Their phones are more than twice as expensive as equivalent models at JF HiFi too (and 5-10x the price of an older, but still perfectly useful degoogled phone from Marketplace).
Why is it on the front page of HN?
> and 5-10x the price of an older, but still perfectly useful degoogled phone from Marketplace
Devices with drastically worse privacy and security than the Android Open Source Project including lack of bare minimum updates aren't in the same space as GrapheneOS.
It's generally better for people to install GrapheneOS themselves since it's very easy and saves a lot of money. It takes 10 minutes to install GrapheneOS with the web installer. It also avoids needing to trust a company to do it, although it's possible to verify an install done by someone else is genuine with the verified boot key fingerprint and/or Auditor. An existing install by someone else should be factory reset it to avoid any sketchy configuration.
The linked post is a mess which was probably generated with an LLM. GrapheneOS does have useful properties for this even though it isn't the focus. Someone could write a proper article making a case for it even though this isn't one.
GrapheneOS is free and we recommend people install it themselves with the web installer. People can also save a lot of money getting a used device, but we strongly recommend against an older device than a Pixel 8 due to support time. A used Pixel 8a tends to be the cheapest option. An important thing to watch out for with used devices is avoiding ones which were originally sold by carriers locking their devices. Some phone sellers wrongly label locked devices as being fully unlocked.
If people buy a device with GrapheneOS instead of doing it themselves as we recommend, we a guide to follow to make sure it's genuine GrapheneOS and get rid of any strange software or configuration it ships with:
I mean in the long run, it should be a good thing to separate out the hardware phone market from the OS it comes with IMO. And for large scale adoption, it's extremely useful to have the most non-technical people using your OS, because they will complain and bugs will get reported (maybe not through the preferred channels, though).
No notes on the markup though. Infuriating there's no negotiating ability to say "you can't sell this OS on a cheap phone for 600% margins".