I'm really interested in HarmonyOS and other Chinese domestic market (CDM) phones and OSes after reading so many discussions about Huawei, Vivo, and OPPO phones. I was hoping we could compile some details on them and how one might get one from outside of China. A place where we could discuss the advantages, disadvantages, and distinctions of using them on a daily basis, perhaps with some reviews?
I'm on the stock US ROM because there's no custom ROM available yet. The first one was just booting as of last week. And theres no recovery tool, so if things go wrong, its bricked. You can swap between official region Roms after rooting the phone.
I love the battery life for one. I've used Pixels since the 3 and aside from being able to use GrapheneOS and being smaller, they're junk, especially in that department. I would often come home with my phone at 4% on battery saver while traveling and taking photos, but this thing has lasted me two days before getting to that point. It also doesn't overheat in the slightest, except when fast charging. It has VOOC charging that gets it full up within like 20~ minutes.
The software isn't anything to write home about. Aside from the app drawer and the OnePlus apps, it's pretty close to stock Android. I replaced most of the stock apps with open source ones.
I don't play intensive games, but it has strong FPS throttling if it starts to detect heat to keep things cool, which can affect people who play stuff like Genshin Impact.
I paid $398 after trading in my previous phone and plan to keep this for as long as possible and hopefully put LineageOS on it when its available.
Not a fan of android or google tbh, but the hardware seems pretty nice. Also I was pretty surprised to see someone on Hexbear talking negatively about GrapheneOS and pixels. Good info tho, thanks for your input
Oh, Graphene is great. It's just that you can only install it in Pixels. There was a recent info leak showing that Graphene was one of the only operating systems aside from newer iPhones that couldn't be cracked by the fancy new Israeli hacker software that the US government uses. But they're focused on security, not privacy. So if you're not concerned about the govt getting your phone, most of the benefits can be replicated by using open source software, a private DNS, etc. Graphene sand boxing apps by default is sometbing that should definitely be a standard though.
As for Pixels, if you look at benchmarks, they are always significantly behind comparably priced and even cheaper phones in every category. You might say 'oh well thats just benchmarks and doesn't carry over to every day use' but they're still selling people objectively worse hardware for flagship prices. They also have overheating issues and poor cell signal in addition to the overall subpar performance. They're better than like prepaid phones, but that's why I said they're junk.