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There's a high chance of devices being sold with GrapheneOS preinstalled in 2027

137 points Cider9986 1 hour ago 54 comments

Cider9986 1 hour ago | parent

The upcoming Signature 27 will be announced today at the Snapdragon Summit. It has been teased by Motorola on their socials and will likely release in the US because they've posted about it on US social accounts.

The 2026 Signature, in the UK, is $1460 USD. In Brazil it is selling for $1230. The Pixel 11 pro XL, which the Signature beats on hardware in practically every way sells for $1300 on Google's website.

It looks interesting... I didn't love the 2026 design [1] but it looks better than whatever this is. Here's pictures:

https://xxcancel.com/moto

https://x.com/moto

[1] https://www.motorola.com/gb/en/p/phones/motorola-signature/s...

asdff 1 hour ago | parent

Flagship phones are so damn expensive for what you are getting. I just buy whatever is the current iphone SE which is usually around $300 for the top storage sku when I show up to buy it a couple years after release. At my current burn rate $1300 would be like 20 years spend on phones for me.

SoftTalker 1 hour ago | parent

That's also what I buy with Apple now. When I was using Android I'd buy a cheap "Moto G" for maybe $150 brand new. Never understood dropping a grand or more on a mobile phone.

iteria 1 hour ago | parent

I keep my phone until the security updates stop. I buy top of the line phones because cheaper one suck. I tried a cheap phone and it used to lock up all the time. These phones are crappier than my obsolete top of the line phone. There has got to be a middle ground between 1K flagship phones and cheap sub-$200 phones, but I swear I can't find it.

I just keep buying phones with way more features than I desire just so that having too many apps open at once or going to the wrong Javascript laden web page doesn't slow my phone to a crawl. I just tell myself that at least I only replace my phone every 5 to 7 years. If it wasn't for work, I'd keep them longer, but the OS has to be patched for work stuff to be on it.

asdff 1 hour ago | parent

>There has got to be a middle ground between 1K flagship phones and cheap sub-$200 phones, but I swear I can't find it.

In my experience this is literally the iphone SE. Look at the chipset, its no slouch.

jrochkind1 1 hour ago | parent

Moto G Power is the cheap phone that hasn't sucked for years. I've bought many been happy. The one time I tried a Samsung, it was a mistake.

but they bumped up prices significantly a few months ago due to chip prices or tarrifs or who knows what, it's not so cheap anymore.

SoftTalker 1 hour ago | parent

> If it wasn't for work, I'd keep them longer

I think if work demands a better phone, then work should be buying you a better phone.

drnick1 37 minutes ago | parent

> There has got to be a middle ground between 1K flagship phones and cheap sub-$200 phones, but I swear I can't find it.

The Pixel phones are precisely that, and they are the only phones supported by Graphene for now. The a-series is a particularly good value and I am posting from one.

microtonal 1 hour ago | parent

Cameras of flagships are still significantly better than a $150 Moto G. If you are using a smartphone in place of a camera and like good-quality photos, it's worth the money. That said, flagships can last many years as well.

I update pretty frequently, but all the older devices get used by family members, etc.

SoftTalker 1 hour ago | parent

The camera is probably the least important thing on the phone for me, but yeah if photos are important to you then that might rule out the cheaper tiers of phones.

microtonal 1 hour ago | parent

Yeah, people have different needs. One of the nice things with GrapheneOS on Pixels is that you can even pick up the latest Pixel 10a for ~400 Euro (and older models even cheaper) and it will still have what Google calls a flagship chip, but more importantly all the nice security stuff like the Titan M2. For a mid-range phone it also has pretty ok cameras.

I hope that a few years down the line there will also be great midrange Motorola phones with GrapheneOS support. But they have to start somewhere.

asdff 43 minutes ago | parent

The camera has actually been getting worse now that they bake in AI smoothing to muddle details. I think we hit the sweet spot already going forward.

bityard 42 minutes ago | parent

I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one who thinks smartphone prices are just absolutely crazypants right now. I can't envision paying more for a phone than I would for a (gently used) workstation-class laptop.

