Hi,
I want to buy a new or a young second mobile phone.
Now I am use a Samsung S8 for nearly 7 years. I installed e/os myself.
I consider buying a phone with the possibility to lock the bootloader.
Reason: a lot of banking apps demand a locked bootloader.
I prefer to install e/os myself on an new or young second hand mobile phone.
Furthermore I prefer a Samsung, Fairphone or a Google Pixel.
What are the best options?
Regards,
André
Not Samsung because of voLTE not yet implemented in all models.
yet only on the [UNOFFICIAL BUILD] Samsung Galaxy S9 (starlte) / S9+ (star2lte) / Note 9 (crownlte) for /e/OS-a16 3.x unrelockable
Someone can correct me if I am wrong but a phone with an unlocked bootloader the hacker still needs to get physical access to the phone. Just make sure wireless debugging is off.
I have never had any issues with the Pixel line of phones from 4a5g up the phones are 5G (5th generation) VoLTE and WiFi caling work very well.
I believe the Pixel 7 can be locked.
for relockable phones the calyxos device list is a good suggestion + FP6. The /e/OS device list too has a relockable filter
No matter whether you install the OS manually yourself or if you buy a pre-installed phone from Murena, I would advise to choose a phone according to the level of support (update frequency) it will get from Murena.
Phones sold officially by Murena get the best support (=automatic/OTA upgrade/Android-major-version-update). Among those, the Fairphones really get a better support because Murena has an official and binding agreement with Fairphone-manufacturer, forcing murena to developp sooner the OTA upgrades to the next Android version. You also get firmware updates on those phones (antennas and low level hardware drivers) and as said a relockable bootloader which seems to be important to maximise app compatibility.
The fact that Murena-Fairphone partnership is long-term makes their phones a better candidate than other officially sold phones because some of the latters where only sold for one year in the shop, reducing the incentive for Murena to support/update them well.
Non-official devices do not get OTA upgrade which makes them incompatible with the use by a mainstream user, that is to say our friends and family (even though the new backup feature will very slightly improve the manual process)
If a Fairphone is too expensive, then Teracube 2s and Gigaset GS6 are still excellent candidate that will get automatic android-version-update and firmware updates.
Googel-Pixels are excellent phones but it seems newer models will not be able to run custom-roms, and more imoprtantly: they are sold as refurbished on Muren shop, so that means the support will very likely not be as good as phones sold new with a partnership between murena and the manufacturer.
At this moment the Google Pixel 8 is my favorite.
The Google Pixel 8/8a should be able to run e/os until 2031.
The Gigaset GS6 could also be a good choice. It supports wireless charging also.
The Teracube 2S does not support PD-charging:-(
I will take some more time later to examine.
Actual status of my investigation:
It seems to me that the best choice for me is buying a Google Pixel.
I came to this conclusion because the Pixel phones are supported by e/os, CalyxOS and GraheneOS. For support reasons it should be a Pixel 8 or 8a, if I want a lockable bootloader.
GraphenOS also supports the later versions of the Pixel phones.
Good to know: a new Google Pixel 9 is about 100 Euro’s cheaper than a new Pixel 8.
Maybe also good to know: I like the wireless charging option on my S8.
Long ago I used Sailfish on a Nexus 5 to my satisfaction.
I sympathize the fact of an in Europe developped and built mobile phone.
But at the moment the presence of Jolla is to minimal for me.
In my search I found out that a lockable bootloader is a much discussed item.
I also stumbled on Magisk Manager. I still have to research what it is exactly meant for.
It seems that it might fulfill my needs to use a banking app that demands a locked bootloader.
Is it also an option to use with e/os?
So: I am getting nearer to a definitive choice.
But I have still to do research concerning banking apps.
Finally(?) some words about banking apps:
You might now that the Central European Bank is busy introducing the Digital Euro.
It is expected that the digital Euro will bring advantages to European citizens.
It will effect in less dependency on American financial systems.
I hope that this also means less dependency on Google Pay (and Apple Pay).
And maybe the discussion about a lockable bootloader is no longer necessary…
I wonder what they mean by digital Euro? When you pay electronically any currency becomes sort of digital, doesn’t it?
