@@poacherthenn but that's assuming that random people can hack you... I have a hard time believing a September 2022 security patch is going to pose a problem. My phone's on August 2022
I'm tired of the Google/youtube monopoly that constantly tell us how we should think. I wish there were better alternatives but the truth is we don't have a choice.
You're both wrong. He was talking about Facebook Lite which is cut down version of the full Facebook app which doesn't take over your phone. So the privacy score might not be too far off.
@@TheAk1292 Both apps were displayed on the screen, both had 9/10 scores. Like he said, don't trust the scores. Looks like a bad phone and software package overall. Slow and bad hardware, phone is slow, display is bad, build is mediocre at best. Very old firmware, the ROM is slow in every aspect. The "security/privacy" feature looks to have been implemented through a bad/slow not very well configured VPN. VPNs are not good for privacy anyway, your device still gets fingerprinted. At this price better to just get a Pixel 6A and install GrapheneOS.
@@kingdave855 i know it's good device, but if I'll buy it off Amazon or anyplace else, for exanple I can forget about 5g among others. iPhone wise..to be completely honest, im currently rocking 13 mini. And it's rly good ;) but "touch" overpriced
If it's by the same people as Fairphone, I'd wait a few iterations before seeing what they're really capable of. The original Fairphone was very disappointing but the Fairphone 4 seems to be a great product. They seem to try to break the mold and then improve upon.
Fairphone 4 sells very well, the phone is much more popular than it's predecessors. Also the fact that even the Fairphone 2 got an OS upgrade this year seems that they are committed to it.
That was fantastic. It was so obvious that all the way through you wanted to say that the phone was a sh!t kebab, but it was made all the more perfect by the fact that you didn't. Well done Chris.
Lots of ignorant comments over here and I'm unhappy that the reviewer didn't talk about who are the people behind this effort. Because of that, the viewers think that this OS and phone is some kind of con. Instead, this is real effort for a privacy OS instead, and was started by Gael Duval, one of the main personalities of Linux back in the early 2000s (he was part of the very popular back then, Mandrake Linux -- the 2nd most popular distro back then, after Red Hat). So this is not some company trying to steal your data, instead of google. It's a real open source effort to de-google and privatize your phone experience, made by some serious legends in the field.
Without wishing to be political GB news is as main stream as you get. It has far right backers exactly like most of the UK media outlets. So you are definitely not getting any new fresh angles. It is stale and mouldy. All you are doing is reinforcing your own biases. Not healthy
I bought a Pixel 7 because of the price & the 5 years of security updates. And considering I value my privacy you would think its a weird purchase. But considering Google lets you delete/disable most of their apps for alternatives (including chrome) I see no reason to purchase this unless I want extreme privacy. But I guess its cool someone if trying something different I guess.
@@maxmustermann7365 I wrote a long reply and it's not displaying, I have no patience for YT's filtering algorithm that simply allows fake Chris accounts to spam, but blocks actual convo.
No such thing as 100% privacy on a smartphone but the cats are cute and Uncle Spurt always makes me laugh, as do the comments of The Spurters! What’s not to like?
Ones there was. Not only where you able to remove the battery but also outside of the SIM card there really was nothing to be gathered from using it. Not realistically anyways. Maybe Facebook and whatever but really it was much more of a tool then anything else in the early days. Or rather a computer in the pocket. Not a tracking device down to the meter. And voice assistance whatever whatever.
This has the open-source microG (a verifiable alternative to GMS) baked in, so much so that /e/ Foundation is the sponsor of microG development. Apps installed from the App Lounge are the same as on Play, downloaded _from_ Play, and can run as if proprietary GMS was there. On Huawei you don't get any of that (and don't even cite GSpace, developed by hell knows whom).
I put /e/ on a refurbished S7 an it works absolutely Fine.Paid 75€ all together and the phone is powerful and compact.Battery Life is 2 Days with normal usage.Cant say anything Bad about it. My Business Fold is very annoying and full of Crap,and if you are honest to yourself,does nothing much better.
A useful fyi to anyone interested, Murena sell a number of different phones and this is the most basic one which costs less than a Moto G73, they also sell Fairphone 4, refurbished Google Pixel 4a's and others, all with their /e/ software. Most of which are now on Android 13. Second point, the company isnt owned by or associated with Fairphone, there seems to be a little ambiguity in their ownership structure which initally made a number of reports assume they were one and the same. Hope this is useful! I entirely agree though, if I wanted a private and secure phone which didn't give Apple or Google the keys to my digital life, I'd run a custom rom instead.
