for GrapheneOS IMO, except that support ends in Oct 2027. The Pixel 8 is still great also but has a more fragile screen.
Get a used Pixel 8a instead of a Pixel 7. Pixel 8 and later have 7 years of support from launch instead of 5 along with MTE. The 'a' series devices are cheaper but have a variant of the same SoC for 6th through 9th gen. A used Pixel 8a or a new Pixel 10a are both very good value.
32GB is pretty common for new laptops, especially if you’re looking to utilize your integrated graphics (shared memory). Also keep in mind that modern integrated graphics can be really good, and therefore play games that demand more memory (e.g., Panther Lake X7).
The 24GB MacBook Air is the sweet spot of that model lineup in my opinion. Even if you’re a true “web browsing only” user, you can definitely find a sale or refurbished model with 24GB and that’s a much more wise purchase for long term ownership than being stuck with 16GB.
Especially considering most laptops have soldered memory, I’d have a hard time recommending a new laptop purchase with 16GB if your intention is to keep it many years.
Even though RAM is expensive, there are deals and sales out there.
> keep in mind that modern integrated graphics can be really good
Sort of but not really? Without the wider bus (and various drawbacks) of GDDR any iGPU is very severely memory bandwidth constrained compared to a dGPU from an equivalently recent generation. It's just that a 3 or 4 generation old dGPU is sufficient for an ever increasing number of titles.
TBF it entirely depends on what is meant by "really good".
> I’d have a hard time recommending a new laptop purchase with 16GB if your intention is to keep it many years.
One of my devices still has only 8GB and I use it daily. It's really not an issue for most things.
Don’t forget that all MacBook models are “integrated graphics.” If you start doing graphical stuff or gaming you’ll need more RAM. If you’ve got a Windows laptop with an RTX 5050/5060 with its own dedicated memory, then yeah, you don’t really need more than 16GB unless you’re doing something specific.
Integrated graphics are constrained but often sufficient to play AAA games.
Panther Lake laptops are roughly equivalent to an RTX 4050, which is only a single generation old. Obviously not the strongest GPU to compare against but you’re also pulling a lot less wattage doing it.
I’m sure your 8GB device is working great, but someone buying a brand new device really should avoid that since the implication is that they’re going to keep that device for somewhere between 3-7 years.
Do those laptops not have on the order of ~64 GB/s bandwidth? Meanwhile your example of an RTX 4050 is a mobile SKU with 192 GB/s while the lowest entry level dGPU from that generation, the RTX 4060, boasts 272 GB/s. The RTX 4070 range ups that to 500 GB/s and the high end breaks 1 TB/s.
tl;dr iGPU vs dGPU memory bandwidth is a >10 year difference.
So now to double check my guestimate of 3 to 4 generations from earlier. Entry level RTX 30 448 GB/s in 2020, eventually downgraded to 168 GB/s in 2024. Entry level RTX 20 448 GB/s in 2018 eventually downgraded to 336 GB/s in 2019. You have to go all the way back to the GeForce 10 series to dip below 100 GB/s and even then that's due to some highly unusual configurations introduced many years after the initial launch. At launch in 2016 the lowest end GTX 1050 pulled 112 GB/s which is nearly 2x Panther Lake IIUC.
Ah, I understand where you’re coming from now. You’re really heavily focused on memory transfer speed. That’s really not the only measure of GPU performance and certainly not the one I’m interested in for my workloads. (I do not care for local LLM work for one thing)
For example, the ThinkPad X9 15p with Panther Lake integrated graphics will do 80FPS in Cyberpunk 2077 while the RTX5060 in a Legion 7a will do 109FPS on the same settings (1920x1200, quality up scaling, no frame gen).
So what that means is you can get a super quiet thin and light laptop that gets double digit hours of productivity battery life and has roughly the same tier of gaming experience as a thicker, heavier, power-hungry gaming PC that is pumping 115 watts into the GPU.
To answer your question, LPDDR5x should be more close to 100GB/s so I think you are underestimating the memory bandwidth of Panther Lake laptops. Not sure though.
That all said, overall a RTX5060 or higher laptop would be preferable, I just find it hard to find one that checks a lot of the “thin and light 13-14” premium long battery life productivity laptop that can game on the side” boxes.
I wasn’t very specific at first but a lot of my purchase decisions are around “productivity laptop that can game on the side.”
I wouldn’t say gaming is constrained by GPU memory bandwidth or SSD performance. As long as you have an SSD of any kind, you’re generally fine. Only a few specialized titles like Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart were specifically designed to show off the technical capabilities of fast SSD storage. Most everything else runs just fine without bleeding edge SSD performance, you’re even generally fine running off of a microSD card or SATA III SSD.
Gaming mostly wants to have sufficient GPU RAM capacity and overall 3D rendering performance (for a lack of a precise technical definition of what that means on my part).
Gaming doesn’t tend to move data in and out of VRAM at a particularly fast speed.
Gaming is also generally designed around being able to be released on the latest generation of home consoles, which is now essentially a 6 year old mid-range desktop GPU with 16GB of total system memory.
Gaming is highly constrained by memory bandwidth in the general case. It scales with things like resolution, framerate, and number of textures.
But of course in practice it depends on the details of what you're doing. This is why I acknowledged up front that it depends on what is meant by "really good". I think iGPUs are sufficient for a huge number of titles in the exact same way that an entry level dGPU from 2018 also is. But I don't think most people would consider that "really good" as you'll generally be stuck in the ballpark of 1080@60 and don't even think about photorealistic VR.
I think it's interesting to note that a while back GPU horsepower reached a point similar to that of CPU horsepower and system RAM capacity that's "good enough" for most common tasks. You don't need (and presumable never will) 32 cores or 64 GB of RAM to check your email or watch youtube. Similarly 1080@60 is sufficient to enjoy most game concepts.
Yeah I totally agree with what you’re saying. Basically, that “good enough”-ness for my use case does involve things like not playing photorealistic VR and very much accepting 1080p render resolutions or sometimes even lower (thanks, XeSS/FSR/DLSS!)
The main point with it is that it’s not a matter of “oh I can’t play the games I want to play reasonably” and that is very much not how integrated graphics used to be.
Definitely. This is great considering our family Google One plan has 100GB storage which is more than 60% full, but I don't really need to sweat it because I can back up most things on this phone and ignore Google photos backup alerts.
Pixel 8 or later is required for DisplayPort alternate mode. Pixel 8 through Pixel 10a are also the recommended devices for GrapheneOS due to 7 years of support from launch and providing the full set of our security requirements. We don't recommend buying a 7th gen Pixel anymore and definitely not 6th gen.
Do they allow Dex on Samsung flagships but without a exernal screen yet? Samsung Tab A10 FE had this and it could turn into a desktop in seconds without needing a second screen. However when I thought this would be a killer feature of the Galaxy Fold it was completely missing and just like the flagships of the time it needed a wireless or a wired monitor to run Dex
Actually, because it's a fold and the external screen is very good, I end up checking notifications and stuff without having to open the phone, which results in less distraction and screen time.
Yes but all phones coming out now are going to be complete turds really. They're all going to cut corners to offset the exploding cost of storage and ram.
It was removed from the non-Fold devices in the US. They kept it for other countries due to only considering the US carriers to be ready for eSIM-only.
True, here in Europe they're definitely not. Especially on prepaid. I wouldn't buy a phone without dual physical sim. eSIM is nice for travelling but I want physical for my daily numbers. This way I can stick them in any phone I want and even in my 4G backup modem.
It was removed from the whole non-folding Pixel 10 series in the US. It still has the SIM card slot elsewhere. We had to return a Pixel 10 bricked due to a firmware bug and it was the US model since we'd bought it in the US and sent it overseas with a forwarding service. Google's repair partner shop was quite confused about the lack of a SIM card slot to get the IMEI and we only had a serial number but they figured out using the serial number instead.
There's still dual SIM support either way and you can store dozens of inactive eSIMs. The main downside of eSIMs is widespread lack of transfer support by carriers.
After switching providers with a recent phone with eSIM, I would say I’d never want to go back to physical SIMs ever again.
They’re going to go away worldwide eventually, they’re just more easily removed in the US where the carriers are more bleeding edge on features and there are only 3 providers to think about in a very large homogenous market.
The difference between waiting for a SIM card to arrive in the mail or traveling to a store, fiddling with a paperclip, tray, and impossibly tiny nano-SIM versus switching providers in 10 minutes via an app is night and day.
Most SIM/dual SIM solutions also involve removing both SIM cards at once even to swap out one of two, and they tend to require device restarts.
In the past I’ve also had network problems as a result of bad/damaged SIM cards.
You seem to forget that moving an eSIM between phones isn't nearly as straightforward as moving a physical SIM, and often must be requested or approved by the carrier. If for some reason you intend to use the same SIM in various phones for one reason or another, it's a huge inconvenience.
Technically, the same thing can happen with a physical SIM. I tried that with a Nexus 5X on Verizon and that's how I learned their network has an allowlist system.
How does the carrier even know what phone you are going to use? My last SIM was bought in store at T Mobile, for cash, and I can freely move between phones. I never buy phones from carriers. My Pixel as bought directly from Google and immediately flashed with Graphene.
I had a testing phone and my regular phone, I kept swapping the same Verizon SIM between them. It worked for maybe 3 swaps, then Verizon blocked my account and sent me an email: suspicious activity detected, the SIM is blocked and cannot be restored, the contract has been terminated, you will receive the refund in mail.
Good riddance, US Mobile is so much cheaper and pleasant to use. I am scared to swap SIMs with them now though.
Can I switch out an eSIM while running an AOSP based ROM yet (ie no proprietary userspace)? Last time I checked (several years ago) it didn't seem to be possible. Did that change?
Why do they do the whole work of designing to separate variants, when they could just ship the single variant and the customers simply never use the slot, if they don't want it?
It was removed from the non-Fold devices in the US. They kept it for other countries due to only considering the US carriers to be ready for eSIM-only.
