Most of my devices were Samsung. They’re reliable, even if cheap. Heck, the Galaxy A10 has stellar custom ROM support despite it being a $100 phone. So I suppose, I really just grew accustomed to the quality and custom ROM support. This can’t be said for any of the latest flagships, barely any of the latest Samsung flagships have proper custom ROMs.

The S23 Ultra for example, seems to mainly have BeyondROM, which is just a One UI custom ROM. Nothing AOSP or Pixel UI-based. It’s frustrating, because Samsung keeps boasting about how they’re open-source, they want to reduce waste, but if you’re just stuck to a stock-based ROM, you don’t really have much of a choice. I suppose flashing some GSIs as ROMs would work, but some Samsung-exclusive functions, even basic ones such as flashlight dimming, might not work unless you install some Xposed module or modify the GSI/ROM to add SamsungParts, not to mention security-based functions such as Knox.

In contrast, Google has always had some of the most open phones when it comes to customization, including the ability to re-lock the bootloader without bricking your device after flashing a custom ROM, and with Pixel 6+ they also have the Tensor core, that ROMs such as GrapheneOS can actually use, thus seriously increasing security for a custom ROM. If I were to purchase a new phone, if I had the money, I would switch to a Google Pixel 8 in a heartbeat.

I love what Fairphone is doing, but I would still be more likely to buy a Google Pixel 8 as my next phone, due to the better hardware security and long-term support provided by GrapheneOS. I wish Fairphone would have better HW security as well someday.