I have one of these and I have lots of trouble with the finger printer reader. It seems to only work less than half the time. Also I have not been able to figure out how to expand the storage size. I do have a sd card in it and it does read it. I can move files to it but can not find an option to expand storage.
A Google Pixel or Galaxy S with GrapheneOS/CalyxOS flashed is the most capable privacy phone you can get, with a big community (due to larger userbase) you can get help from.
This has the open-source microG (a verifiable alternative to GMS) baked in, so much so that /e/ Foundation is the sponsor of microG development. Apps installed from the App Lounge are the same as on Play, downloaded _from_ Play, and can run as if proprietary GMS was there. On Huawei you don't get any of that (and don't even cite GSpace, developed by hell knows whom).
This has the open-source microG (a verifiable alternative to GMS) baked in, so much so that /e/ Foundation is the sponsor of microG development. Apps installed from the App Lounge are the same as on Play, downloaded _from_ Play, and can run as if proprietary GMS was there. On Huawei you don't get any of that (and don't even cite GSpace, developed by hell knows whom).
I bought a second hand Pixel 4plusomething and got GraphenOS on that, got the Google camera app to work and really happy with it the past year or so. I quite like the idea of chosing how much I can do or not do, feel a bit more the device is mine, so I am interested in anything that avoids the downsides to the big two, why not. My focus has shifted from the pure privacy angle and more to the I can do what I wish with the device, set up for me, GraphenOS does seem to offer more than this particular as a package
I'm looking forward to seeing the day GrapheneOS or something very similar comes to devices. Doing what I want starts with a unit that hasn't removed features in the crib for me.
@@d_ngltron indeed but we can't give simple folk like you an operating system without training wheels now can we? And to explain to the simpletons, I said we need more phones without Google. If this phone was good I'd have said more phones like this. The hardware let this down. If samsung, motorola, HTC etc went with their own stuff like huawei was forced more people would develop for android instead of google play services
@@Adeyum64 well being bound by chinese law to make users' data available to the government would be a starting point in assuming it's less than 'good'.
I like how these "anti piracy" phones act like no one will take your details. As soon as you're making an accounts with someone. They are taking your details. I doubt this company would promise not to take your data. As soon as they get enough data they'll start selling it. Look at Facebook when it first started..
My thoughts exactly. With how heavily they're peddling their own cloud service instead of ones that are established to be good, I have little doubt they're doing something in the background. Also, that "privacy mode" built-in VPN was pathetically bad. I don't expect a good VPN experience to be free but they can be cheap or free with upgrade potential. I switched to a premium-only service but Windscribe is decent and has a free tier. Everything about this device screams "we have no faith in this product, just make it as cheaply as possible".
Someone from the Philippines watching this. Loving your videos. Cheers!
A phone stuck on Android 11 with no security updates is the opposite of "private". It's full of vulnerabilities
/e/OS isn't simply Android 11 and yes, it does get security updates. Apart from that, great comment.
typical budget entry phone
Sell your data to google, or be vulnerable to attackers that don't even know where you are or your IP address?
@@LindonSlaght I trust Google more with my data than random people
@@poacherthenn but that's assuming that random people can hack you... I have a hard time believing a September 2022 security patch is going to pose a problem. My phone's on August 2022
appreciate you taking time to review lesser known options. great review.
I'm tired of the Google/youtube monopoly that constantly tell us how we should think. I wish there were better alternatives but the truth is we don't have a choice.
youre right
Giving Facebook a 9/10 for privacy tells you everything you need to know about this phone 😁
You're both wrong. He was talking about Facebook Lite which is cut down version of the full Facebook app which doesn't take over your phone. So the privacy score might not be too far off.
@@TheAk1292 he actually said both versions of Facebook scored 9/10
@@parshakamarsh I only saw the score for Lite. So maybe I didn't hear or he misspoke. Either way, Lite is not the same.
@@TheAk1292 Both apps were displayed on the screen, both had 9/10 scores. Like he said, don't trust the scores. Looks like a bad phone and software package overall. Slow and bad hardware, phone is slow, display is bad, build is mediocre at best. Very old firmware, the ROM is slow in every aspect. The "security/privacy" feature looks to have been implemented through a bad/slow not very well configured VPN. VPNs are not good for privacy anyway, your device still gets fingerprinted.
At this price better to just get a Pixel 6A and install GrapheneOS.
Yep. If both were on screen then I must have missed it. Hopefully someone will find the info about Lite useful :)
It's absolutely lights out mental, I love it
Chris is now a Rolls Royce of smartphone Reviewers. Cheers
This feels like a phone made 10 years ago
I think as a pixel owner my phone speaks for itself
sadly not usable for maaaany places, including my country- no Google store to be seen for years :/
Are you by any chance referencing the 'chess speaks for itself' meme?