Concur. I purchased the 9 pro fold specifically for the mutli physical/ esim and profile features to compartmentalize tools. Solid construction and material. Runs a lil hot but I push it. Its also through Above phone so a few extra bells and whistles.
"Pixel 11 series is a lot more expensive for an incremental improvement to the CPU, the same underpowered GPU and reduced RAM for the Pro base models. They finally caught up to the last generation of Qualcomm cellular radio. It's overpriced, the upgrades aren't impressive and losing MTE is appalling."
What, MTE is such a promising tech and for security and now that we need all security we can get. WTF this is terrible development. You cant go backwards when the world needs getting even more secure.
Such a shame. Google themselves barely utilised it in their stock builds. I wonder if there is some silicon or development overhead they decided to cut.
I'm optimistic about the Motorola partnership and when my 9 Pro is EOL I'll definitely look at how that's played out.
Google likely cut MTE to reduce the die space required by CPU cache. It saves them money on a feature they never deployed by default and only used for a few processes as part of Android Advanced Protection Mode (AAPM) without enabling it in the Linux kernel. Their security team should have gotten it deployed by default for a large portion of the OS by now and then it would have been much harder to justify removing it. The small performance impact of asymmetric mode is irrelevant for the vast majority of the OS and it can also be used in the near zero cost asynchronous mode. We use synchronous in the kernel for security reasons but they didn't have to do that.
It's a completely different story for GrapheneOS where it means losing one of the main kernel and userspace security protections. This is one of the only ways we can significantly harden the Linux kernel with existing security features. The Linux kernel has always been a huge security liability for Android and AI models are making that much more obvious to everyone.
Google will likely end up heavily using MTE in the future. Pixel 11 devices won't be able to benefit from it. They're at the start of 7 years of updates but they won't be getting the benefit of future updates enabling MTE. Pixel 8 and later will benefit from Google likely expanding use of MTE for AAPM and eventually beginning to use it by default. It's unlikely Google will stop working on expanding MTE due to the Pixel 11 hardware decision. Multiple other OEMs are interested in MTE for devices made for businesses and governments even if Google decided it wasn't worth the cost for Pixels.
We don't plan to make official GrapheneOS releases for any more devices without MTE. If we decided to provide support for the Pixel 11 series, it likely won't be branded as GrapheneOS to make it clear it isn't on the same level.
It would be inconsistent to require Motorola to provide MTE support and then to support the Pixel 11 without it.
There are no phones directly supported by AOSP. Motorola is helping us support their devices and port our features to them. We have to do an immense amount of work on it ourselves for Pixels and already did a lot of it for the Pixel 11 devices. Other devices are missing more than MTE.
As far as I understand, broad device support is a non-goal for the GrapheneOS project. They are striving for decent security/privacy rather than wanting to attach their name and resources to mediocre standards.
I believe nothing prevents other individuals and organisations from building what you're suggesting with GrapheneOS code and ideas.
I would argue that "works fine" != "direct support" when discussing vendors and platforms. Support is a commitment signal, not just a technical capability.
The supposed "security team" is busy fighting Google engineers connecting to internal systems to do their work. E.g. somebody figured how to control the coding AI agent from their phone -- red alert, ban all access from phones to AI for everybody (even with corporate accounts).
You say that like it's a bad thing. If I am trusting Google with all sorts of personal information, I expect robust access controls to data and systems
I don't understand much from MTE/Android or MIE/iOS but the explanation is also confusing when:
- They claim Apple did a great job integrating MIE in iOS
- iOS doesn't encourage to opt into MTE ... Apple's docs warn developers of performance and stability issues
So it seems like even for iOS, this special security feature is only available for Apple own iOS app (at most?).
Then also:
> Even Signal doesn't opt-in. Our approach enables forcing using MTE in the standard allocators regardless.
So does that mean that Signal and any other apps are enrolled in MTE on Graphene?
iOS uses MTE for nearly all of the important parts of the OS. It uses MTE within the kernel and for a substantial portion of the base OS processes. They focused on deploying it to the most security relevant processes first but it's deployed for a large portion of the OS beyond those. Apple has done a very good job protecting the OS with it. They've done a very poor job getting the app ecosystem to adopt it.
Android has more app ecosystem adoption than iOS due to having a better open source app ecosystem where GrapheneOS users have asked apps to enable it by default. Many GrapheneOS users are also force enabling MTE for user installed apps via our recommended toggle for it. Those users are reporting invalid memory access to developers via our dedicated notification system for invalid memory accesses it catches. For Android app developers, not opting into MTE doesn't mean their app won't be used with MTE due to GrapheneOS.
GrapheneOS uses MTE for the kernel and nearly every userspace process including all the base OS apps. We've had to fix many upstream Linux kernel and Pixel kernel driver bugs found by MTE. However, we aren't trying to fix the Pixel userspace drivers code ourselves so we have a few userspace processes excluded from MTE caused by userspace driver library/service bugs.
We recommend users enable our toggle for enabling MTE by default for every user installed app not explicitly marked as incompatible in our compatibility database. GrapheneOS has user-facing notifications for invalid memory accesses caught by MTE providing a traceback to share with the app developers. Users can use the per-app toggle to work around it if it makes an app unusable. We take the same approach for other aggressive exploit protections provided by GrapheneOS. Exploit protections with only rare compatibility issues are enabled by default for apps with a per-app toggle to opt-out and no toggle for the global default.
I see a significant difference between making a security feature available but opt-in during a teething phase, and removing the feature altogether. Am I missing something?
This isn't terrible development, it's simply that GrapheneOS devs can't do miracles
They can't just continue supporting phones if they have security downgrades, especially if it's an important feature.
I think they mean "this is a terrible development" in the sense that this is terrible news/turn of events. They arent criticizing GrapheneOSs software development.
Pixel 11 has an incremental upgrade to the CPU, the same underpowered GPU and less RAM for the base Pro models. It has a new major version of the secure element (Titan M3) which likely greatly improves Before First Unlock state security for users without a strong passphrase. It has a better radio from a performance and efficiency perspective but it's still a more than yearly generation behind Qualcomm. The cellular radio firmware is also likely a security downgrade but the userspace code is more secure due to moving to AOSP IMS code. If these devices hadn't removed MTE, then they would have been a sidegrade with marginally better security. Removing MTE ruins these devices for GrapheneOS. We could still support the Pixel 11 series but it would be greatly rolling back overall security to before the Pixel 8. It does at least have PAC and BTI but MTE was the main improvement with the Pixel 8 rather than those.
IMO they peaked with the Nexus 6 - camera has gotten worse and they make up with it in software or try to. You could and can see this at night or stacked shots in N6 vs pixel 4,5,6.
They bought the best phone hardware and software companies (Motorola and Android) and gutted them both.
They purchased Motorola Mobility for the patent portfolio as essentially a nuclear deterrent against Apple and then sold it to Lenovo. They're doing quite well internationally but haven't been a big brand in the US for a while. Their flagship phones are going to have GrapheneOS as a selling point soon and we'll hopefully be able to expand beyond the high end over the next couple years.
> They purchased Motorola Mobility for the patent portfolio as essentially a nuclear deterrent against Apple
By Apple, you mean Microsoft.
The early Android device makers had to pay a per device patent licensing fee to Microsoft.
Google sued Microsoft for massive amounts of money using video standards essential patents they purchased from Motorola, but it didn't work out well for them in court.
Apple was actively going after Android OEMs including Samsung too. We did mean Apple but Microsoft was also relevant. The point was that they primarily bought Motorola Mobility to strip mine it for patents.
The company that Google targeted with their Motorola patents was Microsoft.
Google sought to ban the sale of Microsoft products that used the H.264 video standard on a global basis if Microsoft didn't hand over a literal fortune.
> Microsoft and Motorola are embroiled in a legal spat around the world over the software giant’s alleged use of Motorola industry-standard H.264 patents in its many products. Motorola has argued that Microsoft has used the technology illegally and should have its products banned until it licenses them.
Motorola says that Microsoft should pay $4 billion for the use of its technology, applying a 2.25 percent royalty based on product price.
...have you tried any of the cameras from the last 5 years or just the pixel 6? My 11 pro's cameras are by far the best cameras I've ever used on a smartphone, my previous iPhone included.
Have you seen the raw images you get out of those cameras? They're still the same grainy low res webcam sensors they were 10 years ago (if not worse), most of the improvement is just AI hallucinating details.
Lost any remaining respect for Pixel with the decisions they've made for Pixel 11. The product design and hardware teams have both tried to one up each other and who can deliver the bigger pile of steaming crap.
They do make limited use of it for Android Advanced Protection Mode (AAPM) introduced in Android 16. It no longer provides this upgrade for protection against exploits on the Pixel 11. They could substantially expand AAPM to using it across much more of the OS and could also start using it without AAPM since there's no significant downside to using it for most of the userspace code outside of the kernel.
It wasn't a failed experiment. There was lack of serious investment in ever widely deploying it and then cost cutting by bean counters. Apple deployed MTE significantly after Google shipped it but Apple uses it in production for everyone. Apple developed very good integration of MTE into iOS and dealt with all of the issues it uncovered in order to ship it in production. Google has been entirely capable of doing that and also entirely capable of getting a better hardware implementation to reduce the overhead.
The nearly useless LED added to the back of the Pixel 11 likely costs significantly more than the extra die space for MTE support in the CPU cache. Google's LED feature is widely panned in reviews and will likely result in selling fewer devices than if they hadn't added it. They're also going to be widely panned for removing a very high impact security feature instead of making extensive use of it and improving it. It's a poor way to run a business. Pixel 11 has been poorly received in reviews and that was before people knew they downgraded security in a major way.
Google is marketing the Pixel 11 based on incrementing the version number for the security chip (with unclear improvements) and using post-quantum secure cryptography (ML-DSA) for verified boot. If they had followed through on open sourcing the firmware and hardware for the Titan M then we would already know in what way they improved it instead of finding out over time through people's reverse engineering efforts.
