On amazon it is currently avaliable with android at the much cheaper price of £169.
Apart from time, is there any disadvantage of getting the chepaer android version and installing e/OS? Would the android system and manufacturers OS be completely wiped during installation?
Or if privacy is the main concern, is it better to spend the extra money? I deceided not to install e/OS on a Redmi phone, as Redmi would need identifiable details to wipe the phone. Is that the case with CMF also?
You can buy cheaper with Android from Google and then Install by yourself. But you are not ‘helping’ the project, think ablut a donation to compensate it .
Fairphone would last longer due to replacing parts, that’s someting to consider. I do like the responsible sourcing, and less of a contribution to waste.
Would however like a cheaper starting price point, and then see how E O/S works out long term, before making a more expensive investment.
The specs and reviews for the CMF are pretty good.
And I’m determined to get away from Google and privacy violating phone manufacturers. I do not use any Meta products whatsoever, and do not what a smartphone where a Meta app is built into the OS alongside Google.
On that note, are CMF known to have privacy concerns? If so, would a complete install of E O/S overwrite everything and ensure privacy?
I get that these Android phones are cheaper, as they violate your privacy for advertising profit. And I understand that Fairphone and E O/S do not take your data for ads, and therefore have no profit from advertising.
And more sustainable electronics made by workers with human rights, cost more.
I guess we don’t know the consequences of tripping anti rollback, but, until I knew different, I would certainly avoid installing an /e/OS version with Android SPL older than the SPL from the manufacturer’s OS.
I do not know for a fact, but would expect the manufacturing process to include flashing with the manufacturer ROM. Perhaps worth bearing in mind that Google provides the manufacturer with Android OS, the hardware is built for this job. Google also share a proportion of their fundamental work with Android Open Source Project. /e/OS is one variant of AOSP.
I just bought a new Nothing CMF Phone 1 from a normal webshop and installed /e/OS myself, hoping to save money. I could install /e/OS without doing anything to my Android version beforehand.
It failed because the vendor patches (security updates from Nothing, not from /e/OS) were outdated cannot be installed. Maybe I did something wrong on the way, but I am missing out on technical expertise here.
I don’t know if the same problem occurs when you buy a more expensive device with /e/OS from Murena directly.
I always thought this unfortunate … I think that you are getting this warning from an area of Settings not actually generated by /e/OS – perhaps you can show a screenshot and perhaps someone can explain the mechanism.
If I am guessing wrong please give an accurate explanation of what is happening.
The actual Vendor security patch level should appear in
Settings > About phone > Android version.
If you state your figure, others with the device should be able to confirm if they have the same.
Interesting! How do you know these are the actual ones? Are you sure you are looking at the vendor patch level and not at the /e/OS or Android patch level?
During the build process the date of the relevant (that is, most recent recorded in the build sources) vendor firmware revision is transferred to this space in the phone’s specification.
Edit. Of course in this case, tetris running Android 14, there is some veracity to “outdated” as we know that Android 15 will be “more up to date”.
Privacy issues stem from the software not the hardware. If you’re running the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) version of Android, then yes there are privacy concerns. If you run that same phone on /e/os which is a fork of LineageOS which is based on AOSP Android, then there are hugely less privacy concerns.
That’s not to say privacy is absolute as there can be privacy related issues with the firmware supporting the hardware which can’t be modified easily. Also there can be privacy issues with apps you install outside of /e/os. In any case I’ve not seen any reports of privacy issues related to the hardware and firmware Nothing Phone uses.
That statement doesn’t make sense to me. The phones you buy with OEM Android on them are cheaper because no work has been done to them prior to purchase. Murena charges a premium for delivering a phone with /e/os on it since they’ve done some work and need to get paid.
Depending on the person the cost difference may be worth the expense in terms of the time and equipment needed to install /e/os yourself. Otherwise there’s no difference in the /e/os software whether it’s preinstalled by Murena or self-installed.
My situation was almost identical to yours. I live in Canada so it seemed a bit pricey for an unknownbut i was so determined to stop all the privacy invasion i bought one.maybe a year or two ago. The BEST decision i could have made. Perfectly safe and lots of help in the forum. Every day i check the attempted trackers…they keep trying and dont make it.
