[Discuss] un-bastardized android

[blu at nedharvey.com (Edward Ned Harvey)]

I know the Nexus One was un-bastardized for the short period that it was
sold.  But it's really unclear now, how to find an un-bastardized phone if
you want one.

 

Anyone have any advice on how to find/get un-bastardized phones?

 

By "un-bastardized" what do I mean?  I mean the mobile carriers all
pre-install junk and take away root, lock the bootloader, etc.  Make the
phone less desirable to use.  Android itself, and the google apps, are quite
excellent.  But mobile carriers all bastardize their phones first, before
selling to customers, for various reasons that are all for the benefit of
the mobile carrier and not for the end users' benefit.

 

Why do I care?

 

I currently have LG Optimus on Metropcs.  It's good, but it's pretty wimpy.
I want to upgrade - 4G LTE, something with more processor, more memory...  I
am currently unable to run Netflix, Google Earth, Firefox.  The LG Optimus
came pre-installed with junk, so I found I needed to root it in order to be
happy with it, uninstalling junk like boingo and metro ez-wifi, myextras,
weather, etc.  You know, uninstall all the junk that does pop-up ads, which
you can't uninstall without root.  Having rooted my phone, this implies I'll
never apply any updates, and although I haven't been hit by any malware or
blatant instability, I like to believe that updates are improvements...

 

Plus the process of rooting the phone is kind of dangerous.  Couldn't tell
you how many sketchy things I downloaded from the internet, uncomfortably
questioning if I was installing a virus on my laptop etc.  Plus there were
the few times the phone went black, or died during firmware update, made me
pee my pants thinking I'd bricked the phone...  It was hairy.