> The nearly useless LED added to the back of the Pixel 11 likely costs significantly more than the extra die space for MTE support in the CPU cache.
How is a bunch of LEDs more expensive than literal die space from TSMC? The chip is probably the most expensive part of the phone, a bunch of LEDs at a few cents per unit are infinitely cheaper than extra die space for a feature 99.99% of users won't use.
Folks SWOTing everything in life like hubris ain’t a thing… all tech needs to be more secure, even more so as the asymmetry of attack and defence grows wider.
You can't just say "we need security, this is security, therefore we must do it". That's the politician's fallacy. Did you know that preventing sideloading also improves security, but GrapheneOS is adamant that sideloading must be allowed?
> Did you know that preventing sideloading also improves security
Play Store is only the safest way to obtain apps solely distributed through the Play Store. It's safer to get other apps more directly from the developers considering how much malware there is on the Play Store. There are tons of apps impersonating other software on the Play Store. There are lots of useful open source apps for people focused on privacy and security not available through the Play Store too.
Reasons I always bought pixels is because it's better to deal with one vendor bloat than two, the ease of installing OS-es like graphene (never had a bricked phone) and knowing that the hardware security is decent.
Glad the people behind graphene are creating this discourse I probably would have ordered a new pixel because I was used to the reasons I give above.
Because most of them don't really design their own phones, but instead sell what (mostly Chinese) ODMs give them with some small customizations.
I don't know about ShiftPhone, but e.g. Volla just sells rebranded Daria and Gigaset phones, typically marked up by a few hundred Euros to sell some EU-made/privacy/degoogling dream. In reality they are just cheap phones that the ODM does not really care about with Linux kernel and firmware trees that haven't seen any (security) updates in years.
T2Mobile is likely unable to meet our requirements. T2Mobile are not only designing the phone but even building/signing the firmware and device support code. Fairphone is putting together what they're given by Google (AOSP and GMS) and T2Mobile.
Fairphone gets to make high level decisions among the choices T2Mobile is willing to offer. For example, their move to T2Mobile with the Fairphone 4 coincided with the removal of the 3.5mm audio jack.
Disappointing news to say the least. this doesn't save that much space and power.
Pixel series aren't the fastest- they're far behind. They're also not the cheapest, they're amongst the most expensive.
The reason people still buy it is that they get a certain level of software quality and UX features, as well as security commitments that make Pixel and all of Android safer as it allows for fixing vulnerabilities quickly for everyone. MTE was one of these.
When Google stops doing this, what's the point of buying a Pixel? I'm also not confident that Motorola will pick up the slack in practice.
When browsing through all the smartphone options, if you want something outside of Apple that gives you peace of mind, isn't bloated with strange apps, and takes security seriously, the Pixel is pretty much your only choice.
Personally, I’d suggest avoiding Chinese smartphones as much as possible. Setting aside the cybersecurity risks for a moment, just look at how they cheat and manipulate benchmark scores—they will do whatever it takes just to look good on paper.
Also, consider how phones in China can't use GMS (Google Mobile Services), so they build in countless "workaround" backdoors. Do you really think buying the global version makes it safe? As a software developer, let me tell you: we rarely maintain two completely different codebases for what is essentially the same OS. Those backdoors are still there—they're just disabled. That alone should set off alarm bells.
If anyone is interested in diving deeper into the software issues behind Chinese phones, I can talk about that next time.
Pixel’s raw performance is honestly terrible. But if you don't game, its day-to-day fluidity easily blows other brands—including Samsung—out of the water. It’s a phone you can actually use with peace of mind: practically no backdoors, near-stock Android, timely security updates, and an advanced OS. It really is the best option for daily use.
That said, Google, I’m begging you: can you please take your hardware seriously? The current performance and overall state of Pixel phones are just embarrassing.
It's funny how much Google lies about Android being 'secure' [1] and how much GrapheneOS, for free, improves the security of everyone with their work. Google should be, immediately, merging all patches/changes GrapheneOS makes and releasing a new build of Android to AOSP. Instead, users are subject to weak efforts to protect their security and privacy while Google parade about how good and amazing they are. They mention [1] 'This unencrypted data can be used to build user profiles or, in the hands of malicious actors'...And can't see the irony. They ARE the malicious actor and they absolutely build profiles about everyone. Whatever happened to the 'privacy sandbox' initiative again?
Anyone who values Graphene's work will purchase one of their Motorola devices, whatever the cost, otherwise it seems your choices are going to be giving up more data and control to Google, because they are clearly, obviously and systematically trying to remove GOS from Pixels (lack of source code, removing hardware features, making it purposely difficult to support pixels).
I predict by 2030 GrapheneOS will not support any new pixels entirely. The existing pixels will eventually die off and that will be that.
It's obvious they see open access to users data as a threat to their business model. No, they haven't suddenly decided to care about your privacy, they want to deny other actors access so you need to get data directly via them. They will obviously still collect it themselves via their numerous methods (play services, chrome, ad networks etc).
> The thing is, you can buy a Pixel 8a or 9 for a fraction of the price.
Those are still going to be supported. In some countries such as Brazil, those are more expensive than a Signature due to not being officially sold there and high import taxes.
> Well the current Motorola Signature (2026) is 3 times the price of a Pixel.
I understand the sentiment, certainly, but the price difference depends a lot on which model we're comparing to. The Signature will be the flagship from Motorola, and I'll be very, very surprised if it's 3x the price of the Pixel flagship.
Presumably someone who was planning to buy something like the Pixel 10a would be more interested in the non-flagship Motorola devices with GOS support, which are expected to launch later.
Sure. But we're talking about a phone with GrapheneOS. If I need to choose a phone with GrapheneOS, there are cheap to expensive Pixels, and it is not clear at all if there will ever be cheap Motorolas. The Signature is very expensive, just like the most expensive Pixel.
> not clear at all if there will ever be cheap Motorolas
They've indicated that support will eventually be added for midrange Motorola devices, which I believe are historically price-competitive with the a-series Pixels.
I guess it depends where you are. Here the Signature 2026 is 750 Euro, which is about the same price as a Pixel 10 Pro.
They are quite a bit more expensive than the a-series, but I'm sure that the a series will hold up for a few more years, until GrapheneOS support percolates to mid-range Motorola phones. It's even possible, given that Pixel 10a uses the Pixel 9 CPU, that Pixel 11a will use the Pixel 10 CPU, so there might even be a new budget model next year with MTE support.
Good riddance to Google. I'm happy GOS is no longer dependent on their hardware.
My concern is that Motorola is a Chinese company. Sure, Pixel and Apple phones are made in China too, but they're overseen by American companies. How can we know these Motorola phones will not one day be placed on the "do not trust" list like e.g. Huawei phones?
The US government puts them on the list. I don't care that they are on the list, but it does mean they can't sell the devices in the United States. If that ever happened to Motorola, and there were still no other devices that Graphene OS supports, then there would be no options left.
Pixel 10 has 6 years of support remaining and the more recently launched Pixel 10a has even more of the support time remaining. We're hoping the Pixel 12 series brings back MTE so that it's only 1 generation not meeting our requirements. We could support the Pixel 11 series if we wanted but we'd have to heavily recommend against it. We haven't fully decided on how to handle it yet.
> placed on the do not trust list?? who places them on this list?
The President of the United States, or members of the Federal Government that have the various levers of power.
> and why do you listen to the people who place them there
If they won't allow the devices to be imported then it's not really an option. Which also means they wouldn't be allowed to connect to the cell network.
Or they could be barred from all Federal or State facilities, having to be left in a faraday bag upon entry.
Federal grants and loans to states and companies could be denied if company policy allows the use of those devices for corporate communications and purchasing decisions, etc.
You can get a Pixel 10 or wait for the upcoming Motorola flagship with GrapheneOS support. Pixel 11 only has an incremental CPU upgrade and the same GPU as the Pixel 11 anyway. It isn't much of a hardware upgrade and is even a downgrade for RAM with the base Pro devices. It's more expensive than the Pixel 10 was too.
The upcoming Motorola flagship will have a dramatically better CPU and GPU than the Pixel 11 and competitive cameras. It will still have 7 years of updates, MTE and a secure element with the features used by GrapheneOS. Motorola Signature (2026) is the predecessor not quite meeting our requirements mainly due to lack of MTE but also lack of other features which had to be developed.
Motorola doesn't have a great track records for flagships smartphones. I will keep finger crossed that we won't have to choose again between security and features but either way it's a great news, and I truly hope that GrapheneOS will be adopted by more manufacturers in the future
Motorola Signature (2026) was well received. They committed to 7 years of updates and provided top tier smartphones cameras which were previous limitations. Razr Fold (2026) has the top rated camera for a folding device on DXOMARK, unlike the huge camera downgrade for folding Pixels.
One detail that remains to be seen is whether you'll cater to the EU market, and how the impact of the memory crisis will impact the possible consumer-base. It's a weak market and sales are likely to be only the 'hardcore' users who demand/require security. I sincerely hope there are no numbers you need to hit to keep the partnership going. Sales are not likely to be at first significant, people are extremely price sensitive and I'm not sure GrapheneOS support will draw people in enough to justify the obviously now inflated costs to cover component price increases (and tariffs).
Pixels offer affordable options which is why unless you can cater to that market, a Motorola-only GrapheneOS future will only gain traction if you're able to get a cheaper low/mid-range option out there, akin to the Pixel A-series.
Much of that is out of their hands unfortunately. Motorola don't use the latest Snapdragon SoCs in most of their more affordable models, and Qualcomm are the only ones so far (outside Samsung/Google) who seem willing to support what is needed (MTE, Android SE imp etc.)
Is the Motorola partnership that they're ensuring support in the phone, and helping the port with docs/support perhaps, or is it even actually shipping with GrapheneOS?
They're implementing all of the features required by GrapheneOS, are helping us port GrapheneOS to the devices and may help us maintain it. They'll provide us with the drivers and firmware needed to support it too. Selling devices with GrapheneOS is planned but the details and timeline aren't worked out.
