If anyone from Motorola reads this thread; the market is beyond ripe for a good shake up. Going full open source and pushing updates & openness, user control and freedom, you will gobble up a good chunk of market share. Make MDM easy & first class (no third parties...), and a ton of corp will roll it out too. We need you more than you think.
xandrius 2 minutes ago [-]
Yep, first party open source and long support. If this existed, you'll get people recommending it to their parents. Now the only thing I can honestly recommend is a UbuntuTouch phone but mostly to devs, for now.
CodeCompost 3 minutes ago [-]
Wat would be the compelling argument for middle managers who only think of meeting financial targets?
silisili 2 hours ago [-]
This was figured out a while ago based on the hints given.
That said, I'm pretty excited. Motorola of the last decade or so has made really good hardware with basically stock firmware and a terrible update policy, which is why many avoid them. Seriously, they just offer quarterly updates on flagships, which is incredibly unsecure. Punting software to Graphene solves the biggest gripe many have.
agile-gift0262 51 minutes ago [-]
That is also ths reason why I migrated my parents from Motorola to Pixel. Well… that and the amount of bloatware and ad notifications a new Motorola I bought had. I returned it inmediatelly, and it's then when I went for Pixels.
pentae 18 minutes ago [-]
Still a bold move considering the increased malware on android devices vs ios. My parents would have their banking information stolen within 6 months
SockThief 36 minutes ago [-]
That is not what I experience on ThinkPhone. I get monthly security updates for about two years now.
Maybe it is an exception? I'm in EU if that matters.
And Motorola is almost free of bloatware. It is practically a stock Android.
joecool1029 24 minutes ago [-]
> Maybe it is an exception?
The ThinkPhone is an exception, yeah. It’s similar to older Android One phones like their Moto X4. Not different because you are in EU, US models get same treatment.
The razr and edge lines do not get as reliable monthly updates and ship with bloatware.
julcol 29 minutes ago [-]
not any longer. My edge 70 required weeks to uninstall bloatware, taboola and all that crap. Eventually settled with netguard to kill any non approved outgoing connection. It has been a real pain. Changed my view on moto completely. I have been a happy user of a Motorola one for 6 years...
joe_mamba 27 minutes ago [-]
According to Reddit, that Thinkphone seems to be an exception to Motorola's poor update reputation.
Imustaskforhelp 1 hours ago [-]
Update policy is one of the largest reason if not THE reason why I didn't pick motorola phone. We had a last Motorola phone which we had to buy a new one solely because the last phone hadn't received updates even though the hardware was top notch and we needed an particular app (also its battery was a bit of issue)
So with them partnering up with graphene, I am super excited too. Motorola phones are also pretty price effective imo for the quality of hardware.
mnmalst 1 hours ago [-]
I am exited as well but the OS is only one part of the equation. If the firmware BLOBs don't get updates we still have a problem. I really hope this cooperation means that Motorola commits to longer support for gOS devices.
b112 55 minutes ago [-]
And the radio firmware.
From a phone by a Chinese company.
Unless GrapheneOS handles the radio firmware, not really interested.
anon5739483 2 hours ago [-]
GrapheneOS is finally decoupling itself from Google Pixel phones. This is great news. Motorola makes great hardware too. Looking forward to see what comes out of this.
roysting 1 hours ago [-]
> Motorola makes great hardware too
Do they? I genuinely don’t know because I don’t think I have ever seen a Motorola smartphone in the wild and their heavy involvement with the police and surveillance state has my attention piqued a bit. I’m just saying GrapheneOS partnering with possibly the biggest police state surveillance solutions provider? What’s that all about?
timedude 2 minutes ago [-]
Before the iphone came and all the android uniformity, i used to use motorolla phones a lot and they were excellent. If the quality is still the same, with GrapheneOS they are going to have an excellent product.
DerekL 53 minutes ago [-]
Are you confusing Motorola Mobility with Motorola Solutions? The article is about Motorola Mobility, which makes cell phones. Motorola Solutions makes two-way radios and surveillance systems. They split in 2011.
szszrk 18 minutes ago [-]
That's not the one. and of course they do and I'm super happy to hear about that partnership. I highly recommend checking them out!
A year ago I got a "10 month old flagship" Moto, after research. For half the price of top Samsung that was available locally at the moment in stores, I got:
- Worse, but still really great CPU (Snapdragon 8s gen3 instead of "non-s" for Samsung)
- faster storage (UFS 4.0)
- more RAM (16GB LPDDR5x)
- much better charging (125W with... equally that strong charger in the box, 50W wireless, 10W reverse)
- much more storage (1TB)
- in a very slim wooden-back case :O
It also has great optically stabilized camera (with some challenges when it comes to "shutter speed" - it does a lot of processing so your photos are sometimes timed awkwardly), amazing low light for main camera, but that's a rabbit hole I don't want to go into.
