I used my Bluefox NX1 for a while. Bad news – the screen cracked. I guess at the price point it would be too much to have assumed the better kind of Gorilla Glass and it’s also on me for not using a screen protector. But there’s a new one coming out – the Aura – and I’m tempted. But here’s the thing – I have come to a major fork in the road regarding smartphones. There are two goals I want to achieve, and they are mutually exclusive. I want:
- A tiny phone that makes it harder for me to do the things I don’t want to want to do.
- To Degoogle and deshittify, scouring the Google malware from my device.
And here’s the problem – you can’t get a tiny phone that can be degoogled.
You can cut down on the shitware somewhat – but Google’s alarming turn towards the authoritarian with the Android ecosystem makes me feel like I need to get out pretty much now. And that means treating Android like toxic waste that I’m storing unwillingly on a hardware device I own. I need the installation of something like GrapheneOS.
Alas, while it is going to be possible to do this on Motorola phones soon, at the moment the only supported device is the Google Pixel. So ironically you must go deep into Google to escape Google. The only way out is through. To quote Malcolm Tucker, ‘It’s like the Shawshank Redemption except there’s more shit and no fucking redemption’.
Alas the Pixel is exactly what I don’t want in a phone – huge, overly capable, a supercomputer in my pocket. I think it will just encourage me to start wasting time I don’t want to waste.
So, what path do I go down now? A tiny phone that is crudded up with Google, or a (refurbished) Pixel device that is completely disconnected from Google and only grudgingly runs Google services in an aggressively firewalled sandbox?
What I want – a tiny phone I can put Graphene on – doesn’t exist and probably will never exist. Even the new Bluefox device is taking a step towards maximalism. It’s going from the enjoyably impracticable 4″ screen to a 4.7″ screen reminiscent of early iPhones. It’s probably not that big a deal, to be fair, but what I want is better QoL tools in the same form factor as my NX1. But alas, then you get the issue I have which is a cracked screen and no way to buy a replacement because the secondary market just isn’t there. Essentially the supply chain is fragile enough without adding in the complexity of what’s needed to enable Graphene.
I can’t get what I want here. Sometimes that’s just what life throws your way.
So, of the two paths in front of me I need to decide which of the two evils is the lesser.
Downsides of the Bluefox:
- No supply chain for replacements
- The camera sucks quite a lot
- The bluetooth receptivity isn’t great
- The map functionality is el oh el.
- It cannot be degoogled in the way I want
Downsides of the Pixel:
- It is a huge screen, and will make browsing more appealing again.
- It’s a Google device.
- If I get refurbished at least doesn’t put any more money in Google’s pocket but does bring in the risk of it falling apart sooner.
Upsides of the Bluefox:
- It is adorable
- The screen makes much day to day activity comically impractical
- It takes up so little space I often forget in which pocket I put it.
Upsides of the Pixel:
- I can install Graphene on it
- The camera will be great
- Bluetooth will be better
- Map navigation will be cleaner, and also safer.
What is a boy to do??
At the time of writing (some months from time of publishing) I was leaning towards a Pixel. I can install my own specific shittifications to it. I already use BeforeLauncher as a way to minimise the urge to fiddle with my phone, for example. I can add friction where I want to disincentivise time-wasting. I have though developed pretty good discipline about not simply using the phone as a crutch when I’m bored.
I can keep my app loadout to a minimum. And if I’m only running Google play apps in a sandbox I can make sure that they never nag me with notifications I can’t suppress.
It might seem extreme, but Google are genuinely becoming a problematic gatekeeper of Android. They’re hugely limiting the installation of third party apps and app stores. Sure, they permit you to do it still but grudgingly, and that grudge implies future restrictions to come. Your phone is essentially a piece of pocket spyware, leaking endless data about you to big business. If you don’t care about that then none of this is an issue. But deshittification 2026 is taking a hard-core approach to data sovereignty.
Sadly it seems like I have to go with one extreme or another – a tiny phone that I do not control, or a huge phone that I do. Graphene has a lot of upsides:
- Locked down profiles. Unlike most phones, when you make a user profile on a Graphene phone it is locked down tight. Switching between profiles is as secure as swapping between devices. They don’t bleed permissions or data. If I move from my ‘Sweden Shitware’ profile, which gives me BankID, Swish, etc and into my ‘living like a digital monk’ profile, it’s as if those compromised apps never existed.
- Sandboxed Google Play. Google Play inveigles its way through your phone like a parasite. It has broad, sweeping authority and it uses it liberally. Graphene treats it like any other app – you get to decide exactly what it gets to do, and what it can permit other apps to do. You don’t want your camera sending data back to Google? You can deny it access to that specific permission and it doesn’t throw a tantrum about how permissions are an all or nothing commitment. In order to install various Exchange apps on my Android phone I need to give it permission to wipe my device remotely. I mean – what the fuck, right? And if I say ‘Uh, no, that’s crazy’ it just goes ‘Sorry, ride or die motherfucker’. Graphene gives you granularity.
- Scoped permissions. You don’t have to give apps access to everything, you can heavily restrict what directories they can see and what files they can read.
You can’t live without a smartphone in Sweden. You just can’t – it’s a country that is too locked in to the idea of digital identity. Opting out is not an option. What Graphene lets you do is decide when you’re willing to expose yourself to the system.
To be fair this isn’t perfect tech. You can’t use Google Wallet with it, if you were tempted to do so. It’s more irritating to install apps because it asks you to make many more decisions. And it doesn’t work quite so seamlessly with things like bluetooth autopairing and the like. But if living with shitware is the price of living in Sweden, maybe Graphene lets you do so with some degree of dignity.
The battleground then is between the physical ergonomics of friction and systemic agency of sovereignty. Sadly, I think the Pixel might be difficult to resist on that basis. The Bluefox might be a more appealing form factor, but the Pixel with Graphene lets me say ‘no’ and have the device obey. It’s control versus convenience. And I think control might have the upper hand.