Wouldn't OHA agreements prevent shipping a non-Google-certified Android? Unless you mean a future device with GrapheneOS might potentially go through CTS and ship with Google apps preinstalled?
OEMs are fully allowed to include official support for GrapheneOS and sell batches of devices to companies selling those devices with GrapheneOS. It isn't hard to work around Google's licensing terms. It's already being done by multiple OEMs today.
Google's licensing terms are also clearly a blatant violation of antitrust law. The licensing terms have already been invalidated in multiple countries including South Korea. Samsung is no longer bound by the same terms, which isn't fair to other OEMs.
It should be more globally available than Pixels. Look at the availability of the existing Motorola Signature (2026) or the more recently launched Razr Fold (2026) and Razr Ultra (2026). Those 2026 devices won't support GrapheneOS, but the successor the Motorola Signature will. We don't know precise details about folding devices yet.
Motorola Signature (2026) has 7 years of support and the successor to it is what we'll be supporting. GrapheneOS will be providing the updates for a device running GrapheneOS so it doesn't particularly matter how quickly they ship the AOSP patches or major Android updates themselves. GrapheneOS already provides AOSP patches months before Pixels via our security preview releases. We provide Linux kernel patches many months earlier than Pixels but it's currently limited by the speed of Greg KH's GKI LTS branch unless we start doing it ourselves again.
Motorola will directly Qualcomm firmware and drivers we need which are mainly from Qualcomm. The updates will be up to us.
As far as I know, only Motorola is given access to the driver source code for all the chips, which then as part of using it, they are obligated to release it, which then GrapheneOS can then access and use it.
As a result, Motorola's software support is just as important as Motorola's hardware
We won't have to depend on Motorola's public OS releases for access to the firmware and drivers as we do for Pixels. We'll also have access to a lot more than what's mandatory to provide due to GPLv2.
You can get a Pixel 10 or wait for the upcoming Motorola flagship with GrapheneOS support. Pixel 11 only has an incremental CPU upgrade and the same GPU as the Pixel 11 anyway. It isn't much of a hardware upgrade and is even a downgrade for RAM with the base Pro devices. It's more expensive than the Pixel 10 was too.
The upcoming Motorola flagship will have a dramatically better CPU and GPU than the Pixel 11 and competitive cameras. It will still have 7 years of updates, MTE and a secure element with the features used by GrapheneOS. Motorola Signature (2026) is the predecessor not quite meeting our requirements mainly due to lack of MTE but also lack of other features which had to be developed.
For consistency, given all the phones GrapheneOS refused to support for not meeting their requirements, the Pixel 11 should not be supported, to my eyes.
It does suck for those who already got one expecting GrapheneOS support
Pixel 11 does meet our past requirements and is more secure than the Pixel 6 and Pixel 7 which are still supported. Other devices don't meet the past requirements.
We don't want to have an overall downgrade in security from the Pixel 8, Pixel 9 and Pixel 10. One approach would be using HWASan within the OS instead of MTE but the overhead is extreme and it only works for code instrumented with it.
Feeling like my Pixel 9 Pro was the best timed hardware buy I've made in recent years.
The 10 dropped the physical SIM slot and Google started with their device tree shenanigans that year, with little to no improvements in exchange.
I've got 16GB of RAM and 512GB in an ecosystem that shows every sign of regressing in capacities due to component price inflation.
Very interested to see what Motorola does next year, however.
Pixel 10 was so bad I had to trade it in after using for a month. The version I got was 128GB for a whopping $600. This was my first Google device after Nexus days and I was bitterly disappointed with weird performance bugs and battery drain issues. The software does little to make up for the issues.
The replacement I got is a Motorola razr ultra folding phone.. similar perf point with 16G RAM and 512G storage. This phone is legit.
We plan to support future versions of the Motorola Signature, Razr Fold and Razr Ultra. We'll have at least a non-folding Signature successor in 2027 but aren't yet sure if the folding devices will provide what we need.
We're confident it's going to be much better hardware than Pixels and that our users will be happy with it. Our initial goal was only providing competitive security with Pixels but it's now clear we can do better in most areas. Google will likely have a significantly better secure element for a while but that can change too.
What's the point of the Pixel 11 and later now that they aren't supported by AOSP and are no longer going to be best in class for security? The updates and security features are why GrapheneOS uses them. We have ~500k users on the Pixel 6 through Pixel 10a and many of those users had multiple previous Pixel and Nexus devices for GrapheneOS. Our userbase is rapidly growing at an increasing rate and was already significant for Pixels.
I worked with Moto on simple security improvements a few years ago and while they understood the competitive advantage they would get, being a now-small player - I also wasn't convinced that they were fully committed, their support apps and base image were still full of software i wouldn't recommend to say the least.
I hope they are now. There is a void to fill.
Does this mean we might finally get a phone with 3.5mm jack, microSD slot and GrapheneOS support? I believe I've been asking for that for 10 years now.
The last Pixel with a 3.5mm jack was the Pixel 5a launched in August 2021. The 3rd/4th/5th gen Pixel 'a' series headphone jacks had horrible audio quality far worse than using the decent USB-C DAC included with the Pixel 2 and Pixel 3. They stopped bundling that with the Pixel 4.
Extendable storage is usually provided via the SIM tray. Physical SIMs are being phased out which is not good news for the feature you want. Realistically, you'll still need to use USB-C for headphones or an external drive.
You can look at the Motorola Signature (2026) for an idea of the initial device which will be a successor to it. Their high end devices don't have 3.5mm audio or microSD. They have devices with those but they're nowhere near our requirements.
I have been using Sony Xperia's since the Pixel 1 phased out the headphone jack, and the Xperias have had better 3.5mm jacks than even many dedicated DACs.
Physical SIMs being phased out seems to be primarily a US thing right now, but if that happens I'm just gonna stop using phones entirely.
If you want to glue a usb hub, DAC and card reader to your phone, go ahead, but I'd consider that a little bit inconvenient.
Seriously, the latency on wireless and usb-c headphones is so unpredictable that for lecture recording at hacker conferences they've now been banned for both live video/audio production and for video editing, with 3.5mm as the only option going forward.
For what it's worth, Apple's cheap (<$10) 3.5" adapters tend to have excellent audio quality and should work with Android devices.
They're still significantly worse than the builtin 3.5mm ports Sony provides, and they're obviously still a major inconvenience.
There is no significant latency on usb-c DAC's. In fact most internal DAC's are just the same chip connected to an internal USB bus.
Bluetooth absolutely has a noticeable delay depending on the codec/profile.
USB DACs themselves are fine, but many wireless headphones that also support USB-C run active processing with unpredictable latency.
There are a lot of high quality tiny USB-C DACs available and also a decent set of direct USB-C headphone options.
Great, could you tell me which headphones I can use without adapter on Zoom F6, Yamaha DM3, Behringer Wing panels, Focusrite Scarlett interfaces and smartphones?
Currently we're using Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro and some MDR-7506.
They'd also need to be fully passive, as any active processing introduces unpredictable delays of up to 16ms, which is unacceptable when the goal is to check sync on audio and video signals.
It sounds to me like you only see everything as consumer devices for media consumption, ignoring the needs of people using computing devices to create things professionally.
If you know any top level mobile division people at Sony you could encourage them to reach out and commit to meeting GrapheneOS's requirements.
Please consider trying to bring Graphene to the Moto G. Security is not the only reason someone might want to use Graphene - some of us just want to untangle ourselves from Google.
The option to have supported Graphene as well as an SD card slot and headphone port would be wonderful.
> Security is not the only reason someone might want to use Graphene
I was thinking about this and am curious if the Graphene team are specifically treating 'more secure than stock Android' as a non-negotiable for the purpose of having a strong pipe to swing at Google should Google ever play the 'third party distributions need to be shut down... because security' card.
Historically Motorola is a solid product. The Nothing Phone 4 pro looks interesting. Is grapheme in an official relationship with above phone? You can ship them your phone and they set it up for you.
Well, shut up and take my money haha!
Graphene on Razr Ultra - YES! Can't come soon enough.
I'm sold as well!
Ahm… phones have as much memory as my laptop? Man, here was I thinking a Pixel 7 would make a good Graphene device.
I have multiple Pixel 7 phones GrapheneOS in my family with close to zero issues. It's a good choice for GrapheneOS IMO, except that support ends in Oct 2027. The Pixel 8 is still great also but has a more fragile screen.
I haven't used any newer devices with it yet.
If you’re using Graphene as the OS, does it matter if support ends?
Sounds good, thank you. The Pixel 8 is way outside my budget, it’ll mostly be a testing device for my mobile apps (gotta make them work on GOS).
Get a used Pixel 8a instead of a Pixel 7. Pixel 8 and later have 7 years of support from launch instead of 5 along with MTE. The 'a' series devices are cheaper but have a variant of the same SoC for 6th through 9th gen. A used Pixel 8a or a new Pixel 10a are both very good value.
32GB is pretty common for new laptops, especially if you’re looking to utilize your integrated graphics (shared memory). Also keep in mind that modern integrated graphics can be really good, and therefore play games that demand more memory (e.g., Panther Lake X7).
The 24GB MacBook Air is the sweet spot of that model lineup in my opinion. Even if you’re a true “web browsing only” user, you can definitely find a sale or refurbished model with 24GB and that’s a much more wise purchase for long term ownership than being stuck with 16GB.
Especially considering most laptops have soldered memory, I’d have a hard time recommending a new laptop purchase with 16GB if your intention is to keep it many years.
Even though RAM is expensive, there are deals and sales out there.
> keep in mind that modern integrated graphics can be really good
Sort of but not really? Without the wider bus (and various drawbacks) of GDDR any iGPU is very severely memory bandwidth constrained compared to a dGPU from an equivalently recent generation. It's just that a 3 or 4 generation old dGPU is sufficient for an ever increasing number of titles.
TBF it entirely depends on what is meant by "really good".