Software-wise it was not as good as the fame goes, but still very good. I do have all the newest upgrades (currently Android 16 with Feb sec update) but it was not as "vanilla" as people claim. Still better than most things around and in the end I was able to trivially remove everything I don't like (which persisted across updates). With exception of their weird Dolby app that is useless anyway. This partnership with GrapheneOS makes me think they are still serious about clean OS.
The phone also has VERY GOOD support for external screens. I'm really impressed by that, I don't see any real drawbacks compared to Samsung's Dex here. Motorola should really invest into promoting that more, but I'm confused with some newer phones lacking screen support (make sure to double check!). And by good I mean good: on that phone I was able to play Diablo mobile on full external screen with wireless gamepad, while texting on the phone, with no hiccups and hardware reporting temps around 40-42 Celsius.
linker3000 48 minutes ago [-]
The Motorola phones are generally good performers and value for money. My only gripe is that they cannot have their batteries replaced easily - even by phone repair shops.
I understand that this is because you have to disassemble / un-glue the phones through the front and remove the display. For this reason, the repair shops I have asked have said they don't 'do' Motorola phones because there's too much risk in breaking the display.
This effectively means that the life of the phone is determined by the ageing of the battery.
SyneRyder 43 minutes ago [-]
I bought a Motorola phone (G Stylus 2025) while in the US after discovering my brand new Sony Xperia VII phone would not work in upstate NY.
It's a great device, I loved using it. It had features I specifically wanted (still has a 3.5mm jack, a microSD slot, and wireless charging). It also looks fantastic with their Pantone colours, and it feels more comfortable than my Xperia VII. There's a wired fast charge feature that is incredibly fast. The Motorola was just 25% of the price and it's as good as the Sony in almost every way.
I do remember one flaw, the compass (ie direction pointing in Google Maps) was terrible. I'd sometimes walk a block using Google Maps before finding the compass was leading me in the wrong direction. But GPS seemed fine, and data reception was sometimes better than my friend's iPhone in the same places. The selfie camera was excellent, though something about the rear camera I wasn't quite as happy about. The Stylus is nice to have, but honestly I don't use it as much as I thought I would.
I wish there were more Motorola phones in Australia, I've probably become a Motorola / Lenovo customer now. (I already use a Lenovo ThinkPad).
For reference, my previous phones have been iPhone, Google, Samsung, Sony, now Motorola.
iamflimflam1 33 minutes ago [-]
Direction pointing seems to be pretty bad in any built up area (on my iPhone and my wife’s Pixel). I suspect that they are relying on accurate GPS for it combined with the magnetic compass. Both of which are a bit hit and miss when you are surrounded by tall steel framed buildings.
user_7832 1 hours ago [-]
> I don’t think I have ever seen a Motorola smartphone in the wild
Probably depends a lot on where you live tbh. Here in India it's moderately common. I think Europe and Latin America also have a fair amount of sales.
john_owl 52 minutes ago [-]
In Brazil it's very common, I had a few Motorola phones when I lived there. They have a great benefit-cost ratio.
pferde 51 minutes ago [-]
I've had a Motorola smartphone for four years before moving on to a Pixel with GrapheneOS and was mostly satisfied with it, so this announcement sounds rather good to me. Can't wait for the product(s)!
ekjhgkejhgk 4 minutes ago [-]
Wait... so the supposedly most secure mobile OS will only be able to run on either a Google phone or a Chinese phone?
Yes, Motorola Phones is Chinese.
wolvoleo 40 minutes ago [-]
Hmm the one thing I'm kinda missing with grapheneos is mobile payments. The banks here in Europe used to have their own nfc apps but in my country they've all moved to Google wallet :( or Samsung pay.
I don't want Google monitoring my payments so I'm using Samsung now but I'd love to have something more open for this.
I was kinda hoping the partner would be Samsung so they might collaborate on a payment system too. I don't think Motorola has anything like that.
ekjhgkejhgk 1 minutes ago [-]
> I don't want Google monitoring my payments
If you don't want Google monitoring your payment you shouldn't use mobile payments. In fact you shouldn't even use cards, because those likely have agreements with Google for data sharing. If you're serious, it's simple, just use cash.
aniviacat 53 seconds ago [-]
PayPal's tap-to-pay also works without Google Wallet (and therefore on GrapheneOS).
It isn't any more open than Samsung Pay though.
timedude 35 seconds ago [-]
If this partnership with motorolla becomes a success, samsung will follow as will the chinese.
