The Hunt for a Phone

2026-08-27

My requirements for a phone are fairly different from most people’s. I don’t have, and don’t want a Google account, an Apple account, a Microsoft account or anything else similar. This is largely for privacy reasons, although I also believe these companies already have far too much power, and don’t want to give them any more.

There are a few things my phone needs to do:

  • Make and receive phone calls reliably
  • Send and receive SMS messages reliably
  • Send and receive Signal messages
  • Easily last a day on battery
  • Location logging to home assistant

There are also a bunch of apps I would like to be able to use. Doing so in a browser would be fine, but native would be preferable:

  • Home assistant
  • Audiobookshelf
  • Immich
  • Notes with some form of sync

I have some old dumb phones, but most of these rely on the 2g or 3g networks. With those being switched off, those unfortunately aren’t really an option.

At present, I also carry a small eink ereader with me. I don’t really mind doing this, but a phone with an eink screen would be appealing for a device I can read on, and thus remove something I am carrying.

Similarly, if a small eink tablet existed that would fit in my pocket and I could read and take notes on, that would be ideal. Something like the remarkable move, but smaller.

Anyway, on to phones I’ve tried:

Pinephone (Pro)

I was an early adopter of the Pinephone and the Pinephone pro. I loved these phones. They run proper GNU/Linux - not Android. At the time I used them there were some components that were in the process of being unstreamed, but this phone hit all the points for me regarding privacy, open source-y-ness, and being able to mess with it.

I daily drove them for several years. Unfortunately, there were 2 issues that ended up being deal breakers:

  • Abysmal battery
  • Unreliable phone calls

Lightphone II

This comes with a de-googled Android out of the box. While I’d prefer no Android, I came to the conclusion that if reliable phone calls were a requirement, then there would have to be some Android somewhere. The phone promised an e-ink screen which I hoped would mean a long battery.

Unfortunately, when it arrived, I was fairly disappointed. At least, from a privacy point of view. In it’s defence, it didn’t advertise itself as a privacy or security product, so I wasn’t mis-sold, but I was disappointed.

First off, contact and calendar and notes and stuff appeared to require an account on their servers. That wasn’t something I was prepared to do. A bit of searching around and I found a developer mode that let me use DAVx5 to sync calendar and contacts. It also let me install GPSLogger. I also noticed A LOT of requests being blocked to random chineese domains in my pihole.

If what you are after is a minimal phone, and not a privacy phone, this might be good for you, but it didn’t work for me.

GraphineOS

This is obviously the “default” choice for people who want a privacy / security focused phone. I got a second hand Pixel and installed GraphineOS on it. The OS itself is brilliant. I have nothing but compliments for the work of the team behind it. I’m also keen to see how the partnership with Motorola evolves.

Unfortunately, I’ve now bought two pixel phones and both have broken after ~18 months.

I don’t really want to keep buying phones every 18 months or so. Not only is that a lot of money, it’s also a lot of waste. If I bought the phones new / directly from Google, that would be even more money; and I’d be giving money to a company I would really rather not be supporting.

Sidephone

So, I ended up buying a Sidephone. In a similar way to the Lightphone, this is more targeted at digital minimalism than privacy, but it ticked most of my boxes. Again, it ran android, but without google’s bloatware all over it.

This is the phone that is currently in my pocket. It hits most of my requirements, although that’s not to say I don’t have criticisms.

The GPS accuracy on this phone is not good. At times, almost a km away from my actual position.

The android (or probably webview) version is also old enough that home assistant is …. not really usable with then main app. I can run it in firefox, which is fine, but worth noting. Given this is sold as a minimal phone, the ability to run things like home assistant probably aren’t that important. But it is fairly important to me.

The thing that annoys me most about the sidephone however is making notes.

I like to take a lot of notes. WHen I’m working, or at my desk, or at Church I have my Remarkable II (love this by the way). But it’s not always in my pocket. And whilst the T9 keyboard is fine (weirdly nostalgic) for typing a text or signal message, it’s really annoying for longer notes.

Conclusion

So, despite everything, I am currently using a Sidephone as my daily driver, but I don’t really feel satisfied by it.

My favourite phone on the list, by a long way, was my Pinephone. It was also, by most measures, the worst on the list. But the fact that the battery was so bad, and phone calls were often missed, mean I unfortunately just can’t rely on it.

So, my options going forward

  • Stick with the side phone and carry a small notebook and pen with me. This is another thing to leave at home / forget, but is a comparably cheap option.
  • Try something like the Bigme eink phones. These run full Android. I should be able to remove the google stuff, but it’s another purchace that may not go well. This would also have the added benefit of meaning I can take my Xteink X4 out of my pocket which is what I tend to read on.
  • Carry something like the Remarkable Move with me. I really like my remarkable II. Carrying a small version of it seems an obvious choice, but I am concerned it’s still a bit too big to leave in my pocket, which means I will leave it at home.

I really wish something like an even smaller remarkable move existed. Something I could read on, take notes on, and have those notes automatically backed up (the main reason I don’t want a paper notebook). I have an m5paper which is not really ideal. The touchscreen / refresh rate isn’t really good enough for making notes on. It’s fine for reading on, but not as nice as the xteink x4.