Excellent Phone and Service
I got extremely tired of being bombarded by precisely targeted advertising I am sure came from my old Android/Samsung phone and downloaded apps. I walked around my yard looking at some brown spots and the next day I was getting ads for lawn services. Ugh. I bought an Unplugged phone and a Google Pixel 8 Pro with Graphene OS installed and concurrently ran a prepaid service through both of them. Bottom line: after three months of testing, I went with the Unplugged UP01 phone. Why? Speed and convenience. I use my phone like 90+ percent of the population. While the Pixel/Graphene OS phone I am sure was a very secure and private device, I need the convenience and speed of apps. The UP01 excels at this and has nearly every app in it's own app store. You get real-time feedback of app trackers blocked and who the culprits are that you just don't get with the Graphene device. I'm not a phone expert and can't tell you the hardware the UP phone runs, but I can absolutely tell you it is plenty snappy for me. No lag ever. If you want to use three different user profiles in Graphene for added security and sign into your banking, social media sites, etc. via a browser, Graphene might be for you. You don't get any tracker feedback and you have to trust the device is not leaking data. If you want to click on your banking or other app and know that the phone is blocking the app's embedded trackers, go with the UP phone. I like their mission/vision, and support them fully. I liked the Graphene device, but you actually have to have more blind trust that it's not leaking after you download apps and browse the web (unless you are a sophisticated user). I use their no logs VPN and email aggregator without concern. Their annual subscription fee after the first free year is a small price to pay for big tech privacy. I've used their AI support about a dozen times with concerns about apps or feedback from the firewall and all but one time their AI resolved my issue; the other time required a human, but no big deal - they were fast. You also get frequent updates pushed out. Graphene required more hands on for updates and depending if you sideloaded apps, you might have to go hunting for updates that were not automatic. In short, you could buy a device that supports Graphene OS installation from Google (and soon the Peoples Republic of China's Motorola), which directly financially supports the Privacy Prince of Darkness, or you can buy a phone from a small company that doesn't collect and sell your data and whose specified mission is big tech privacy and security. BTW, I don't get anything out of this review. I bought the UP01 phone and don't regret it at all.