@@earthling_parth nope I didnt realise that was a thing tbf
@@MrDracolucassos that's sad it's actually good phone specialty in comparison to be price of IPhone
@@kingdave855 i know it's good device, but if I'll buy it off Amazon or anyplace else, for exanple I can forget about 5g among others.
iPhone wise..to be completely honest, im currently rocking 13 mini. And it's rly good ;) but "touch" overpriced
Welcome to the Philippines, uncle Spurt.
Thank for reviewing these lesser known options
If it's by the same people as Fairphone, I'd wait a few iterations before seeing what they're really capable of. The original Fairphone was very disappointing but the Fairphone 4 seems to be a great product. They seem to try to break the mold and then improve upon.
Fairphone 4 sells very well, the phone is much more popular than it's predecessors. Also the fact that even the Fairphone 2 got an OS upgrade this year seems that they are committed to it.
Except for no 3.5 jack, sure
@@yohaneschristianp Yeah, they're pretty two-faced about their core philosophy when you look a bit too closely. Shame
That Rebecca wallpaper for the thumbnail ;). Stay cultured best reviewer
Clicked faster than the response time of that phone
" Choose freedom" they say where is the freedom in that if the phone is incredibly incredible painfully slow 💀💀
Not to mention still forces freaking bluetooth. Standard affair for Fairphone.
I'd be interested in a review of custom ROM alternatives such as iodéOS calyxOS or grapheneOS!
trainspotting and brave heart, never did I think they could ever be referenced in a tech vid 🤣
Where do you get your wallpapers fam that Rebecca one from Cyberpunk looks so good!
That was fantastic. It was so obvious that all the way through you wanted to say that the phone was a sh!t kebab, but it was made all the more perfect by the fact that you didn't. Well done Chris.
Lots of ignorant comments over here and I'm unhappy that the reviewer didn't talk about who are the people behind this effort. Because of that, the viewers think that this OS and phone is some kind of con. Instead, this is real effort for a privacy OS instead, and was started by Gael Duval, one of the main personalities of Linux back in the early 2000s (he was part of the very popular back then, Mandrake Linux -- the 2nd most popular distro back then, after Red Hat). So this is not some company trying to steal your data, instead of google. It's a real open source effort to de-google and privatize your phone experience, made by some serious legends in the field.
Cool wallpaper which matches the theme
It's like breaking away from lame stream media and watching GB news.
Without wishing to be political GB news is as main stream as you get. It has far right backers exactly like most of the UK media outlets. So you are definitely not getting any new fresh angles. It is stale and mouldy. All you are doing is reinforcing your own biases. Not healthy
I bought a Pixel 7 because of the price & the 5 years of security updates. And considering I value my privacy you would think its a weird purchase. But considering Google lets you delete/disable most of their apps for alternatives (including chrome) I see no reason to purchase this unless I want extreme privacy.
But I guess its cool someone if trying something different I guess.
@@maxmustermann7365 /e/OS has microG integrated, hell, /e/ Foundation is the primary sponsor of microG developement.
@@maxmustermann7365 I wrote a long reply and it's not displaying, I have no patience for YT's filtering algorithm that simply allows fake Chris accounts to spam, but blocks actual convo.
@@maxmustermann7365 anyway, Fairphone from Murena is locked, Teracube is apparently not, One idk.
No such thing as 100% privacy on a smartphone but the cats are cute and Uncle Spurt always makes me laugh, as do the comments of The Spurters! What’s not to like?
Ones there was. Not only where you able to remove the battery but also outside of the SIM card there really was nothing to be gathered from using it. Not realistically anyways. Maybe Facebook and whatever but really it was much more of a tool then anything else in the early days. Or rather a computer in the pocket. Not a tracking device down to the meter. And voice assistance whatever whatever.
BRB I need that wallpaper for my lock screen
Same. He needs to give the sauce and stop gatekeeping his his wallpaper dealer
@@apexheat6553 he always says where he gets them from. check the last q&a/news update video.
Heavily fisted by the legal hand of doom . A tech review with a dash of comedy . Brilliant
Why not just get a Huawei and avoid all the Google services whilst still getting a phone that'll actually get updated?!
This has the open-source microG (a verifiable alternative to GMS) baked in, so much so that /e/ Foundation is the sponsor of microG development. Apps installed from the App Lounge are the same as on Play, downloaded _from_ Play, and can run as if proprietary GMS was there. On Huawei you don't get any of that (and don't even cite GSpace, developed by hell knows whom).
you know china
I just wanted to know were do you usually got your phone's wallpapers from?