Over decades of buying Android devices, I have yet to pay more than $300 for one. The one I'm using was actually free in exchange for buying a year of T-Mobile prepaid credits. No, it never was the fastest thing on the planet but it makes calls and runs the apps I want.

dcminter 32 minutes ago | parent

Also using Moto G-series phones for a decade or so now. Seems I have more junk (gambling apps, linked in, etc.) to scrub off them each time though.

I could see myself splashing out on a more expensive phone if it were less locked down - so probably never. However I don't play games and as a Gen-Xer my laptop is where the rest of my digital life lives; it makes sense that those for whom the phone is their primary device would prioritise it more (especially with somewhat predatory financing).

franczesko 8 minutes ago | parent

The only reason why I've decided to pay 500+ (for the first time in my life) for a flagship device was for a better camera and storage, as I wanted to have good quality photos of my kids.

That said, I will keep on replacing the battery until the circuit board itself turns into ash

echelon_musk 1 hour ago | parent

Sadly there are no more iPhone SE models so this strategy won't work forever. Eventually iOS 18 will stop getting security updates and you'll have to use the increasingly worse newer versions of iOS.

officeplant 55 minutes ago | parent

I assume this means they will just start buying the E series, The 16E is nearing two years old and already in the sub $400 range for used ones.

SapporoChris 1 hour ago | parent

What stopped me from buying flagship phones is the repair costs for phones are far too expensive in relationship to the value of the phone. Results will vary, but waterproofing usually diminishes after a repair.

Lord_Zero 1 hour ago | parent

Eh... get protection plan, or trade up every year for big discount on the next flagship. Or with AT&T plans you are getting a "free" phone fairly often if you don't intend to leave the carrier for a few years (most people wont). The parent comment you replied to makes some assumptions that you have to spend full price all at once every year which is false. Also, there's almost always a deep discount on Pixel phones around most holidays.

And if you truly are ultra budget $300 phone guy then sure this doesn't apply to you.

bityard 38 minutes ago | parent

I am not the right market for flagship phones because I don't have thousands of dollars to put towards disposable income, but I would expect a premium phone to come with a premium warranty and repair service... Do they typically not?

_aavaa_ 1 hour ago | parent

That’s not saying much. The selling point of pixels has always been the software.

horsawlarway 1 hour ago | parent

The selling point of graphene is basically that you get the pixel software experience.

It just puts Google in the same sandbox Google puts everyone else.

Typing this on a pixel running graphene.

Cider9986 1 hour ago | parent

The thing I like about GrapheneOS is it's the most private operating system while still having great usability.

drnick1 1 hour ago | parent

> It just puts Google in the same sandbox Google puts everyone else.

Yes, you can do that, but Graphene is probably best used without Google apps at all. If you use Google Maps, sandboxed or not, Google still knows where you are, what speed you drive, etc, and can rat you out to car insurance companies or the government.

cherryteastain 1 hour ago | parent

Graphene OS devs themselves recommend that you install apps on Graphene OS via Google Play Store for security reasons. They also explicitly recommend Graphene OS users to not use F-Droid or Aurora Store. Make of that what you will.

Cider9986 38 minutes ago | parent

> Graphene OS devs themselves recommend that you install apps on Graphene OS via Google Play Store for security reasons.

Can you provide a source that they've said this recently? This seems to be a bit of a misrepresentation.

They say:

>The Play Store app is also the most secure way to install and update apps from the Play Store.

on /usage, but this does not indicate it's the most private way or that it's the recommended way to install apps. It seems to me to indicate that this is their assessment of the security of the ways to install apps that are distributed on the Play Store, not a recommendation or privacy assessment that applies to other apps or to their users in general.