Tade0 17 minutes ago [-]
I was hoping more banks would introduce support for U2F. In Europe ING was one of the first if not the first, but so far few followed.
icar 9 minutes ago [-]
Curve works on GrapheneOS. I use it weekly.
aucisson_masque 48 minutes ago [-]
Hopefully wireless payment do work on these, and they have face unlock working. That's really the 2 issues I have with grapheneos.
I know it's supposed to be for privacy nerd, and they will tell you you shouldn't use Google pay because it's bad for privacy and so on... But it's not the majority of people, most are willing to trade some privacy for convenience.
poisonborz 4 minutes ago [-]
I'd be more concerned for face unlock. You take an OS that goes to the extreme to prevent any external intrusion to your phone and you enable an option to unlock it for anyone by holding the phone to your face?
dgrabla 3 minutes ago [-]
In Germany, Paypal uses NFC payments. It works on GrapheneOS
nie100sowny 37 minutes ago [-]
Here it's Google not wanting to certify GrapheneOS I think, despite their valuable contributions to the AOSP.
cromka 13 minutes ago [-]
Motorola might be able to help here since they would be signing for their own hardware?
omnimus 18 minutes ago [-]
You can use other contactless payments apps like Curve Pay. It requires Google Play services but with limited permissions. It takes a bit of setup but many people are using it.
SSLy 25 minutes ago [-]
Wireless payments skipping Google Wallet work just fine on GOS.
preisschild 28 minutes ago [-]
Google Pay only works on device/OS combos that have the specific blessing from Google. Only google can make it work.
pferde 46 minutes ago [-]
The misspelling of "GrapehenOS" in the tags below the article does not bode well for Motorola... :)
12 minutes ago [-]
subscribed 11 minutes ago [-]
I'm so happy about that - out of all the vendors possible. And congratulations to the future users of the OEM Motorola users - You're going to get your security patches FAST.
(not muted my the fact that apparently no one else wanted to reach the high bar for system security)
ddtaylor 1 hours ago [-]
Motorola if you're reading this remove Glance from your Android 16 on lower end phones it breaks the phone. I'm sure you have some deal with them, but you have control over technical failures that render the device unable to function.
(At the time it wasn't public which OEM GrapheneOS would partner with.)
10729287 2 hours ago [-]
Back in the days, I switched from Iphone 3G to Motorola Defy in order to benefit from more customisation. I'm now back into Apple ecosystem since iPhone 6, actually on iPhone 13 but i'm very tempted by GrapheneOS. Going back to Motorola would please me, as I loved this little Defy. Do you think there's any chance to have RCS messages without Google involved ? I want group messages without having to install Whatsapp and not all my contacts are on signal.
fc417fc802 1 hours ago [-]
> I want group messages without having to install ...
Well now I'm confused. I've always received SMS as fallback when my contacts add me to RCS group messages. But apparently this doesn't always work according to people on the internet at large?
Unfortunately most people still think they're "texting" and have no idea Google and Apple pulled a bait and switch. Meanwhile on my end I receive emoji react spam, each emoji as an independent message, in an incredibly verbose form that quotes the entire message.
It's simultaneously misleading people, a DoS against non-BigTech clients, and monopolistic. The mobile ecosystem just keeps getting worse and there's no sign of regulations fixing it any time soon.
Groxx 28 minutes ago [-]
It's supposed to work by downgrading everyone involved if any are not on RCS, because there is no other option. Which has been working fine for me at least, normal MMS issues aside (MMS delivery is often awful). RCS keeps an "is X using RCS?" list on their servers, and every attempt to message someone checks that (with a local cache)... and like >99% of those servers are Google, at this point, so it should be pretty consistent.
That said, I have no idea how often that fails in practice.
And that is how reactions are sent in SMS/MMS. Your app just isn't recognizing them to display them nicely. Maybe try a different one?
fc417fc802 2 minutes ago [-]
> And that is how reactions are sent in SMS/MMS.
Imagine if IRC clients started adding such functionality. Certain protocols and conventions are useful precisely because of their minimalism.
Google and Apple are already running their own walled off proprietary messaging platforms. There was no need to tamper with SMS.
madduci 1 hours ago [-]
I really hope that the partnership involves support for low-end devices and not only high-end ones. Would be great to have a €200 Phone running GrapheneOS (e.g. G56)
nie100sowny 36 minutes ago [-]
I guess it's rathet hard to satisfy GrapheneOS requirements in 200 bucks budget. Things like at least 5 years of updates.
