I want to buy a new phone and tablet. I don’t have much experience in this area, so I thought I’d ask the community what are the phones and tablets most compatible with the overall ethos of TW and open-source in general.
I have been using an old ipad so far and things like syncing to my PC have been problematic. The general advice I received from others is to move to android.
My budget is around 600£ in total. Any suggestions or advice?
@TiddlyDave I would echo your received advice, move to android. It would be nice to say “anything but Apple products” since they are very proprietary and expensive, but the competition is falling away with only android up as a real contender. There are unfortunately compromises with any choice, but I have found Android more than adequate for many devices.
There are I believe a lot of well priced Android devices, however try and find a manufacturer who stands by there product and continues to upgrade the OS version regularly and for as long as possible. Devices can last a long time after their last OS upgrade, but the latest version possible the better.
Unless you are rolling in money avoid the “latest” model and features as they demand a price premium.
Best of luck.
I have a fairphone 4. They openly support open-source so it may be a good match for you:
You can download and compile the version of the Linux kernel used in the Fairphone 4 here: Fairphone 4 Kernel Source Code — FAIRPHONE open source documentation
The fairphone 4 has no bloatware like on samsung (you do have the standard google apps pre-installed though), and they offer 5 years of warranty, while promising 6 years of updates.
If you hate google, you can buy an /e/ OS version sold by murena, or install it on your fairphone yourself.
If you only want to uninstall the default google apps, you can remove those easily with this software: universal-android-debloater
I like their eco-friendly / fairtrade / repairability (10/10 on ifixit) approach, the screen is big enough to be able to edit tiddlywikis without too much issues, and it’s powerful enough for most tasks. The screen is very good but not the best (you probably want an amoled if this is very important for you). It has no audio-jack , so I bought the “Apple USB‑C to mini‑jack 3.5 mm” for about 8 euros. They offers Bluetooth earphones for free with your fairphone 4 last time I checked, and they also sell their own usb c to jack adaptor but I couldnt get either of those (not available when I bought mine).
What I really love with this device is the easy to replace parts, especially the battery !
That sounds super useful but I have no idea what that site means! 
I don’t get how, me, an average user, would benefit?
Just an idiot’s question,
An ignorable side-comment, TT
I’m not tech-savvy enough either, but since @TiddlyDave is interested in an open source phone I figured that it might interest him ^^
EDIT: seems like it’s useful if you want to add custom support for hardware/software https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxquestions/comments/cp40r1/why_would_anyone_want_to_compile_a_custom_kernel/
Having compiled kernels for devices, it’s not trivial and not for the faint of heart. And even if you know what you’re doing, it’s a time-suck.
I appreciate the comment regardless. Thanks.
Has anyone tried running Tiddloid or Quinoid on Amazon tablets? Does it work as it would on android tablets?
One of the more interesting things for me is that Chromebooks can use Android apps.
So: what are we discussing? OS issues or TW issues?
Just a comment, TT
Just a friend of my has offered to sell me his amazon tablet and I was wandering if I would have similar issues as I did with my ipad when trying to work with TW… I’ve never used one before.
It depends on what version the tablet is at. Also be aware that the tablet doesn’t ship with Playstore. So you may have to sideload Tiddloid. Or find the work-around online for installing Playstore.
In terms of the original question, I would say the Amazon OS is slightly less open, since it uses its own modified version of Android.
I find my aging Fire tablet to be somewhat under performant, in general. Not impossible, but a tad slow. Just be aware that it may have a less powerful processor than a Samsung or other name brand.
Thank you, that’s very helpful. The tablet is a Fire HD 8 from 2020, so relatively new. I only want to use it for reading, browsing and TW to not drain the battery of my phone and to have a slighly larger screen.
The 2 apps I’ve mentioned have to be installed externally anyway so no need for play store.