They don't recommend against Aurora Store [1], but it is not user friendly as the Play Store because app installs frequently fail and automatic updates do not work as well. Installing apps from Aurora has the advantage of no google account, but Google is still handed a list of all the apps you have installed, IP address, app details, device details, and GSF ID. It will likely stop working or become even more broken. It is useful when apps block installs from the Play Store because of play integrity.

I use it myself for the few Google apps I install like Camera because I don't want to install play services.

I would consider their actual recommendation to be their own App Store and Accrescent (alpha).

Obtainium is great but not user friendly.

The claims about problems with F-Droid are true. It's not like they oppose FOSS, their whole operating system is FOSS and they've never said anything bad about IzzyOnDroid, which fixes the problems with F-Droid and even adds a bit of security.

[1] https://nitter.freedit.eu/GrapheneOS/search?f=tweets&q=auror...

microtonal 1 hour ago | parent

Yes, you can do that, but Graphene is probably best used without Google apps at all.

That totally depends on your goals. For some it's security, for some it's privacy from Google, for some it's removing the ability from Google to (worst case) remote brick/block your device. The latter may sound a bit far fetched, but if I was employed by, say the ICJ, I would know what system I'd run to avoid that.

One of the things that I like about GrapheneOS is that it accommodates all these use cases and on a gradient (e.g. personally privacy from Google is also important, but I like that I can use sandboxed Google Play Services with most of its permissions removed).

_ink_ 1 hour ago | parent

And here I am with my 26 Signature, still on Android 16 with Patch Level from January and the phone reporting happily, Looking Good! Everything up to date!

Get your update process working @Motorola!

ledoge 55 minutes ago | parent

Current street prices in Austria:

~750€ for the Motorola Signature, with 512 GB storage

~900€ for the Pixel 10 Pro XL, with 256 GB storage (the 11 Pro XL costs much more at ~1200€, since it just came out a month ago)

fph 12 minutes ago | parent

Probably the price for Moto signature is that low only because they're right about to launch the next version.

movsx 1 hour ago | parent

Might someone know whether banking apps worldwide will work?

drnick1 1 hour ago | parent

Probably not, because of Google attestation, the cancer of Android.

qurren 1 hour ago | parent

FWIW the financial institutions I use (all major US brokerages) have no issues with Google attestation, and if they implemented it I'd just move all my assets out to a different one.

I don't regularly use an actual bank account anymore, the cash management solutions from these brokerages work great and can do everything including direct deposit, payments, wire transfers, and ATM/debit cards, and have SIPC protection in place of FDIC.

wing-_-nuts 26 minutes ago | parent

vanguard? I have considered just closing my bank account and having my paycheck direct deposited there

armadyl 17 minutes ago | parent

Some banks are open (well as much as a financial institution can be) to GrapheneOS too. Navy Federal implemented attestation and then rolled it back once they heard from GOS users which was super cool of them and honestly unexpected.

lawn 1 hour ago | parent

Everything in Sweden I've tried works.

microtonal 1 hour ago | parent

My banks (in Europe) work fine. The primary thing that is missing is tap-to-pay because Google is abusing its monopoly position and not letting GrapheneOS pass remote attestation. There are some apps that have their own tap-to-pay, such as Curve in most of Europe and PayPal in Germany, but they don't work great everywhere (e.g. where I live, all payment terminals accept tap-to-pay based on debit cards, but more than 50% does not accept credit card-based tap-to-pay, so something like Curve or Garmin Pay doesn't work in many stores).

At any rate, there is a well-maintained list here: https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compa...

Pfhortune 1 hour ago | parent

Amongst the several banks I deal with, only one uses Google's attestation framework in a way that blocks GrapheneOS.

That said, the website still works fine for that one.

Cider9986 1 hour ago | parent

You can check your specific app here: https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compa...

GrapheneOS has convinced apps to add compatibility. Hell, Roblox has official GrapheneOS support. The idea is to get more users in order to convince the very few apps that block GrapheneOS, to support it.

ciferkey 1 hour ago | parent

This site tracks the status of what apps work: https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compa...

