The people behind Murena are also the devs of /e/OS, a de-Googled Android OS that they also sell phones they pre-load it on. My one critique of it so far, owning one of the phones, is that I wish they would work on making it compatible with more well-known phone models available outside Europe. They sold this model I’m using, the Murena One (some Chinese OEM they slapped their name on), here in the US through their website, but I had to run around for two days trying to find a carrier whose service would work on it (or who would even try - eventually T-Mobile worked, the European-based carrier, what a surprise…) and I can’t get anyone to do repairs on it because it’s not one of the well-known brands. The case they gave me for it is essentially purely cosmetic, and only a week or so into owning it, I dropped it at a restaurant and it got a huge area of dead pixels at the bottom of the screen that nobody will fix because they can’t get a new screen for it. If I could install /e/OS myself on more than just the Google Pixel (paying Google to not have to use Android, fun…) that would be great and solve my problems.
As the mod of !c/e_os, I am so happy you brought this up. I use /e/ on my Fairphone 4, it’s great. The Easy Installer has come a long way, you should check it out https://doc.e.foundation/easy-installer
Edit: You can also check all the supported devices here
I’ve looked at the list. The only model that could give me what I’m looking for (5G, actually familiar to US-based carriers and repair shops) is the Pixel. I understand it’s not all the fault of the /e/OS devs since there’s factors like many bootloaders not being unlockable on US phones or other hardware complications, but I do get the feeling that the North American market does tend to be an afterthought. From what I can see, a majority of the list is either only available in Europe or will only work with very few carriers here, with lack of 5G capability being a big setback for carrier compatibility. That 5G requirement for many carriers really does hurt European based phone tech compatibility over here quite a bit.
The people behind Murena are also the devs of /e/OS, a de-Googled Android OS that they also sell phones they pre-load it on. My one critique of it so far, owning one of the phones, is that I wish they would work on making it compatible with more well-known phone models available outside Europe. They sold this model I’m using, the Murena One (some Chinese OEM they slapped their name on), here in the US through their website, but I had to run around for two days trying to find a carrier whose service would work on it (or who would even try - eventually T-Mobile worked, the European-based carrier, what a surprise…) and I can’t get anyone to do repairs on it because it’s not one of the well-known brands. The case they gave me for it is essentially purely cosmetic, and only a week or so into owning it, I dropped it at a restaurant and it got a huge area of dead pixels at the bottom of the screen that nobody will fix because they can’t get a new screen for it. If I could install /e/OS myself on more than just the Google Pixel (paying Google to not have to use Android, fun…) that would be great and solve my problems.
As the mod of !c/e_os, I am so happy you brought this up. I use /e/ on my Fairphone 4, it’s great. The Easy Installer has come a long way, you should check it out https://doc.e.foundation/easy-installer
Edit: You can also check all the supported devices here
I’ve looked at the list. The only model that could give me what I’m looking for (5G, actually familiar to US-based carriers and repair shops) is the Pixel. I understand it’s not all the fault of the /e/OS devs since there’s factors like many bootloaders not being unlockable on US phones or other hardware complications, but I do get the feeling that the North American market does tend to be an afterthought. From what I can see, a majority of the list is either only available in Europe or will only work with very few carriers here, with lack of 5G capability being a big setback for carrier compatibility. That 5G requirement for many carriers really does hurt European based phone tech compatibility over here quite a bit.