I put /e/ on a refurbished S7 an it works absolutely Fine.Paid 75€ all together and the phone is powerful and compact.Battery Life is 2 Days with normal usage.Cant say anything Bad about it.
My Business Fold is very annoying and full of Crap,and if you are honest to yourself,does nothing much better.
I'l stick with Google following me everywhere, lol
I like that someone is trying something different but looks so buggy, also the hardware ain't great
Basically, they've cut every possible corner to optimise profit on a device they have no faith in.
I love the wallpaper
So basically you give them your details instead of google.
It's a French company, not involved in the ads industry at all, unlike the Big G which is, well, quite deeply in that business.
Its open source your wrong
It's open source and you basically can see the whole project online and what they do.
A useful fyi to anyone interested, Murena sell a number of different phones and this is the most basic one which costs less than a Moto G73, they also sell Fairphone 4, refurbished Google Pixel 4a's and others, all with their /e/ software. Most of which are now on Android 13. Second point, the company isnt owned by or associated with Fairphone, there seems to be a little ambiguity in their ownership structure which initally made a number of reports assume they were one and the same. Hope this is useful!
I entirely agree though, if I wanted a private and secure phone which didn't give Apple or Google the keys to my digital life, I'd run a custom rom instead.
this phone takes you back to the dark ages-plus it's not that cheap
Be wary the merchant who’s only selling point is the claim that they’re morally superior to the other guy.
great phone, need more ideas like these
If only. Good phones to go with the ideas would be great too. This one was lackluster by any stretch of the imagination.
A very mixed bag. A Morris Marina might be more reliable! 🙂
I like the idea, but as you say, you could convert your own phone with better results.
I was lost when you said your have to go to another device to create an account??? What.
What phone should I get for £390
I don't mind pls give me both android and ios option pls
Hi lovely Chris. Nice review. I'm all time Aurora user. Xiaomi Chinese
What is the name for the headphones stand he usually has in the background of his videos?
Time for Amazon to have another go?
This reminds me of that freedom phone...
👉🎁🎁👈..()
At least they developed there own software and didn’t rip off other peoples work
Giving me lineage os vibes. Which I like on my old phones for sound mods. But would your banking work on it?
Would this work in Australia? Thanks
Interesting review I’ve never heard of this brand. Homework on it to be done to see if it’s any good.
I have one of these and I have lots of trouble with the finger printer reader. It seems to only work less than half the time. Also I have not been able to figure out how to expand the storage size. I do have a sd card in it and it does read it. I can move files to it but can not find an option to expand storage.
Setting aside the device / phone brand used.
How does e/ compare with iodeOS? What are the pros and cons of one over the other?
Man where do you get your wallpapers from 🥺
Where do you get your anime wallpapers from???
Thank you for the informative video. :)
Bruh! I love your shirt!!!!!
A Google Pixel or Galaxy S with GrapheneOS/CalyxOS flashed is the most capable privacy phone you can get, with a big community (due to larger userbase) you can get help from.
What about samsung a53? When my phone comes end of life in 4 years could I flash it then?
@@robinhosleftfoot I am hearing only Pixels are officially supported. I think Calyx supports flagship S series but unsure about A.
@@robinhosleftfooti mean you could flash lineage os without gapps. You could find answers on the xda forum
😂 "Just give money to the scum companies anyway. don't worry about the removed hardware functionality"
The logo looks like an upside down Google logo. Sneaky!
what about the teracube 2e with murena?
Surely got to release an aqua version.
It loads websites slow, because you are using their built-in VPN, plus location faking, probably.
maybe for anti google thing, buy huawei smartphones ?
This has the open-source microG (a verifiable alternative to GMS) baked in, so much so that /e/ Foundation is the sponsor of microG development. Apps installed from the App Lounge are the same as on Play, downloaded _from_ Play, and can run as if proprietary GMS was there. On Huawei you don't get any of that (and don't even cite GSpace, developed by hell knows whom).
ah yes, sell your data to the Chinese government instead of Google, that seems like a suitable alternative.
Wouldn't it just be better to get a Huawei phone instead if you don't want Google services
Chinese Huawei services are better? 💀💀
@@louie.idkone Yes.
This has the open-source microG (a verifiable alternative to GMS) baked in, so much so that /e/ Foundation is the sponsor of microG development. Apps installed from the App Lounge are the same as on Play, downloaded _from_ Play, and can run as if proprietary GMS was there. On Huawei you don't get any of that (and don't even cite GSpace, developed by hell knows whom).