> I’d have a hard time recommending a new laptop purchase with 16GB if your intention is to keep it many years.
One of my devices still has only 8GB and I use it daily. It's really not an issue for most things.
Don’t forget that all MacBook models are “integrated graphics.” If you start doing graphical stuff or gaming you’ll need more RAM. If you’ve got a Windows laptop with an RTX 5050/5060 with its own dedicated memory, then yeah, you don’t really need more than 16GB unless you’re doing something specific.
Integrated graphics are constrained but often sufficient to play AAA games.
Panther Lake laptops are roughly equivalent to an RTX 4050, which is only a single generation old. Obviously not the strongest GPU to compare against but you’re also pulling a lot less wattage doing it.
I’m sure your 8GB device is working great, but someone buying a brand new device really should avoid that since the implication is that they’re going to keep that device for somewhere between 3-7 years.
Do those laptops not have on the order of ~64 GB/s bandwidth? Meanwhile your example of an RTX 4050 is a mobile SKU with 192 GB/s while the lowest entry level dGPU from that generation, the RTX 4060, boasts 272 GB/s. The RTX 4070 range ups that to 500 GB/s and the high end breaks 1 TB/s.
tl;dr iGPU vs dGPU memory bandwidth is a >10 year difference.
So now to double check my guestimate of 3 to 4 generations from earlier. Entry level RTX 30 448 GB/s in 2020, eventually downgraded to 168 GB/s in 2024. Entry level RTX 20 448 GB/s in 2018 eventually downgraded to 336 GB/s in 2019. You have to go all the way back to the GeForce 10 series to dip below 100 GB/s and even then that's due to some highly unusual configurations introduced many years after the initial launch. At launch in 2016 the lowest end GTX 1050 pulled 112 GB/s which is nearly 2x Panther Lake IIUC.
Ah, I understand where you’re coming from now. You’re really heavily focused on memory transfer speed. That’s really not the only measure of GPU performance and certainly not the one I’m interested in for my workloads. (I do not care for local LLM work for one thing)
For example, the ThinkPad X9 15p with Panther Lake integrated graphics will do 80FPS in Cyberpunk 2077 while the RTX5060 in a Legion 7a will do 109FPS on the same settings (1920x1200, quality up scaling, no frame gen).
So what that means is you can get a super quiet thin and light laptop that gets double digit hours of productivity battery life and has roughly the same tier of gaming experience as a thicker, heavier, power-hungry gaming PC that is pumping 115 watts into the GPU.
To answer your question, LPDDR5x should be more close to 100GB/s so I think you are underestimating the memory bandwidth of Panther Lake laptops. Not sure though.
That all said, overall a RTX5060 or higher laptop would be preferable, I just find it hard to find one that checks a lot of the “thin and light 13-14” premium long battery life productivity laptop that can game on the side” boxes.
> Do those laptops not have on the order of ~64 GB/s bandwidth?
The Macs? No, they go up to 614 GB/s, nearly an order of magnitude more.
Are we talking about gaming or GPGPU? Because AFAIK gaming is more likely to be constrained by SSD performance than GPU memory bandwidth.
I wasn’t very specific at first but a lot of my purchase decisions are around “productivity laptop that can game on the side.”
I wouldn’t say gaming is constrained by GPU memory bandwidth or SSD performance. As long as you have an SSD of any kind, you’re generally fine. Only a few specialized titles like Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart were specifically designed to show off the technical capabilities of fast SSD storage. Most everything else runs just fine without bleeding edge SSD performance, you’re even generally fine running off of a microSD card or SATA III SSD.
Gaming mostly wants to have sufficient GPU RAM capacity and overall 3D rendering performance (for a lack of a precise technical definition of what that means on my part).
Gaming doesn’t tend to move data in and out of VRAM at a particularly fast speed.
Gaming is also generally designed around being able to be released on the latest generation of home consoles, which is now essentially a 6 year old mid-range desktop GPU with 16GB of total system memory.
Gaming is highly constrained by memory bandwidth in the general case. It scales with things like resolution, framerate, and number of textures.
But of course in practice it depends on the details of what you're doing. This is why I acknowledged up front that it depends on what is meant by "really good". I think iGPUs are sufficient for a huge number of titles in the exact same way that an entry level dGPU from 2018 also is. But I don't think most people would consider that "really good" as you'll generally be stuck in the ballpark of 1080@60 and don't even think about photorealistic VR.
I think it's interesting to note that a while back GPU horsepower reached a point similar to that of CPU horsepower and system RAM capacity that's "good enough" for most common tasks. You don't need (and presumable never will) 32 cores or 64 GB of RAM to check your email or watch youtube. Similarly 1080@60 is sufficient to enjoy most game concepts.
Yeah I totally agree with what you’re saying. Basically, that “good enough”-ness for my use case does involve things like not playing photorealistic VR and very much accepting 1080p render resolutions or sometimes even lower (thanks, XeSS/FSR/DLSS!)
The main point with it is that it’s not a matter of “oh I can’t play the games I want to play reasonably” and that is very much not how integrated graphics used to be.
And then there's Apple, selling new MacBooks with 8GB RAM (e.g., the neo)
For what it is, it’s not a bad device, but you’re definitely better off grabbing an M3 MacBook Air 16GB for around the same price.
Definitely. This is great considering our family Google One plan has 100GB storage which is more than 60% full, but I don't really need to sweat it because I can back up most things on this phone and ignore Google photos backup alerts.
And that's why I refuse to buy phones without microSD slot. I've got 2TB of storage in a $300 phone, for all my music and photos.
With a BT keyboard, and a decent USB-C/HDMI screen, such a phone may be an acceptable laptop. Both Samsung and Google support desktop mode now.
Pixel 8 or later is required for DisplayPort alternate mode. Pixel 8 through Pixel 10a are also the recommended devices for GrapheneOS due to 7 years of support from launch and providing the full set of our security requirements. We don't recommend buying a 7th gen Pixel anymore and definitely not 6th gen.
Do they allow Dex on Samsung flagships but without a exernal screen yet? Samsung Tab A10 FE had this and it could turn into a desktop in seconds without needing a second screen. However when I thought this would be a killer feature of the Galaxy Fold it was completely missing and just like the flagships of the time it needed a wireless or a wired monitor to run Dex
Actually, because it's a fold and the external screen is very good, I end up checking notifications and stuff without having to open the phone, which results in less distraction and screen time.
Or a lapdock for an all-in-one equivalent. The latest NexDock finally has a decent touchpad.
At what point do we blame google for going the route of regressive and damaging business tacitcs to earn a penny while burning a dollar?
The 11 is a complete turd. Less RAM than the 10.
Sticking with a 9 Pro or 10 Pro is the smart move right now. I’m actually considering spending $400 to get a broken 9 Pro XL fixed…
Yes but all phones coming out now are going to be complete turds really. They're all going to cut corners to offset the exploding cost of storage and ram.
"The 10 dropped the physical SIM slot"
I'm assuming that's a country specific/dependent thing?
(My pixel 10 does have a physical sim slot).
It was removed from the non-Fold devices in the US. They kept it for other countries due to only considering the US carriers to be ready for eSIM-only.
True, here in Europe they're definitely not. Especially on prepaid. I wouldn't buy a phone without dual physical sim. eSIM is nice for travelling but I want physical for my daily numbers. This way I can stick them in any phone I want and even in my 4G backup modem.
> The 10 dropped the physical SIM slot
Not sure about the 10, but at least the 10 Pro still has one.
It was removed from the whole non-folding Pixel 10 series in the US. It still has the SIM card slot elsewhere. We had to return a Pixel 10 bricked due to a firmware bug and it was the US model since we'd bought it in the US and sent it overseas with a forwarding service. Google's repair partner shop was quite confused about the lack of a SIM card slot to get the IMEI and we only had a serial number but they figured out using the serial number instead.
There's still dual SIM support either way and you can store dozens of inactive eSIMs. The main downside of eSIMs is widespread lack of transfer support by carriers.
After switching providers with a recent phone with eSIM, I would say I’d never want to go back to physical SIMs ever again.
They’re going to go away worldwide eventually, they’re just more easily removed in the US where the carriers are more bleeding edge on features and there are only 3 providers to think about in a very large homogenous market.
The difference between waiting for a SIM card to arrive in the mail or traveling to a store, fiddling with a paperclip, tray, and impossibly tiny nano-SIM versus switching providers in 10 minutes via an app is night and day.
Most SIM/dual SIM solutions also involve removing both SIM cards at once even to swap out one of two, and they tend to require device restarts.
In the past I’ve also had network problems as a result of bad/damaged SIM cards.
You seem to forget that moving an eSIM between phones isn't nearly as straightforward as moving a physical SIM, and often must be requested or approved by the carrier. If for some reason you intend to use the same SIM in various phones for one reason or another, it's a huge inconvenience.
Technically, the same thing can happen with a physical SIM. I tried that with a Nexus 5X on Verizon and that's how I learned their network has an allowlist system.
How does the carrier even know what phone you are going to use? My last SIM was bought in store at T Mobile, for cash, and I can freely move between phones. I never buy phones from carriers. My Pixel as bought directly from Google and immediately flashed with Graphene.
They do know, I experienced it myself.
I had a testing phone and my regular phone, I kept swapping the same Verizon SIM between them. It worked for maybe 3 swaps, then Verizon blocked my account and sent me an email: suspicious activity detected, the SIM is blocked and cannot be restored, the contract has been terminated, you will receive the refund in mail.
Good riddance, US Mobile is so much cheaper and pleasant to use. I am scared to swap SIMs with them now though.
IMEI maybe?
This could have also been an issue where I needed to activate on some other phone before transferring to a Nexus 5X in order for me to get it to work.
Verizon is known to be the most restrictive carrier in the US as far as allowed devices.
ooo I can't wait for the CDMA carrier locking boogaloo all over again.
Can I switch out an eSIM while running an AOSP based ROM yet (ie no proprietary userspace)? Last time I checked (several years ago) it didn't seem to be possible. Did that change?
