I’ve been needing to buy a new phone and while I’m here in china I’ve seen some really intriguing options only available here.
obviously the telemetry is extremely problematic, more so than non chinese phones, is it feasible to try remove with adb or the universal debloater? since there is custom rom support at all? or should I just forget about it?
TL;DR: Pretty bad. I definitely wouldn’t buy one. I wouldn’t mess around with Custom ROMs as most phones don’t allow you to relock the bootloader, which decreases security significantly. A Pixel with GrapheneOS is the best option. Pixel phones have great hardware security and full supported for Android Verified Boot, even with a custom OS. Just make sure to get a 6th Generation or newer, as the older models don’t get security updates anymore. The Pixel 6a is perfect, you can find it for around $150 used and it gets security updates until 2027.