interesting.

However, would the security issue be that some one could put something malicious on a card and insert it ?

no, AFAIK, android phones never execute any program code that is stored on an external SD card.

As far as I know, the problem is that Lenovo doesn’t make the SOCs that actually implement the security features GrapheneOS requires; Qualcomm does (assuming this phone uses a Snapdragon chip - I didn’t check). And Qualcomm only puts these security features into the most powerful SOCs, which are themselves only appropriate for flagship phones.

I hope that some day more budget SOCs will get these security features too so that more people can reap the benefits, and I hope Graphene is pushing for this too, but I don’t think we’ll see it any time soon.

the CIA is behind it. they don’t want the masses (= poors) to be able to talk privately and maybe organize a significant political change or sth. it’s all about keeping the possibility for mass-surveillance open.

technically, it would be trivial to add a TPM chip to every SoC. that would literally cost less than $10 per chip; maybe they wouldn’t have to add a chip at all but could do it all in firmware already, depending on how the exact boot mechanism works. there is clearly no technical reason for not doing it; the reason why SoC makers don’t add it has to be because of ideological decisions.

for me personally, repairability is a negative on portable computers.

the reasons are security, size, cost, regular lifetime. these are all negatively correlated to repairability. if you can screw your device open, that means that so can an attacker. it makes the phone bulkier and less efficient IMO if they have to keep in mind that every connector on the inside has to be standards-compatible.

eh, i’ve seen worse phone designs

i mean you can just pull them out and read all data on them, so obviously yes

i mean you could technically use an encrypted file system on them … but that’s probably not compatible with the vast majority of card-reader programs out there so people are gonna complain next that you can’t look at your SD card photos from a desktop computer …

i’m getting the feeling that it’s all an elaborate plan by the CIA to make sure that only rich people can afford privacy … after all, the poor people are at a higher risk to commit crimes, right? (/s)

200 MP is craaazy high (as a layman). that’s like, 10k × 20k screen resolution, right?

also i’m torn about SD cards. they sound good but also are a security hazard. anybody can pull them out and read them, right? for a portable device, i really doubt that that’s good-enough.

the thing is that your phone has a serious issue if the power connector fails. meanwhile if the headphone jack fails, you can still use your phone.

it’s not that much a minority as you’d think. just like desktop computers largely still use wires to connect mouse and keyboard, people want to have wired devices.

how many people really care about their privacy? even if it’s 0.1% of population, that immediately gives 700k customers in EU and USA alone.

this just means that it will be expensiveee

oh boy, i’m soo looking forward to a phone that runs any android version except the google-infested default android.

while also not breaking 1000 compatibilities to specific functionalities. or having gross security vulnerabilities.

I think a de-googled android would be good. Android at its core (Android Open Source Project) is actually a good project from a user-experience point of view. the app navigation and all that makes a whole lot of sense. We’d lose that if we switch to pure linux.

just google has to be entirely removed from the operating system.

Google has declared that they intend to stop making a useful mobile operating system.