Why do they do the whole work of designing to separate variants, when they could just ship the single variant and the customers simply never use the slot, if they don't want it?
it might be worth considering that for many Phones different hardware is sold _under the same marketing name_.
The most common versions (in the "west) are AFIK:
- US version vs. international version
(just the most common divide of Phones you will see "in the west", e.g. if a brand sell to China, that also is normally it's own sub-versions.)
the most common differences include:
- different modems
- US phones being carrier locked (which is not normal outside of the US and a few other countries)
- US phones not having sim card slots, the international version of the same (Android) Phones, often still has a physical sim card slot
Not in the United States. Only the Fold still has a physical SIM slot.
Can confirm, pixel 10 is esim only.
It was removed from the non-Fold devices in the US. They kept it for other countries due to only considering the US carriers to be ready for eSIM-only.
Concur. I purchased the 9 pro fold specifically for the mutli physical/ esim and profile features to compartmentalize tools. Solid construction and material. Runs a lil hot but I push it. Its also through Above phone so a few extra bells and whistles.
The ironic thing is, the tagline for the Pixel 11 is "Ask more of your phone"
"Pixel 11 series is a lot more expensive for an incremental improvement to the CPU, the same underpowered GPU and reduced RAM for the Pro base models. They finally caught up to the last generation of Qualcomm cellular radio. It's overpriced, the upgrades aren't impressive and losing MTE is appalling."
I guess that's a thumbs down then?
What, MTE is such a promising tech and for security and now that we need all security we can get. WTF this is terrible development. You cant go backwards when the world needs getting even more secure.
Such a shame. Google themselves barely utilised it in their stock builds. I wonder if there is some silicon or development overhead they decided to cut.
I'm optimistic about the Motorola partnership and when my 9 Pro is EOL I'll definitely look at how that's played out.
Google likely cut MTE to reduce the die space required by CPU cache. It saves them money on a feature they never deployed by default and only used for a few processes as part of Android Advanced Protection Mode (AAPM) without enabling it in the Linux kernel. Their security team should have gotten it deployed by default for a large portion of the OS by now and then it would have been much harder to justify removing it. The small performance impact of asymmetric mode is irrelevant for the vast majority of the OS and it can also be used in the near zero cost asynchronous mode. We use synchronous in the kernel for security reasons but they didn't have to do that.
It's a completely different story for GrapheneOS where it means losing one of the main kernel and userspace security protections. This is one of the only ways we can significantly harden the Linux kernel with existing security features. The Linux kernel has always been a huge security liability for Android and AI models are making that much more obvious to everyone.
Google will likely end up heavily using MTE in the future. Pixel 11 devices won't be able to benefit from it. They're at the start of 7 years of updates but they won't be getting the benefit of future updates enabling MTE. Pixel 8 and later will benefit from Google likely expanding use of MTE for AAPM and eventually beginning to use it by default. It's unlikely Google will stop working on expanding MTE due to the Pixel 11 hardware decision. Multiple other OEMs are interested in MTE for devices made for businesses and governments even if Google decided it wasn't worth the cost for Pixels.
Ironically the recent CVE that's being used to root Android phones (Ghostlock) running GKI images is mitigated by MTE.
If there will be a GrapheneOS image for the Pixel 11 without MTE, could that open the door for GrapheneOS on a lot more phones that support AOSP?
We don't plan to make official GrapheneOS releases for any more devices without MTE. If we decided to provide support for the Pixel 11 series, it likely won't be branded as GrapheneOS to make it clear it isn't on the same level.
It would be inconsistent to require Motorola to provide MTE support and then to support the Pixel 11 without it.
There are no phones directly supported by AOSP. Motorola is helping us support their devices and port our features to them. We have to do an immense amount of work on it ourselves for Pixels and already did a lot of it for the Pixel 11 devices. Other devices are missing more than MTE.
Regarding the differentiated branding, I've been hoping for a GrapheneLite for many years now.
Regarding direct AOSP support, there are many devices that work fine with just the generic system image, which I'd count as direct AOSP support.
As far as I understand, broad device support is a non-goal for the GrapheneOS project. They are striving for decent security/privacy rather than wanting to attach their name and resources to mediocre standards.
I believe nothing prevents other individuals and organisations from building what you're suggesting with GrapheneOS code and ideas.
I would argue that "works fine" != "direct support" when discussing vendors and platforms. Support is a commitment signal, not just a technical capability.
The supposed "security team" is busy fighting Google engineers connecting to internal systems to do their work. E.g. somebody figured how to control the coding AI agent from their phone -- red alert, ban all access from phones to AI for everybody (even with corporate accounts).
You say that like it's a bad thing. If I am trusting Google with all sorts of personal information, I expect robust access controls to data and systems
Weird omission then... Seems asinine...
I don't understand much from MTE/Android or MIE/iOS but the explanation is also confusing when:
- They claim Apple did a great job integrating MIE in iOS - iOS doesn't encourage to opt into MTE ... Apple's docs warn developers of performance and stability issues
So it seems like even for iOS, this special security feature is only available for Apple own iOS app (at most?).
Then also:
> Even Signal doesn't opt-in. Our approach enables forcing using MTE in the standard allocators regardless.
So does that mean that Signal and any other apps are enrolled in MTE on Graphene?
iOS uses MTE for nearly all of the important parts of the OS. It uses MTE within the kernel and for a substantial portion of the base OS processes. They focused on deploying it to the most security relevant processes first but it's deployed for a large portion of the OS beyond those. Apple has done a very good job protecting the OS with it. They've done a very poor job getting the app ecosystem to adopt it.
Android has more app ecosystem adoption than iOS due to having a better open source app ecosystem where GrapheneOS users have asked apps to enable it by default. Many GrapheneOS users are also force enabling MTE for user installed apps via our recommended toggle for it. Those users are reporting invalid memory access to developers via our dedicated notification system for invalid memory accesses it catches. For Android app developers, not opting into MTE doesn't mean their app won't be used with MTE due to GrapheneOS.
GrapheneOS uses MTE for the kernel and nearly every userspace process including all the base OS apps. We've had to fix many upstream Linux kernel and Pixel kernel driver bugs found by MTE. However, we aren't trying to fix the Pixel userspace drivers code ourselves so we have a few userspace processes excluded from MTE caused by userspace driver library/service bugs.
We recommend users enable our toggle for enabling MTE by default for every user installed app not explicitly marked as incompatible in our compatibility database. GrapheneOS has user-facing notifications for invalid memory accesses caught by MTE providing a traceback to share with the app developers. Users can use the per-app toggle to work around it if it makes an app unusable. We take the same approach for other aggressive exploit protections provided by GrapheneOS. Exploit protections with only rare compatibility issues are enabled by default for apps with a per-app toggle to opt-out and no toggle for the global default.
I see a significant difference between making a security feature available but opt-in during a teething phase, and removing the feature altogether. Am I missing something?
This isn't terrible development, it's simply that GrapheneOS devs can't do miracles They can't just continue supporting phones if they have security downgrades, especially if it's an important feature.
I think they mean "this is a terrible development" in the sense that this is terrible news/turn of events. They arent criticizing GrapheneOSs software development.
They also say that the Pixel 11 is a very very tiny improvement wrt the Pixel 10, with less RAM and more expensive.
So basically they say don't buy it, wait for the Motorola phones.
Pixel 11 has an incremental upgrade to the CPU, the same underpowered GPU and less RAM for the base Pro models. It has a new major version of the secure element (Titan M3) which likely greatly improves Before First Unlock state security for users without a strong passphrase. It has a better radio from a performance and efficiency perspective but it's still a more than yearly generation behind Qualcomm. The cellular radio firmware is also likely a security downgrade but the userspace code is more secure due to moving to AOSP IMS code. If these devices hadn't removed MTE, then they would have been a sidegrade with marginally better security. Removing MTE ruins these devices for GrapheneOS. We could still support the Pixel 11 series but it would be greatly rolling back overall security to before the Pixel 8. It does at least have PAC and BTI but MTE was the main improvement with the Pixel 8 rather than those.
They have their reasons. Pixels are only getting worse and worse after the 9
IMO they peaked with the Nexus 6 - camera has gotten worse and they make up with it in software or try to. You could and can see this at night or stacked shots in N6 vs pixel 4,5,6.
They bought the best phone hardware and software companies (Motorola and Android) and gutted them both.
They purchased Motorola Mobility for the patent portfolio as essentially a nuclear deterrent against Apple and then sold it to Lenovo. They're doing quite well internationally but haven't been a big brand in the US for a while. Their flagship phones are going to have GrapheneOS as a selling point soon and we'll hopefully be able to expand beyond the high end over the next couple years.
> They purchased Motorola Mobility for the patent portfolio as essentially a nuclear deterrent against Apple
By Apple, you mean Microsoft.
The early Android device makers had to pay a per device patent licensing fee to Microsoft.
Google sued Microsoft for massive amounts of money using video standards essential patents they purchased from Motorola, but it didn't work out well for them in court.
https://www.ft.com/content/46d36fce-15c6-11e3-950a-00144feab...
Apple was actively going after Android OEMs including Samsung too. We did mean Apple but Microsoft was also relevant. The point was that they primarily bought Motorola Mobility to strip mine it for patents.
The company that Google targeted with their Motorola patents was Microsoft.
Google sought to ban the sale of Microsoft products that used the H.264 video standard on a global basis if Microsoft didn't hand over a literal fortune.
> Microsoft and Motorola are embroiled in a legal spat around the world over the software giant’s alleged use of Motorola industry-standard H.264 patents in its many products. Motorola has argued that Microsoft has used the technology illegally and should have its products banned until it licenses them.
Motorola says that Microsoft should pay $4 billion for the use of its technology, applying a 2.25 percent royalty based on product price.
https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/microsoft-wins-big-o...
Google also bought the HTC hardware folks for the Pixel phones - see https://www.engadget.com/2017-09-20-google-buys-htc-pixel-te...