Satuminus 2 hours ago [-]
This is good. Having an alternative to Pixel-Phones for GOS makes sense. I wonder if we will have the option to buy a Motorola phone with GOS out of the box (not sure if i would trust that, but it might be interesting for some people that are skeptical of installing it on their Pixel by themselves).
hashworks 2 hours ago [-]
AFAIK you can verify the integrity of an existing GrapheneOS installation.
Literally the first three words of the announcement that this submission is about are "Motorola, a Lenovo Company".
aniviacat 1 hours ago [-]
Is that still up to date? On Motorola Mobility's Wikipedia page [1] it says
> [Motorola Mobility LLC] is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Hong Kong based Chinese technology giant Lenovo.
Lenovo is a publicly traded company, and according to its shareholding structure report for 2025 [2] its main shareholder is Legend Holdings Corporation. (Lenovo is also listed as a subsidiary on Legend Holding Corporation's Wikipedia page [3].)
Legend Holding Corporation is again publicly traded, with all big shareholders being Chinese according to its 2024 annual report [4]. The biggest one is CAS Holdings with 30% of the shares.
The China Academy of Sciences is owned by the Chinese government.
So it seems like if Google still owns part of Motorola Mobility, it's not a main shareholder.
Didn't you read the article? It's kinda hard to miss the Lenovo all through the press release.
Imustaskforhelp 1 hours ago [-]
Motorola is a lenovo company.
Atleast in the former moto Phone I had, even its boot sequence included the logo of motorola and then saying, a lenovo company.
It was a google company before 2014 but it was sold in 2014.
2 hours ago [-]
gib444 2 hours ago [-]
No, Lenovo owns Motorola
Google owned it 2012-2014
phoronixrly 2 hours ago [-]
I was going to ask wasn't motorola bought and sold so many times that it ended up in Chinese hands. It ended up in Google's hands instead... Ngl, kind of underwhelming from Graphene
Edit: wait, that's old news, it is part of Lenovo...
3nrico 2 hours ago [-]
That article is fron 2012. According to wikipedia Motorola Mobility was then aquired by Lenovo in 2014, and Lenovo still ownes Motorla Mobility to this day.
Imustaskforhelp 1 hours ago [-]
Thinkpads are also part of Lenovo and is technically Chinese. But see, which device is recommended for privacy purposes the most because of Libreboot/Coreboot and how much respected thinkpads are in the privacy minded community.
Can't believe I am saying this but a chinese company can be good and an american company can be bad.
Not an exact fan of china, especially their authoritarianism but I am not a fan of america right now either.
For what its worth, a lot of American phone companies also use chinese factories or chinese components and assemble them in India or Vietnam (Apple) and then say that we are making phones in India which while true, isn't the most accurate picture but it keeps the masses happy.
cromka 8 minutes ago [-]
Models recommended for Coreboot are old ones. You can't get it on newer ones or can't even edit the UEFI/ACPI tables on them because firmware is a) signed b) on SMD nvram making it pita to flash
okanat 2 hours ago [-]
It ended up in Chinese hands.
kopirgan 18 minutes ago [-]
This is good news. I use a Motorola device and feel it was the best (or at least the least troublesome) among the PRC based brands. Clean UI that's near pure Android..
If they can offer it as choice then hopefully banking apps etc wont get knocked off. And we can have best of both.
ggm 2 hours ago [-]
Will the sandboxed google play permit banking apps to work using TPM and secured credentials?
Is it even possible to store secure credentials properly?
I would expect whatever you initialised before grapheneOS is wiped before you can run the alternate OS.
Is termux possible with a root/sudo function?
ulrikrasmussen 1 hours ago [-]
My banking app works fine on GrapheneOS today, but not every banking app does. If it depends on Google Play Integrity with strong integrity it won't because Google has successfully sold the blatant anti-competitive lie that you need to vendor lock-in your users to their OS to get security on mobile.
Secured credentials work fine, everything works fine except stuff that by design is locked in to Google like Google Pay.
hashworks 2 hours ago [-]
> Will the sandboxed google play permit banking apps to work using TPM and secured credentials?
Apps that don't work don't fail due to technical reasons but because upstream says so, i.e. Google Wallet. My banking app works just fine.
> I would expect whatever you initialised before grapheneOS is wiped before you can run the alternate OS.
Yes.
> Is termux possible with a root/sudo function?
