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Comment by mschuster91 | Hacker News Reader

Personally, I'd stick for experimenting with something well supported by LineageOS - to get started, Pixel 3 or later series. These are as close to AOSP as you can get. The Pixel 6 is the most current model to be supported by Lineage, and at least stock firmware will get you security updates until at least 2026.

Stay away from Samsung (their Knox security stuff and custom bootloader is nasty, Samsung deviates quite a lot from Android standards under the hood and their ODIN firmware flash tool isn't available publicly and cracked versions only for Windows), Xiaomi and Huawei devices (different partition layout, custom bootloader) and obscure Chinese no-name devices as for them you will have to do a lot of leg work regarding drivers or even basic tooling setup on your own.

For development, stay the hell away from Windows if you can, if possible also from macOS. You're best served with a Linux machine.

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All good advice.

If the OP owns a Pixel, and he is compiling LineageOS (or AOSP), a first target to consider is - an emulator (AVD). Emulators are easy to create on the fly, you don't have to worry about what its particular quirks are, or if it uses an A/B partitioned system for OTA, or worry about accidentally bricking it. And if you have emulator A but accidentally compiled for emulator B, you can just create emulator B.

These are the devices LineageOS supports - https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices . You may note that some of these devices are older, and probably not in sale in local stores. So make a note of which phones on this list you can go to a local store and buy today. Last year, I looked around for cheaper Motorola phones, but they were the previous year's model and harder to find at a local store, so I got a Motorola Edge 5G and successfully compiled LineageOS and sideloaded it. You can get the devices however you want, but check this list for what is supported by LineageOS, then check how easy they are to get (as I said, some of these devices are years old and are harder to find).

Pixel 6a, 6 and 6 Pro don't have LOS yet -- at least stable. I don't remember why.

Pixel 6a are at a "good" price by western measures -- €350

For Samsung devices there's Heimdall, an open source tool to flash firmware like Odin does.

https://glassechidna.com.au/heimdall/

Doesn't work on any recent macOS version, which is part of the problem.

> Samsung

Samsung also sells "Euro spec" (can install new bootloader) and "America spec" (locked in hardware) phones under the same SKU. You can't tell the difference until you try to flash it. I got bit by that one.

That's ridiculous. I wonder two things... why is this even legal, and why does Samsung do this in the first place?

Anyway, for a lot of US models, there are ways to get them unlocked [1].

[1] https://www.thecustomdroid.com/samsung-galaxy-bootloader-unl...

I have a Samsung Tab S8 Ultra that's US spec and the bootloader is unlocked and it's rooted.

The same goes for phone you buy DIRECT FROM SAMSUNG.

The locked ones are the ones you get from Verizon / AT&T / etc.

Depends on your cellular coverage too!:

Pixel 3 - 4G

Pixel 4 - LTE Advanced

Pixel 5 - 5G (avoid Verizon's non-unlockable Pixel5), possible battery drain due to stuck G5 firmware

Pixel 6 - better choice (again, avoid Verizon-brand)

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