The official GrapheneOS docs contains a developer guide on how to fix banking apps when they are not working. Bank app developers have been surprisingly receptive to making the changes, weirdly enough. You can see in some of the issues tracked on the site where people reached out and the developers eventually made the apps work.

I've been running GrapheneOS for a while (I have posts on the blog in my bio if you want to see some day-to-day info) and only one bank app gave me trouble. I had to toggle a setting and then everything worked.

Separate from this is wallet and payment apps which still have not had much traction on GrapheneOS.

Cider9986 1 hour ago | parent

> Separate from this is wallet and payment apps which still have not had much traction on GrapheneOS.

Curve works in Europe and Paypal has a trial thing in Germany for tap to pay IIRC. There's nothing in the US unfortunately, yet.

chneu 56 minutes ago | parent

Heh. USA user here. Several of the apps that say they work I have been unable to get to work.

So anyone reading this, be aware your experience may differ.

I'm on a pixel 10 pro and have never been able to get some of banking apps to work, despite the list saying they should.

estebank 40 minutes ago | parent

It is likely a crapshoot, and while that list is informative it is necessarily a snapshot in time. FWIW, my banking apps have worked with no issues and have worked continuously since I migrated to GrapheneOS. I do have Play Services installed to be able to use Android Auto, and that required some fiddling with permissions before it started working, so your mileage may vary. By far the biggest annoyance for me is group text messages not being delivered while using an alternative user account, but that's a niche setup I guess.

seany 1 hour ago | parent

Will they be unlockable?

microtonal 1 hour ago | parent

Two clarifications:

- This is about preinstallation. For the planned models, you can install GrapheneOS yourself. This should be really simple, if it is similar to the current installation process for Pixels, which can be fully completed through their website.

- The preinstalled devices don't seem from Motorola themselves, as mentioned later in the thread: Probably not via their website but rather another company provided with the devices directly by Motorola. It could be us doing it ourselves but we aren't set up to deal with it.

Really excited for the Motorola GrapheneOS phones! (Currently have a P10P with GrapheneOS.)

ysnp 13 minutes ago | parent

I am not too sure about this. There is no company I trust to sell GrapheneOS-preinstalled phones other than GrapheneOS themselves.

Peacefulz 1 minute ago | parent

We are going to be reinstalling GrapheneOS on the phones shipping with it.

madduci 1 hour ago | parent

I wish they will bring a €200 device with GrapheneOS out

Cider9986 9 minutes ago | parent

Unfortunately the privacy/security features GrapheneOS requires as well as just the ability to replace the OS are only put on premium phones. You can buy an a series Pixel a few years behind to get it in the price point you want. But this won't save money long term because the price per year of support is worse than newer models like the 10a or 9a.

So, 7a:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/820099695470

But, it's only supported for 1.6 more years.

So that puts it at $143 per year of support. While the 10a [1] will be supported for 6.4 more years, which puts it at $55 per year of support.

[1] https://www.ebay.com/itm/137767347717

metalman 1 hour ago | parent

Even if they do sell graphene(android) devices there is still a good chance that it wont be enough to keep a full function linux phone off the market. I would sooner buy a trump phone then graphene, it's not as pretentious and it's more shiny.

sigmar 50 minutes ago | parent

>Probably not via their website but rather another company provided with the devices directly by Motorola. It could be us doing it ourselves but we aren't set up to deal with it.

I presume this bit is because Motorola can't sell devices with android builds that aren't certified by google (as per Google Mobile Services contracts)

ck2 27 minutes ago | parent

nice

now give me a device with a mechanical switch that gaps the radio power physically

monegator 23 minutes ago | parent

Good. Though i hope i'll see GOS for the P11A (expecting it will come out) so i can upgrade my 8A.

i really like the pixels, and haven't been fond of motorolas in recent years