GOS doesn't support root by itself since they deem it a security risk, but it's possible.
anon5739483 1 hours ago [-]
I don't think GrapheneOS team would partner with a vendor unless their security/usability standards were met (considering how long it took since the initial announcement) so I'm expecting feature parity with Pixel variants.
kelnos 1 hours ago [-]
I'm just really curious if this phone is going to pass Google's conformance tests and whatnot. I feel like some of that is incompatible with GrapheneOS's security model, so I wonder what's going to happen there.
kelnos 1 hours ago [-]
I think most banking apps already do work on GrapheneOS (not sure about TPM/secured credentials though). Graphene IIRC keeps a compatibility list somewhere. Some don't work, of course, but more do than I would have expected.
For me, the big question is if Google Wallet & its NFC payments will work. They don't on GrapheneOS currently, but if Motorola plans for this to be a fully Google-certified phone with GApps and everything, it will have to, somehow.
No, grapheneOS fails both DEVICE_INTEGRITY and STRONG_INTEGRITY checks.
cromka 7 minutes ago [-]
By default. It can be mitigated.
jackhalford 2 hours ago [-]
Excited for this, GrapheneOS teased this a few months back. I might finally move away from iOS.
hyfgfh 1 hours ago [-]
How about replaceable batteries?
patall 58 minutes ago [-]
EU regulation on that should come into force in Feb 2027.
cromka 6 minutes ago [-]
That regulation doesn't apply to mobile devices at this point afaik.
pu_pe 1 hours ago [-]
I'd bet there is a huge market for a cheaper phone with GrapheneOS support. Lots of people in Europe and India right now looking to decouple.
echelon_musk 28 minutes ago [-]
No handsets until at least 2027.
1 hours ago [-]
WhereIsTheTruth 13 minutes ago [-]
Why team up with a hardware manufacturer that is forced to comply with both the American Security Chip Act and the American Cloud Act?
I thought GrapheneOS was all about privacy and non compliance with Big Tech?
tonydav 1 hours ago [-]
I hope Lenovo can add the auto call recording toggle in GrapheneOS.
jauntywundrkind 2 hours ago [-]
Alas that in the US it is seemingly impossible to get unlocked bootloaders now. I'm trying to figure out what couple-year-old international phone to buy now.
Good on Motorola. Incredibly smart to tap these passionate geniuses.
fc417fc802 2 hours ago [-]
No idea about buying new phones but refurbished pixels with unlocked bootloaders seem to consistently be available from reputable sellers in the US.
It can be difficult to tell if the bootloader is unlocked from the listing though. There ought to be a legal requirement to clearly label that detail.
friedtofu 1 hours ago [-]
Really? That seems odd, where are you looking? Through your Carrier or just for unlocked devices? Depending on who you're with, usually you can just grab an unlocked device and your Carrier to register the device. I've only ever used Google Fi and AT&T though I'm not sure about the others.
Searching duckduckgo for 'Unlocked {device}' returns a lot of results on the shopping tab for phones on Amazon and eBay like the pixel 8/9 plus plenty of other "recent" android devices. Walmart and Bestbuy seem to still have dedicated sections for unlocked phones as well.
brynet 55 minutes ago [-]
Congrats to Daniel and the team.
siwatanejo 2 hours ago [-]
/me stops buying Samsung and waits for next Motorola Flip
karlzt 1 hours ago [-]
Is this going to be cheaper than Pixel?
globemaster99 2 hours ago [-]
Hope they make this partnership work out. Probably a 50-50 partnership.
phoronixrly 1 hours ago [-]
So... Graphene on a completely Lenovo (Chinese)-owned Motorola Mobility saying they focus more on security than other EU/US vendors. Bold strategy.
omnimus 11 minutes ago [-]
Many people will are reading this comment on completely Lenovo(Chinese)-owned Thinkpad laptop.
If you are worried about devices made in/by Chinese then good luck. Personally i am now more worried about US corps feed my phone data to Palantir.
Hardware manufacturers teaming up with and paying for open source software and operating systems is truly how I think we could escape enshittification.
Just give me the hardware and let me run good software on it that works with your hardware.
Motorola is now noted as a candidate for my next phone.
Markoff 42 minutes ago [-]
how safe is Chinese Lenovo with closed sourced firmware?
btw. Motorola has absolutely trash cameras, doubt GrapheneOS will change anything about it unless you put there gcam maybe, this is significant downgrade from Pixel cameras
btw. yes, it looks like vanilla Android, though it is not, my mother bought it after mine recommendation (previously used Xiaomi phones) and can't say the ROM would be particularly good
Imustaskforhelp 2 hours ago [-]
Yes, This is amazing.
My family had a moto phone and my god does it work till even now while being so snappy. I actually daily drove it for some time quite recently. It only has battery issues (let's hope that EU adds replacable batteries soon as well) and my mom only replaced the phone because she needed app which required the phone update.
Considering this partnership, To me it feels like Motorola can have the update issue be fixed.
