this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2026
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technology

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What I want from a smart phone. (hexbear.net)
submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by userse31@hexbear.net to c/technology@hexbear.net
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  • A good operating system. (Sadly both Android and iOS are shit nowadays.)
  • Cheap price. I'm thinking.... $200 USD max!
  • Bend resistance. Bending (even non deformation) is insidious as those stresses can break electrical connections on PCBs and stuff. It's a big reason we use underfill.
  • Good security. Yes I consider me losing my data if I forget the password to be a green flag. Cryptography is a wonderful thing!
  • VoLTE support.
  • Headphone jack.
  • SIM card slot. (I hate how that's something I have to ask for now. What is this? 2005 where CDMA phones were still a sizable chunk of the masses?)
  • Two sdcard slots. One inside the sim tray. The other sits behind a flap. The one behind the flap is for shuffling files between places.
  • USB-C. With power delivery and video output. Probably wouldn't ever use the video output, but I have a USB-C dock with an HDMI port, you never know if I'd use it.
  • Trusted Platform Module. Or, well, on iOS devices it's called the "secure enclave". It's the hardened microcontroller core shoved inside the SOC that stores and manages cryptographic stuff. Like password keychains! And two factor authentication stuff! And it's hardened against hardware attacks!
  • Competent camera. Doesn't need to be anything wiz-bang. It needs to be able to produce usable photos under crappy levels of light. I take a lot of reference photos. I don't need that "The viewfinder looks crisp when you press the shutter but the resulting photo is blurred from the phone shifting slightly" crap.
  • Image stabilization for the cameras. I also kinda just have shakey hands.
  • Wireless charging. Not because I'd constantly use it, but because charging ports eventually wear out and fail.
  • Cold swappable batteries. -Unlockable bootloader.

......Imagine being a worker at a mobile phone service retailer. Most of the costumers who come in ask about reasonable stuff like nice screens and lots of storage.

And then one day some autistic trans woman comes in and she's inquirying about bootloaders, USB Video Device Class support, NAND encryption, etc. A bunch of hidden/mundane features. The "not flashy" stuff.

And the worker who's there is just like "By god what drugs is this woman on?"

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[–] regul@hexbear.net 14 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Sounds like you want some sort of portable computer and then a flip phone.

[–] userse31@hexbear.net 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Flip phones are fine, but I do stuff like film Youtube videos on my phone, and other miscellaneous shenanigans.

Dragging a laptop around isn't practical.

[–] Imnecomrade@hexbear.net 1 points 41 minutes ago

By portable computer, I believe regul means more like a cyberdeck/handheld device. Like this, for example. You might have to make your own custom device from a single board computer to get every single feature you need, but you may find one that comes with most of the features you mentioned. I think a TPM (some Nura (formerly postmarketOS) supported phones like the Google Pixel 3a have this but it isn't supported yet), competent camera/image stabilization, and wireless charging can start leading towards making your own device (or contributing to developing code for some Nura supported phones where cameras have certain software-related issues) but the rest are pretty common with SBC handhelds and Linux ROM supported Android phones that exist.

[–] EmmaGoldman@hexbear.net 5 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

If you're willing to use a USB-C to 3.5mm adapter, the closest thing that exists is going to be a used Pixel running Graphene. You'll have everything except SD slots and swappable batteries. Other than that, I can't think of a single device that meets over half of your requirements.

I think you might actually just want two different devices. Would a Fiio music player handle the other half of what you want? Tbh most phones have a dogshit DAC anyway so I would much rather have audio playback and mass storage on a secondary device.

(Also tbh as a former phone store manager, you are literally my ideal customer, I hated just giving people iPhones and Samsungs based on name recognition and screen size only.)

[–] edie@lemmy.encryptionin.space 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Add a space after the - so it becomes a list please

ⓘ This user is suspected of being a cat. Please report any suspicious behavior.

[–] buckykat@hexbear.net 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You specifically want the NSA Treacherous Platform Module?

[–] userse31@hexbear.net 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

While the firmware TPM's run are a concern (along with Richard Stallman being something of a useless hack whose too preoccupied with his extreme ideological goals) having a dedicated little processor that does cryptography stuff and is hardened is still a good idea.

Stuff like debit cards are a good example. They keep some keys locked inside of them and do "certain math" when authenticating things.

The concern with closed source TPM firmware would be backdoors and bugs. The goal here is slurping up the keys inside, not really spying or injecting code somewhere else. Still very much something to worry about though.

These things are probably "secure enough" although I wouldn't be surprised if the NSA slipped some backdoors in. (I hate living in a fascist shit hole.

Paranoia with this sort of stuff is quite reasonable. I mean how does one verify the software on what amounts to a hardened microcontroller?

I'd say having the firmware open source and letting the end user build and flash it is the way to go.

But you do need to draw the line somewhere. All security mechanisms can be defeated with enough time, and you can't "keep going" by questioning stuff like compromised compilers.

TL;DR: TPMs are good, I don't entirely trust the closed source firmware on them but it's probably "good enough", the firmware should be open source and be able to be flashed onto the TPMs, and some paranoia is good and healthy but having too much paranoia is bad.

[–] TheTaglineToldMeTo@hexbear.net 6 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

the firmware should be open source and be able to be flashed onto the TPMs

I agree, but I'm pretty sure that's the whole point? It's just all about the Root of Trust and Attestation (Third-Party/Remote specifically, you can do attestation with your own keys). At least that's how I understand it.

If you could use your own firmware and fuse/rewrite your own key material you would still have all of the security benefit. but without* "trust" to the vendor(You still have to trust that you did not get sent a tiny CIA agent embodied in silicon still), while you can still kinda do that with modern TPMs but that is not how it's currently designed and with firmware still being completely locked down. if you would consider being able to overwrite the root keys physically unauthenticated a security flaw (hitlerparticle)(Bricked when stolen (Not always on android, different thing), keys still secure!) there can still exist a user authentication or in this hypothetical even fuse the keys yourself (There are some open source secure elements like this I'm pretty sure, so not so hypothetical... but not ideal still).

BUT. You would lose the main point of TPM to verify from someone else that the chain of trust to the vendor is intact (DRM) and not tampered with (By You!!) and is the main issue of TPMs and where everything just completely sucks.

Secure elements can be completely free and open, but not the Trusted Computing Group, Trusted Computing and TPM.

But you can make the most of a bad situation like with GrapheneOS and the Pixel SE, you can't write your own firmware to it but there is insider attack prevention (Prevents: vendor firmware update while unauthenticated, with keys remaining the same) but you still don't own the device so they could still hypothetically one day refuse anything booting not google signed for later updates. and it also wont pass "google certified" SafetyNet attestation, the "just completely sucks". but it's the best there is, and a majority of the others are cranks, hacks and/or annoying EU perverts... lol...

I also basically agree with all the features plus NO HOLE-PUNCH FRONT CAMERA >:( and also a display that's not store isle TV "enhanced" color quality.