Nexus 4-6 were manufactured by LG IIRC.
The Nexus 6 is a Motorola phone
There is really no "they", all Nexus phones weren't made by Google. Hence why, the 5X aside, everyone has nice memories of them.
The nexus 4 was also really mediocre. Only partial 4g and poor battery life iirc.
The nexus 5 also by LG was bulls eye though. Except for the ceramic letters constantly falling off.
...have you tried any of the cameras from the last 5 years or just the pixel 6? My 11 pro's cameras are by far the best cameras I've ever used on a smartphone, my previous iPhone included.
Have you seen the raw images you get out of those cameras? They're still the same grainy low res webcam sensors they were 10 years ago (if not worse), most of the improvement is just AI hallucinating details.
As someone who has a Nexus 6. You are delusional to say the camera was better than anything Pixel.
Lost any remaining respect for Pixel with the decisions they've made for Pixel 11. The product design and hardware teams have both tried to one up each other and who can deliver the bigger pile of steaming crap.
Fediverse link: https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/117179231167297908
Can someone from AOSP/Pixel hardware security shed some light? This is strange timing, especially when the approach has been validated by Apple also.
Probably just that Google doesn't use it so why pay for it? They're not obligated to support whatever GrapheneOS wants.
They do make limited use of it for Android Advanced Protection Mode (AAPM) introduced in Android 16. It no longer provides this upgrade for protection against exploits on the Pixel 11. They could substantially expand AAPM to using it across much more of the OS and could also start using it without AAPM since there's no significant downside to using it for most of the userspace code outside of the kernel.
It sounds like it was a failed experiment. Since it worked, it probably lost on a cost/benefit analysis. Which is fair enough.
It wasn't a failed experiment. There was lack of serious investment in ever widely deploying it and then cost cutting by bean counters. Apple deployed MTE significantly after Google shipped it but Apple uses it in production for everyone. Apple developed very good integration of MTE into iOS and dealt with all of the issues it uncovered in order to ship it in production. Google has been entirely capable of doing that and also entirely capable of getting a better hardware implementation to reduce the overhead.
The nearly useless LED added to the back of the Pixel 11 likely costs significantly more than the extra die space for MTE support in the CPU cache. Google's LED feature is widely panned in reviews and will likely result in selling fewer devices than if they hadn't added it. They're also going to be widely panned for removing a very high impact security feature instead of making extensive use of it and improving it. It's a poor way to run a business. Pixel 11 has been poorly received in reviews and that was before people knew they downgraded security in a major way.
Google is marketing the Pixel 11 based on incrementing the version number for the security chip (with unclear improvements) and using post-quantum secure cryptography (ML-DSA) for verified boot. If they had followed through on open sourcing the firmware and hardware for the Titan M then we would already know in what way they improved it instead of finding out over time through people's reverse engineering efforts.
> The nearly useless LED added to the back of the Pixel 11 likely costs significantly more than the extra die space for MTE support in the CPU cache.
How is a bunch of LEDs more expensive than literal die space from TSMC? The chip is probably the most expensive part of the phone, a bunch of LEDs at a few cents per unit are infinitely cheaper than extra die space for a feature 99.99% of users won't use.
Folks SWOTing everything in life like hubris ain’t a thing… all tech needs to be more secure, even more so as the asymmetry of attack and defence grows wider.
You can't just say "we need security, this is security, therefore we must do it". That's the politician's fallacy. Did you know that preventing sideloading also improves security, but GrapheneOS is adamant that sideloading must be allowed?
> Did you know that preventing sideloading also improves security
Play Store is only the safest way to obtain apps solely distributed through the Play Store. It's safer to get other apps more directly from the developers considering how much malware there is on the Play Store. There are tons of apps impersonating other software on the Play Store. There are lots of useful open source apps for people focused on privacy and security not available through the Play Store too.
https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/41564-pixel-11-doesnt-meet-...
I have a pipe dream that Apple will pull a 180 and offer support for GrapheneOS.
Lol, I'm very curious what's in that pipe. It must be some exceedingly hallucinagenic stuff.
If the sky falls, we shall catch larks.
I'm guessing this is why the pixel 8-10 models have been in such high demand recently
Reasons I always bought pixels is because it's better to deal with one vendor bloat than two, the ease of installing OS-es like graphene (never had a bricked phone) and knowing that the hardware security is decent.
Glad the people behind graphene are creating this discourse I probably would have ordered a new pixel because I was used to the reasons I give above.
The moterola alternatives are noted thanks guys
I wish ShiftPhone - which is fitting all my other needs - would offer a config that would work for GrapheneOS.
I just don't get why smaller OEMs don't seem to care about meeting Graphene's requirements.
GrapheneOS has 500k users and growing, and most GrapheneOS users would be more than happy to leave the Pixels because of Google's bullshit.
Because most of them don't really design their own phones, but instead sell what (mostly Chinese) ODMs give them with some small customizations.
I don't know about ShiftPhone, but e.g. Volla just sells rebranded Daria and Gigaset phones, typically marked up by a few hundred Euros to sell some EU-made/privacy/degoogling dream. In reality they are just cheap phones that the ODM does not really care about with Linux kernel and firmware trees that haven't seen any (security) updates in years.
Oh that makes sense. What about e.g. Fairphone?
Mostly developed (both hardware and software) by their Chinese ODM T2Mobile.
I think they probably have the sales volume where they could negotiate a compatible device with their ODM, but their priorities clearly lie elsewhere.
T2Mobile is likely unable to meet our requirements. T2Mobile are not only designing the phone but even building/signing the firmware and device support code. Fairphone is putting together what they're given by Google (AOSP and GMS) and T2Mobile.
Fairphone gets to make high level decisions among the choices T2Mobile is willing to offer. For example, their move to T2Mobile with the Fairphone 4 coincided with the removal of the 3.5mm audio jack.
Disappointing news to say the least. this doesn't save that much space and power.
Pixel series aren't the fastest- they're far behind. They're also not the cheapest, they're amongst the most expensive.
The reason people still buy it is that they get a certain level of software quality and UX features, as well as security commitments that make Pixel and all of Android safer as it allows for fixing vulnerabilities quickly for everyone. MTE was one of these.
When Google stops doing this, what's the point of buying a Pixel? I'm also not confident that Motorola will pick up the slack in practice.
When browsing through all the smartphone options, if you want something outside of Apple that gives you peace of mind, isn't bloated with strange apps, and takes security seriously, the Pixel is pretty much your only choice.
Personally, I’d suggest avoiding Chinese smartphones as much as possible. Setting aside the cybersecurity risks for a moment, just look at how they cheat and manipulate benchmark scores—they will do whatever it takes just to look good on paper.
Also, consider how phones in China can't use GMS (Google Mobile Services), so they build in countless "workaround" backdoors. Do you really think buying the global version makes it safe? As a software developer, let me tell you: we rarely maintain two completely different codebases for what is essentially the same OS. Those backdoors are still there—they're just disabled. That alone should set off alarm bells.
If anyone is interested in diving deeper into the software issues behind Chinese phones, I can talk about that next time.
Pixel’s raw performance is honestly terrible. But if you don't game, its day-to-day fluidity easily blows other brands—including Samsung—out of the water. It’s a phone you can actually use with peace of mind: practically no backdoors, near-stock Android, timely security updates, and an advanced OS. It really is the best option for daily use.
That said, Google, I’m begging you: can you please take your hardware seriously? The current performance and overall state of Pixel phones are just embarrassing.
It's funny how much Google lies about Android being 'secure' [1] and how much GrapheneOS, for free, improves the security of everyone with their work. Google should be, immediately, merging all patches/changes GrapheneOS makes and releasing a new build of Android to AOSP. Instead, users are subject to weak efforts to protect their security and privacy while Google parade about how good and amazing they are. They mention [1] 'This unencrypted data can be used to build user profiles or, in the hands of malicious actors'...And can't see the irony. They ARE the malicious actor and they absolutely build profiles about everyone. Whatever happened to the 'privacy sandbox' initiative again?
Anyone who values Graphene's work will purchase one of their Motorola devices, whatever the cost, otherwise it seems your choices are going to be giving up more data and control to Google, because they are clearly, obviously and systematically trying to remove GOS from Pixels (lack of source code, removing hardware features, making it purposely difficult to support pixels).
I predict by 2030 GrapheneOS will not support any new pixels entirely. The existing pixels will eventually die off and that will be that.
[1]: https://blog.google/security/new-android-network-security-pr...
They see the irony, they know the irony, they know their money comes from that irony being ignored so they will never lampshade it.
It's obvious they see open access to users data as a threat to their business model. No, they haven't suddenly decided to care about your privacy, they want to deny other actors access so you need to get data directly via them. They will obviously still collect it themselves via their numerous methods (play services, chrome, ad networks etc).
> Anyone who values Graphene's work will purchase one of their Motorola devices, whatever the cost
Well the current Motorola Signature (2026) is 3 times the price of a Pixel. Not everyone can afford "whatever the cost".
I hope Motorola will just get more and more phones to support GrapheneOS.
Here's a direct comparison with the Pixel 11:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Google-Pixel-11-Unlocked-Smartphone...
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Motorola-Signature-XT2603-2-SIM-Fre...
That's the 16GB variant of the Signature. There's also a cheaper 12GB variant, which is particularly competitively priced in India:
https://www.motorola.in/smartphones-motorola-signature/p?sku...
The thing is, you can buy a Pixel 8a or 9 for a fraction of the price. With Motorola at first it will only be the expensive flagship.
My hope is that Motorola will have cheaper phones that work with GrapheneOS.
> The thing is, you can buy a Pixel 8a or 9 for a fraction of the price.
Those are still going to be supported. In some countries such as Brazil, those are more expensive than a Signature due to not being officially sold there and high import taxes.
> Well the current Motorola Signature (2026) is 3 times the price of a Pixel.