Graphene was the reason I was thinking of buying a pixel phone second hand. Actually nope now, I am gonna wait for Motorola to ship GrapheneOS phone. I genuinely wish Motorola good luck for adding grapheneos.
I wish they can add Linux in future too but perhaps that might be asking them of TOO much but this company is probably hearing to the feedback if they have partnered up with grapheneos.
Actually, when I decided to buy my mother the new phone from her old Moto, I made a list and everything and I remember asking her about a new motorola but even me and her (iirc) both were worried about security updates and I saw online reviews/personal experience about software/android version updates being quite an issue which isn't an issue in for example pixel which has 10 years update policy iirc. With grapheneos now being partnered with moto, I do hope that it becomes an issue of the past.
They truly have the chance of becoming a good company for privacy savvy phone users while being affordable and having a good supply chain. I may be getting too excited but whoever thought of the deal must be a genius because I do think that if Motorola plays its cards right, then they definitely got a huge potential unlocked.
Jaxon_Varr 1 hours ago [-]
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ffsickempire 1 hours ago [-]
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chiengineer 2 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
rexpop 2 hours ago [-]
I can find no evidence of this. Please do not post falsehoods.
chiengineer 1 hours ago [-]
why would there be evidence of sarcasm
jesus holy mary mother of christ AI bots dont understand sarcasm duh
downvotes away!
NewJazz 2 hours ago [-]
Eww Lenovo. See what you made us do, Google/Trump2?
ItsHarper 2 hours ago [-]
What?
NewJazz 1 hours ago [-]
eww lenovo -> lenovo owns motorola. lenovo is a trash company that ships shitware, even in their firmware, there is shitware
see what you made us do google -> this event is a direct result of google's rug pull of support for pixel devices
google/trump2 -> the current admin is linked to attempts to curtail people's control of their hardware
vsgherzi 47 minutes ago [-]
Could you expand on the firmware stuff? Do they have bad practices on the firmware?
SyneRyder 31 minutes ago [-]
Not sure If this is what they're referring to, but 10 years ago Lenovo shipped low-end laptops with pre-installed adware called Superfish that also compromised the HTTPS certificate chain:
Motorola Mobility vs Motorola Solutions. Different companies. Different owners. Different nationalities.
nunobrito 32 minutes ago [-]
Go ahead and trust them.
I won't.
omnimus 9 minutes ago [-]
I would like to know what kind of phone you are using.
gf000 21 minutes ago [-]
Then keep using your phone made from magic pixie dust, because we live in reality where you can't just grow out "the perfect" hardware company from a seed.
karel-3d 1 hours ago [-]
Isn't this Lenovo, a different thing from Mororola Solutions?
edit: yeah it's a different Motorola. Unrelated companies in 2025. Android Motorola is owned by Lenovo, it's a Chinese brand
Rendered at 09:15:39 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
That said, I'm pretty excited. Motorola of the last decade or so has made really good hardware with basically stock firmware and a terrible update policy, which is why many avoid them. Seriously, they just offer quarterly updates on flagships, which is incredibly unsecure. Punting software to Graphene solves the biggest gripe many have.
Maybe it is an exception? I'm in EU if that matters.
And Motorola is almost free of bloatware. It is practically a stock Android.
The ThinkPhone is an exception, yeah. It’s similar to older Android One phones like their Moto X4. Not different because you are in EU, US models get same treatment.
The razr and edge lines do not get as reliable monthly updates and ship with bloatware.
So with them partnering up with graphene, I am super excited too. Motorola phones are also pretty price effective imo for the quality of hardware.
From a phone by a Chinese company.
Unless GrapheneOS handles the radio firmware, not really interested.
Do they? I genuinely don’t know because I don’t think I have ever seen a Motorola smartphone in the wild and their heavy involvement with the police and surveillance state has my attention piqued a bit. I’m just saying GrapheneOS partnering with possibly the biggest police state surveillance solutions provider? What’s that all about?
A year ago I got a "10 month old flagship" Moto, after research. For half the price of top Samsung that was available locally at the moment in stores, I got:
- Worse, but still really great CPU (Snapdragon 8s gen3 instead of "non-s" for Samsung)
- faster storage (UFS 4.0)
- more RAM (16GB LPDDR5x)
- much better charging (125W with... equally that strong charger in the box, 50W wireless, 10W reverse)
- much more storage (1TB)
- in a very slim wooden-back case :O
It also has great optically stabilized camera (with some challenges when it comes to "shutter speed" - it does a lot of processing so your photos are sometimes timed awkwardly), amazing low light for main camera, but that's a rabbit hole I don't want to go into.
