Solved! Good looking cheap phone for rooting (Android)

[nukesnicks]

Anyone know a good phone for rooting. This will be a second phone but may use it as a primary if it is aesthetically pleasing to me. I’m gonna get a second phone either way. I want to try making custom android operating systems and can’t use my G930T since it fails when trying to install stuff with Odin 3.1 (E.g. TWRP custom recovery). Thanks in advance!

 

[Mr5oh]

Well if you want it for custom ROMs and cheap I suggest you look at Xiaomi. Get on the Lineage site or XDA and see which one has the most support. I know the Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 was popular and we'll supported, but it maybe hard to find new now. The new Mi A1 seems to also be well supported have official Lineage builds, and that is still listed new on Amazon. Both those phones are sub $200 generally IIRC.

Ive been a fan of OnePlus since Google killed the Nexus line, but that doesn't fit the "budget / cheap" tag.

 

[nukesnicks]

Well if you want it for custom ROMs and cheap I suggest you look at Xiaomi. Get on the Lineage site or XDA and see which one has the most support. I know the Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 was popular and we'll supported, but it maybe hard to find new now. The new Mi A1 seems to also be well supported have official Lineage builds, and that is still listed new on Amazon. Both those phones are sub $200 generally IIRC.

Ive been a fan of OnePlus since Google killed the Nexus line, but that doesn't fit the "budget / cheap" tag.

I was thinking of getting a one plus 6t since I’m on T-Mobile but that would replace my current G930T (Galaxy S7 which I like but I guess is worth giving up for the oneplus)

 

[canadianvice]

Xiaomi has some cheap options, just be careful to check - not all are great for dev work.

Also, avoid Kirin and Mediatek soc's like the plague. I'm fairly certain kirin doesn't do source release (Huawei) and I **know** Mediatek doesn't - well, unless you pay tens of thousands to join their partner programs. Ofc, this violates gpl but they don't care.

One of the moto phones might be a decent option. For your purposes, aim for popular and aim for brand name. With any luck someone will already have a base made you can work off.

 

[Mr5oh]

Well if you want it for custom ROMs and cheap I suggest you look at Xiaomi. Get on the Lineage site or XDA and see which one has the most support. I know the Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 was popular and we'll supported, but it maybe hard to find new now. The new Mi A1 seems to also be well supported have official Lineage builds, and that is still listed new on Amazon. Both those phones are sub $200 generally IIRC.

Ive been a fan of OnePlus since Google killed the Nexus line, but that doesn't fit the "budget / cheap" tag.

I was thinking of getting a one plus 6t since I’m on T-Mobile but that would replace my current G930T (Galaxy S7 which I like but I guess is worth giving up for the oneplus)

I had a OnePlus 5T, and now have a OnePlus 6T. If you but the 6T from TMobile you will be stuck waiting on an unlock token from TMobile. You can flash it to an international version afterwards with some caveats, it's also only has one IMEI, despite having the hardware to be dual SIM. The tray is a single sim though. The updates also have to be approved by The TMobile before release if you stay "locked" and on Oxygen OS so the TMobile ones get updated slower. I would definitely recommend going with one straight from OnePlus if you go that route. The only people I know that went to TMobile were the ones that got deals, and then read the fine print, as what I was reading was you didn't get the deal if you paid it in full early.

I do like Canadianvice suggestion of Moto, they have several models that also get fairly well supported, and Motorola just announced that deal with ifixit to sell parts and guides so you can actually get parts and repair their devices as well which is nice. Definitely worth looking into as they have some affordable devices as well.

 

[dmroeder]

I have a Moto G5 Plus, it's been a pretty good phone and pretty well supported on XDA. Getting the bootloader unlock from Motorola is easy and so was getting recovery and the first ROM flashed.