Is there a way of automatically change the faces on my Samsung watch , similar to the function Turn on as schedule???
Can you put Linux on it or does this phone not need that
This homestly tags me as a burner phone for someone to call their side chick
3:35 🤣🤣🤣🤣
I need the wallpapers he uses 😭
man love your videos, can you tell me the source of this wallpapers
I bought a second hand Pixel 4plusomething and got GraphenOS on that, got the Google camera app to work and really happy with it the past year or so. I quite like the idea of chosing how much I can do or not do, feel a bit more the device is mine, so I am interested in anything that avoids the downsides to the big two, why not. My focus has shifted from the pure privacy angle and more to the I can do what I wish with the device, set up for me, GraphenOS does seem to offer more than this particular as a package
I'm looking forward to seeing the day GrapheneOS or something very similar comes to devices. Doing what I want starts with a unit that hasn't removed features in the crib for me.
That looks like it was put together in a garage. I'm pretty sure TSA will flag you at the airport when you brandish the Murena One.
Might as well get a Huawei.
I always think these are dumb, you can just flash a ROM without Gapps and still get the latest security patches and android versions
Out of curiosity, what do you do about banking apps?
Thanks Much !
This phone has so much potential! Why is it so hard to buy!! ?
That volume slider and notification panel look android 8 or 9 to me🤔
👉🎁🎁👈..()
>Privacy-focused
>Login to our cloud instead of Google's!
Lol
Watching from 🇵🇭
"Could you do a review with a Pixel running GrapheneOS?"
Never thought you could get a SP manufactured without Android..or ipple
Go to us in the Philippines, mate! I'll be waiting. Cheers!
My grandad used to have a Morris Marina 😂
please do come here in the Philippines, im a fan of your channel and im from Philippines sorry for my bad English
Think i would give it a miss.
Seems like a medicinal box
Murena seems to take the all eggs in one basket approach to making phones which is why the hardware and/or software experience isn't the greatest.
You have used it?
The interface looks more of Ubuntu to me.
How the f it's secure, with an mtk chip?
It's laggy
Huawei can really use this to their advantage actually. make not having GMS a thing. Unless of course theyre working on getting back +GMS
Fun fact "murena" means "eel" in italian
I use e os on asus x00td. 😁
I wonder if anyone will own up to owning one of these, in the comments section. Come on, get yourself out of the closet...! 😜
I would probably rather get a Fairphone 4 with /e/, but this one is valid too.
We need more phones breaking away from google and getting back to choice
You look at this phone and think that more of this is a good idea..?
@@d_ngltron if that's how you read it then its lucky apple exists for you.
@@daemonbyte Apple is garbage
@@d_ngltron indeed but we can't give simple folk like you an operating system without training wheels now can we?
And to explain to the simpletons, I said we need more phones without Google. If this phone was good I'd have said more phones like this. The hardware let this down. If samsung, motorola, HTC etc went with their own stuff like huawei was forced more people would develop for android instead of google play services
@@daemonbyte lmfao alright, mate
graphene os on a pixal phone is the way to go
And Graphene on a better device is the real way to go some of us can only hope for.
I'd still prefer Huawei with its well establish harmony os ecosystem than this. Just hoping they got Kirin back sooner.
Thrilla in Manila
Quite irritating to see it has so called cloud storage-it's no from me.
Hard swerve.
I thought Huawei smartphones are anti-google 🙄
Yeah, but it's china so people automatically assume it's bad xD which makes no sense imo
@@Adeyum64 well being bound by chinese law to make users' data available to the government would be a starting point in assuming it's less than 'good'.
Watching on my Pixel 6a, by the way, welcome to the Philippines, hahaha
I like how these "anti piracy" phones act like no one will take your details. As soon as you're making an accounts with someone. They are taking your details. I doubt this company would promise not to take your data. As soon as they get enough data they'll start selling it. Look at Facebook when it first started..
Its open source thats the difference which tech illiterate people can’t seem to understand after 30 years
My thoughts exactly. With how heavily they're peddling their own cloud service instead of ones that are established to be good, I have little doubt they're doing something in the background. Also, that "privacy mode" built-in VPN was pathetically bad. I don't expect a good VPN experience to be free but they can be cheap or free with upgrade potential. I switched to a premium-only service but Windscribe is decent and has a free tier. Everything about this device screams "we have no faith in this product, just make it as cheaply as possible".
not sure i'll buy this phone. great you give these sorts of phones some air time though.