Software-wise it was not as good as the fame goes, but still very good. I do have all the newest upgrades (currently Android 16 with Feb sec update) but it was not as "vanilla" as people claim. Still better than most things around and in the end I was able to trivially remove everything I don't like (which persisted across updates). With exception of their weird Dolby app that is useless anyway. This partnership with GrapheneOS makes me think they are still serious about clean OS.
The phone also has VERY GOOD support for external screens. I'm really impressed by that, I don't see any real drawbacks compared to Samsung's Dex here. Motorola should really invest into promoting that more, but I'm confused with some newer phones lacking screen support (make sure to double check!). And by good I mean good: on that phone I was able to play Diablo mobile on full external screen with wireless gamepad, while texting on the phone, with no hiccups and hardware reporting temps around 40-42 Celsius.
I understand that this is because you have to disassemble / un-glue the phones through the front and remove the display. For this reason, the repair shops I have asked have said they don't 'do' Motorola phones because there's too much risk in breaking the display.
This effectively means that the life of the phone is determined by the ageing of the battery.
It's a great device, I loved using it. It had features I specifically wanted (still has a 3.5mm jack, a microSD slot, and wireless charging). It also looks fantastic with their Pantone colours, and it feels more comfortable than my Xperia VII. There's a wired fast charge feature that is incredibly fast. The Motorola was just 25% of the price and it's as good as the Sony in almost every way.
I do remember one flaw, the compass (ie direction pointing in Google Maps) was terrible. I'd sometimes walk a block using Google Maps before finding the compass was leading me in the wrong direction. But GPS seemed fine, and data reception was sometimes better than my friend's iPhone in the same places. The selfie camera was excellent, though something about the rear camera I wasn't quite as happy about. The Stylus is nice to have, but honestly I don't use it as much as I thought I would.
I wish there were more Motorola phones in Australia, I've probably become a Motorola / Lenovo customer now. (I already use a Lenovo ThinkPad).
For reference, my previous phones have been iPhone, Google, Samsung, Sony, now Motorola.
Probably depends a lot on where you live tbh. Here in India it's moderately common. I think Europe and Latin America also have a fair amount of sales.
Yes, Motorola Phones is Chinese.
I don't want Google monitoring my payments so I'm using Samsung now but I'd love to have something more open for this.
I was kinda hoping the partner would be Samsung so they might collaborate on a payment system too. I don't think Motorola has anything like that.
If you don't want Google monitoring your payment you shouldn't use mobile payments. In fact you shouldn't even use cards, because those likely have agreements with Google for data sharing. If you're serious, it's simple, just use cash.
I know it's supposed to be for privacy nerd, and they will tell you you shouldn't use Google pay because it's bad for privacy and so on... But it's not the majority of people, most are willing to trade some privacy for convenience.
(not muted my the fact that apparently no one else wanted to reach the high bar for system security)
(At the time it wasn't public which OEM GrapheneOS would partner with.)
Well now I'm confused. I've always received SMS as fallback when my contacts add me to RCS group messages. But apparently this doesn't always work according to people on the internet at large?
Unfortunately most people still think they're "texting" and have no idea Google and Apple pulled a bait and switch. Meanwhile on my end I receive emoji react spam, each emoji as an independent message, in an incredibly verbose form that quotes the entire message.
It's simultaneously misleading people, a DoS against non-BigTech clients, and monopolistic. The mobile ecosystem just keeps getting worse and there's no sign of regulations fixing it any time soon.
That said, I have no idea how often that fails in practice.
And that is how reactions are sent in SMS/MMS. Your app just isn't recognizing them to display them nicely. Maybe try a different one?
Imagine if IRC clients started adding such functionality. Certain protocols and conventions are useful precisely because of their minimalism.
Google and Apple are already running their own walled off proprietary messaging platforms. There was no need to tamper with SMS.
[ https://news.lenovo.com/pressroom/press-releases/lenovo-comp... ]
https://news.lenovo.com/pressroom/press-releases/lenovo-comp...
> [Motorola Mobility LLC] is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Hong Kong based Chinese technology giant Lenovo.
Lenovo is a publicly traded company, and according to its shareholding structure report for 2025 [2] its main shareholder is Legend Holdings Corporation. (Lenovo is also listed as a subsidiary on Legend Holding Corporation's Wikipedia page [3].)
Legend Holding Corporation is again publicly traded, with all big shareholders being Chinese according to its 2024 annual report [4]. The biggest one is CAS Holdings with 30% of the shares.
The China Academy of Sciences is owned by the Chinese government.