Will it be a diffent Euro to a ‘normal’ one?
Do they mean bitEuro? That sounds stupid to me if not dodgy, there is Euro currency that can be sent electronically, so what do they want to achieve? Turn that currency into cashless?
Sounds really bad and dubious IMO. 
A digital coin backed by a central bank has about as much legitimacy as paper money and non-silver or gold coins ever had. It’s all based on trust and I trust the ECB more than any American company during the Trump era for sure.
What would we need digital Euro for if our money in the bank is all digital anyway? To me it’s fishy… they want to get rid of cash.
It’s like a.reinink said. It makes it easier to bypass the near monopoly of American companies on card or digital payments. There’s also some promise in the successor of iDeal, Wero, but I believe it’s not fully functional yet for users outside of the Netherlands and they don’t handle card payments yet.
Hi Greg,
Thanks for responding.
Maybe the subject is a bit off topic. Therefore a ´short´ reaction.
About 40% of the European citizens have access to a credit card.
Compare: in the USA more than 80% of the citizens has access to a credit card.
About 60% of all European payments are more or less dependant on the USA.
Allmost all banks in the Netherlands use Google Pay or Apple Pay at the end.
Conclusion: Europe is very much dependant on the USA.
At the moment there is a trend to minimize this dependancy.
(and I even did not mention Microsoft Windows, Office, Teams)
Being less dependant on Google was first of all the reason to start this topic.
Now about the Euro: the Digital Euro does NOT replace the Euro.
It is an extra way to pay. Cash Euro´s are to stay.
Some say the Digital Euro may even minimize crypto-coins.
Apart from that: in the Netherlands we are in transition with the IDEAL payment system.
IDEAL is Dutch and the successor is WERO and is meant to be used Europe wide.
So, maybe oneday, we will have a privacy friendly mobile phone without Google and we are capable of handling OUR money to use banking apps without having a Google (or Apple) account.
Wouldn´t that be nice?
(I do hope that things are more clear now).
Regards,
André
Thank You for the long message and trying to explain everything.
I just want to point out that digiEuro has nothing to do with cards and their acceptance. You are correct to say it is almost a monopoly of VISA and MasterCard/Eurocard with different countries having their own systems like JCB in Japan etc. You mentioned some too.
That is separate to that digiEuro stunt. I still have plenty of doubts about what’s behind it, I mean real intentions. What do they need it for?
Crypto currency from Central Bank? 
If you can pay electronically using euro why that idea?
I am very sceptic about it… that’s all 
P.S. Regarding payments with cards a new card acceptance system would make more sense. Reading about digital Euro it is like new currency! I don’t really like it, there is something in it for them EU control freaks they are not telling us about. It won’t be good for us…
P.S.* It looks like they have replaced most of local currencies with Euro but it’s not good enough for them, now they want to replace Euro with digital Euro, and that is manic! EU geniuses at work! Banks will have to bear the cost of that madness, and who will finally pay? Huh? Any idea? Get your wallets ready to be used as we will pay.
There is a difference between FIAT digital money and the money you have in your bank account.
The first is currency that’s backed by the central bank and is equivalent to cash. The second is essentially a debt your bank has towards you.
I would say, the other way round, the latter is equivalent of real currency and the ‘digital’ quasi crypto kept in a different pot/system and not directly linked to official currency where they want to limit the amount of ‘digital’ one you can have. Read more about it. It it a heist at the money people keep in their banks to grab it and shift it to the central bank for those who rule to have more to spend - like money from government bonds but they will not pay you interest on it and you will eventually cover the cost of the operation no matter what they say. I can see you believe in their ‘fairytales’…
This doesn’t really make sense. I have read about it. Who do you think buys government bonds right now? Banks with the money you have deposited there.
You’re also free to keep all your possessions cash under your mattres. Digital euro is simply an additional choice.
A costly one serving them not us IMO 
Just don’t use it and nothing at all will change for you 
But the banks forced to put solutions in place will spread the cost across all their customers Mate, so not too sure about that