Fairphone uses the latest snapdragon. Unless qualcomm messed up, their processors do support and have supported secure element for a while. What you probably meant was a dedicated secure element chip. That’s present on tensor but not on most other smartphones.
Fairphone uses Qualcomm snapdragon chips but they don’t use chips made for mobile phones, it’s chips for industrial use they buy, so the secure element might be missing. The reason is: they are supported for way longer which allows fairphone such long update periods. The shortlist of other phonemakers who can do the same are the ones who design their own chips: Google, Samsung, Apple.
Qualcomm does list this chip for enterprise grade use and updates for multiple years to come on android. The block diagram has a box labelled security. If the chip was as insecure as people claim, it couldn’t be used for biometrics much, if at all.
Huh? GrapheneOS is not wasting time with features or supporting phones that are not secure to their standards (meaning basically impossible to hardware-crack, which is NOT everyones requirement)
Pixel 8 has full support from google until 2030. Know of any current phones going for under 800 bucks with anywhere near that support lifetime?
Also, the pixel 7a is supported until 2026 and is $500. Both prices are quite reasonable for a computing device you’re going to carry around for at least the next three years.
Better off with a used pixel and grapheneos
Poorly yes. Even though
Fairphones have no secure element. The devs may be annoying, but what they dont do for a second is waste time.
Hmm, camera maybe but tape? Also microphone is not that easy. GPS, phone antennas and internet antennas are also way shadier
Fairphone uses the latest snapdragon. Unless qualcomm messed up, their processors do support and have supported secure element for a while. What you probably meant was a dedicated secure element chip. That’s present on tensor but not on most other smartphones.
Fairphone uses Qualcomm snapdragon chips but they don’t use chips made for mobile phones, it’s chips for industrial use they buy, so the secure element might be missing. The reason is: they are supported for way longer which allows fairphone such long update periods. The shortlist of other phonemakers who can do the same are the ones who design their own chips: Google, Samsung, Apple.
Really interesting!
Here is the product page of the chip in Fairphone’s 5th phone:
https://www.qualcomm.com/products/internet-of-things/industrial/building-enterprise/qcm6490#Overview
Qualcomm does list this chip for enterprise grade use and updates for multiple years to come on android. The block diagram has a box labelled security. If the chip was as insecure as people claim, it couldn’t be used for biometrics much, if at all.
I wasn’t meaning to fault the grapheneos devs, like you said it’s fairphones fault for not making it possible 😞
How is a security element wasting time?
Huh? GrapheneOS is not wasting time with features or supporting phones that are not secure to their standards (meaning basically impossible to hardware-crack, which is NOT everyones requirement)
They get this request a lot, see this: https://github.com/GrapheneOS/os-issue-tracker/issues/1961
and this.
Yep, my point was shaking my fist at fairphone, not the grapheneos devs
Add very shitty on-screen-fingerprint reader to that list…
Yeah I really dont want to upgrade my pixel 5 for a 6 for many reasons but that is a big one
Pixels are some of the cheapest phones
Not in my experience? A new Pixel 8 costs like 800€, thats like 600€ more than I would consider appropriate for a phone. All these prices are made up
Pretty sure he meant cheapest used
A p7p used goes for around US$400 here
Pixel 8 has full support from google until 2030. Know of any current phones going for under 800 bucks with anywhere near that support lifetime?
Also, the pixel 7a is supported until 2026 and is $500. Both prices are quite reasonable for a computing device you’re going to carry around for at least the next three years.
In this case a Pixel 8 is the only real option poorly. How can a phone just last 3 years from now on? Thats crazy…