I understand the sentiment, certainly, but the price difference depends a lot on which model we're comparing to. The Signature will be the flagship from Motorola, and I'll be very, very surprised if it's 3x the price of the Pixel flagship.
Presumably someone who was planning to buy something like the Pixel 10a would be more interested in the non-flagship Motorola devices with GOS support, which are expected to launch later.
Sure. But we're talking about a phone with GrapheneOS. If I need to choose a phone with GrapheneOS, there are cheap to expensive Pixels, and it is not clear at all if there will ever be cheap Motorolas. The Signature is very expensive, just like the most expensive Pixel.
> not clear at all if there will ever be cheap Motorolas
They've indicated that support will eventually be added for midrange Motorola devices, which I believe are historically price-competitive with the a-series Pixels.
I guess it depends where you are. Here the Signature 2026 is 750 Euro, which is about the same price as a Pixel 10 Pro.
They are quite a bit more expensive than the a-series, but I'm sure that the a series will hold up for a few more years, until GrapheneOS support percolates to mid-range Motorola phones. It's even possible, given that Pixel 10a uses the Pixel 9 CPU, that Pixel 11a will use the Pixel 10 CPU, so there might even be a new budget model next year with MTE support.
Can GOS continue to support existing pixels if AOSP drops support for them I wonder?
But it's easy to say 'whatever the cost' if you're wealthy :) For many people especially outside the US it's not that simple.
AOSP already dropped support for Pixels with Android 16 and GrapheneOS has continued to support Pixels.
Good riddance to Google. I'm happy GOS is no longer dependent on their hardware.
My concern is that Motorola is a Chinese company. Sure, Pixel and Apple phones are made in China too, but they're overseen by American companies. How can we know these Motorola phones will not one day be placed on the "do not trust" list like e.g. Huawei phones?
You should buy one before that happens then. Maybe buy several. Or get a proxy in Europe to smuggle them for you.
It's upcoming Motorola devices providing GrapheneOS support rather than current ones.
Then when it comes out you should buy one. In any case, don't buy a device for GOS unless GOS supports it right now.
Gor Huawei the main thing was that they didn't have access to Google services, so would graphene users care?
placed on the do not trust list?? who places them on this list? and why do you listen to the people who place them there.
The US government puts them on the list. I don't care that they are on the list, but it does mean they can't sell the devices in the United States. If that ever happened to Motorola, and there were still no other devices that Graphene OS supports, then there would be no options left.
Pixel 10 has 6 years of support remaining and the more recently launched Pixel 10a has even more of the support time remaining. We're hoping the Pixel 12 series brings back MTE so that it's only 1 generation not meeting our requirements. We could support the Pixel 11 series if we wanted but we'd have to heavily recommend against it. We haven't fully decided on how to handle it yet.
> placed on the do not trust list?? who places them on this list?
The President of the United States, or members of the Federal Government that have the various levers of power.
> and why do you listen to the people who place them there
If they won't allow the devices to be imported then it's not really an option. Which also means they wouldn't be allowed to connect to the cell network.
Or they could be barred from all Federal or State facilities, having to be left in a faraday bag upon entry.
Federal grants and loans to states and companies could be denied if company policy allows the use of those devices for corporate communications and purchasing decisions, etc.
Urgh I was about to buy one for GOS. Maybe back to iPhone it is.
You can get a Pixel 10 or wait for the upcoming Motorola flagship with GrapheneOS support. Pixel 11 only has an incremental CPU upgrade and the same GPU as the Pixel 11 anyway. It isn't much of a hardware upgrade and is even a downgrade for RAM with the base Pro devices. It's more expensive than the Pixel 10 was too.
The upcoming Motorola flagship will have a dramatically better CPU and GPU than the Pixel 11 and competitive cameras. It will still have 7 years of updates, MTE and a secure element with the features used by GrapheneOS. Motorola Signature (2026) is the predecessor not quite meeting our requirements mainly due to lack of MTE but also lack of other features which had to be developed.
Motorola doesn't have a great track records for flagships smartphones. I will keep finger crossed that we won't have to choose again between security and features but either way it's a great news, and I truly hope that GrapheneOS will be adopted by more manufacturers in the future
Motorola Signature (2026) was well received. They committed to 7 years of updates and provided top tier smartphones cameras which were previous limitations. Razr Fold (2026) has the top rated camera for a folding device on DXOMARK, unlike the huge camera downgrade for folding Pixels.
https://www.dxomark.com/smartphones/
We aren't sure when the first Motorola folding devices we can support will be released, but that will happen.
One detail that remains to be seen is whether you'll cater to the EU market, and how the impact of the memory crisis will impact the possible consumer-base. It's a weak market and sales are likely to be only the 'hardcore' users who demand/require security. I sincerely hope there are no numbers you need to hit to keep the partnership going. Sales are not likely to be at first significant, people are extremely price sensitive and I'm not sure GrapheneOS support will draw people in enough to justify the obviously now inflated costs to cover component price increases (and tariffs).
Pixels offer affordable options which is why unless you can cater to that market, a Motorola-only GrapheneOS future will only gain traction if you're able to get a cheaper low/mid-range option out there, akin to the Pixel A-series.
Much of that is out of their hands unfortunately. Motorola don't use the latest Snapdragon SoCs in most of their more affordable models, and Qualcomm are the only ones so far (outside Samsung/Google) who seem willing to support what is needed (MTE, Android SE imp etc.)
Is the Motorola partnership that they're ensuring support in the phone, and helping the port with docs/support perhaps, or is it even actually shipping with GrapheneOS?
They're implementing all of the features required by GrapheneOS, are helping us port GrapheneOS to the devices and may help us maintain it. They'll provide us with the drivers and firmware needed to support it too. Selling devices with GrapheneOS is planned but the details and timeline aren't worked out.
> Selling devices with GrapheneOS is planned but the details and timeline aren't worked out.
I hope they get worked out in short order. I'd love to buy one preconfigured if for no other reason then I'd like to show my support.
It also shows more of a commitment by Motorola. Harder to suddenly forget about providing you with what you need if they're selling gOS preinstalled.
Wouldn't OHA agreements prevent shipping a non-Google-certified Android? Unless you mean a future device with GrapheneOS might potentially go through CTS and ship with Google apps preinstalled?
OEMs are fully allowed to include official support for GrapheneOS and sell batches of devices to companies selling those devices with GrapheneOS. It isn't hard to work around Google's licensing terms. It's already being done by multiple OEMs today.
Google's licensing terms are also clearly a blatant violation of antitrust law. The licensing terms have already been invalidated in multiple countries including South Korea. Samsung is no longer bound by the same terms, which isn't fair to other OEMs.
Cool! Thanks.
Eagerly waiting for the Motorola flagship! Will it be released worldwide?
It should be more globally available than Pixels. Look at the availability of the existing Motorola Signature (2026) or the more recently launched Razr Fold (2026) and Razr Ultra (2026). Those 2026 devices won't support GrapheneOS, but the successor the Motorola Signature will. We don't know precise details about folding devices yet.
One thing about Motorola. They aren't known for supporting devices long term with fast updates.
Is there any guarantee that in 4 years this device will be getting monthly patches, source and builds regularly?
Motorola Signature (2026) has 7 years of support and the successor to it is what we'll be supporting. GrapheneOS will be providing the updates for a device running GrapheneOS so it doesn't particularly matter how quickly they ship the AOSP patches or major Android updates themselves. GrapheneOS already provides AOSP patches months before Pixels via our security preview releases. We provide Linux kernel patches many months earlier than Pixels but it's currently limited by the speed of Greg KH's GKI LTS branch unless we start doing it ourselves again.
Motorola will directly Qualcomm firmware and drivers we need which are mainly from Qualcomm. The updates will be up to us.
That's the point of GrapheneOS. They've been excellent at providing fast updates and long-term support for their supported devices.
Let Motorola do the hardware and GrapheneOS the software.
As far as I know, only Motorola is given access to the driver source code for all the chips, which then as part of using it, they are obligated to release it, which then GrapheneOS can then access and use it.
As a result, Motorola's software support is just as important as Motorola's hardware
We won't have to depend on Motorola's public OS releases for access to the firmware and drivers as we do for Pixels. We'll also have access to a lot more than what's mandatory to provide due to GPLv2.
Oh that is very exciting to hear!
GrapheneOS is fully dependant on the OEM of the phone to supply them with up to date drivers and can't support their builds longer than that.
We won't have to depend on Motorola's public OS releases for access to the firmware and drivers as we do for Pixels though.
Let's see how that goes considering Motorola's track record of support :)
Same here! I had everything lined up to import the phone just for GrapheneOS!
Google just can't help being a fucking disappointment at every single opportunity!
You can get a Pixel 10 or wait for the upcoming Motorola flagship with GrapheneOS support. Pixel 11 only has an incremental CPU upgrade and the same GPU as the Pixel 11 anyway. It isn't much of a hardware upgrade and is even a downgrade for RAM with the base Pro devices. It's more expensive than the Pixel 10 was too.
The upcoming Motorola flagship will have a dramatically better CPU and GPU than the Pixel 11 and competitive cameras. It will still have 7 years of updates, MTE and a secure element with the features used by GrapheneOS. Motorola Signature (2026) is the predecessor not quite meeting our requirements mainly due to lack of MTE but also lack of other features which had to be developed.
Just buy whichever device GOS does support right now. It's always been very picky about device support.
They have bare minimum sane standards for device support but it seems picky from the outside because most Android OEMs are incompetent.
For consistency, given all the phones GrapheneOS refused to support for not meeting their requirements, the Pixel 11 should not be supported, to my eyes.
It does suck for those who already got one expecting GrapheneOS support
Pixel 11 does meet our past requirements and is more secure than the Pixel 6 and Pixel 7 which are still supported. Other devices don't meet the past requirements.
We don't want to have an overall downgrade in security from the Pixel 8, Pixel 9 and Pixel 10. One approach would be using HWASan within the OS instead of MTE but the overhead is extreme and it only works for code instrumented with it.