So it seems like if Google still owns part of Motorola Mobility, it's not a main shareholder.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Mobility
[2] https://investor.lenovo.com/en/ir/shareholding.php
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legend_Holdings
[4] https://www.hkexnews.hk/listedco/listconews/sehk/2025/0429/2...
Didn't you read the article? It's kinda hard to miss the Lenovo all through the press release.
Atleast in the former moto Phone I had, even its boot sequence included the logo of motorola and then saying, a lenovo company.
It was a google company before 2014 but it was sold in 2014.
Google owned it 2012-2014
Edit: wait, that's old news, it is part of Lenovo...
Can't believe I am saying this but a chinese company can be good and an american company can be bad.
Not an exact fan of china, especially their authoritarianism but I am not a fan of america right now either.
For what its worth, a lot of American phone companies also use chinese factories or chinese components and assemble them in India or Vietnam (Apple) and then say that we are making phones in India which while true, isn't the most accurate picture but it keeps the masses happy.
If they can offer it as choice then hopefully banking apps etc wont get knocked off. And we can have best of both.
Is it even possible to store secure credentials properly?
I would expect whatever you initialised before grapheneOS is wiped before you can run the alternate OS.
Is termux possible with a root/sudo function?
Secured credentials work fine, everything works fine except stuff that by design is locked in to Google like Google Pay.
Apps that don't work don't fail due to technical reasons but because upstream says so, i.e. Google Wallet. My banking app works just fine.
> I would expect whatever you initialised before grapheneOS is wiped before you can run the alternate OS.
Yes.
> Is termux possible with a root/sudo function?
GOS doesn't support root by itself since they deem it a security risk, but it's possible.
For me, the big question is if Google Wallet & its NFC payments will work. They don't on GrapheneOS currently, but if Motorola plans for this to be a fully Google-certified phone with GApps and everything, it will have to, somehow.
I thought GrapheneOS was all about privacy and non compliance with Big Tech?
Good on Motorola. Incredibly smart to tap these passionate geniuses.
It can be difficult to tell if the bootloader is unlocked from the listing though. There ought to be a legal requirement to clearly label that detail.
Searching duckduckgo for 'Unlocked {device}' returns a lot of results on the shopping tab for phones on Amazon and eBay like the pixel 8/9 plus plenty of other "recent" android devices. Walmart and Bestbuy seem to still have dedicated sections for unlocked phones as well.
Just give me the hardware and let me run good software on it that works with your hardware.
Motorola is now noted as a candidate for my next phone.
btw. Motorola has absolutely trash cameras, doubt GrapheneOS will change anything about it unless you put there gcam maybe, this is significant downgrade from Pixel cameras
btw. yes, it looks like vanilla Android, though it is not, my mother bought it after mine recommendation (previously used Xiaomi phones) and can't say the ROM would be particularly good
My family had a moto phone and my god does it work till even now while being so snappy. I actually daily drove it for some time quite recently. It only has battery issues (let's hope that EU adds replacable batteries soon as well) and my mom only replaced the phone because she needed app which required the phone update.
Considering this partnership, To me it feels like Motorola can have the update issue be fixed.
Graphene was the reason I was thinking of buying a pixel phone second hand. Actually nope now, I am gonna wait for Motorola to ship GrapheneOS phone. I genuinely wish Motorola good luck for adding grapheneos.
I wish they can add Linux in future too but perhaps that might be asking them of TOO much but this company is probably hearing to the feedback if they have partnered up with grapheneos.
Actually, when I decided to buy my mother the new phone from her old Moto, I made a list and everything and I remember asking her about a new motorola but even me and her (iirc) both were worried about security updates and I saw online reviews/personal experience about software/android version updates being quite an issue which isn't an issue in for example pixel which has 10 years update policy iirc. With grapheneos now being partnered with moto, I do hope that it becomes an issue of the past.
They truly have the chance of becoming a good company for privacy savvy phone users while being affordable and having a good supply chain. I may be getting too excited but whoever thought of the deal must be a genius because I do think that if Motorola plays its cards right, then they definitely got a huge potential unlocked.
jesus holy mary mother of christ AI bots dont understand sarcasm duh
downvotes away!
see what you made us do google -> this event is a direct result of google's rug pull of support for pixel devices
google/trump2 -> the current admin is linked to attempts to curtail people's control of their hardware
https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/alerts/2015/02/20/lenovo-su...
Pretty terrible, but it was never on the high-end laptops, and plenty of HN folks are running Lenovo ThinkPads anyway.
Fantastic. Very secure.
I won't.
edit: yeah it's a different Motorola. Unrelated companies in 2025. Android Motorola is owned by Lenovo, it's a Chinese brand