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  • Lenovo IdeaPad Duet 3

    That works with Linux, it can be bought for under $200 on eBay refurbished. There’s supposedly a new one for $110, or is that the box only? 4 GB of RAM, and less space. I’d get the better one. The battery can be replaced, but kind of a pain, since there’s no screws.

    You’ll need a USB flash drive or something to install it to. Might need another one.

    According to the Geekbench score, it’s probably fast enough with Linux. Better battery life then the cheapo Windows tablet things.

    And it has a keyboard. Might be a tablet I’d actually use at home. iPads just not be for me. Android tablets aren’t either. Now they really aren’t.

    I’d put postmarketOS on it, that’s the link to the device page. I think it said the headphone jack doesn’t work, if it even has one. It has Bluetooth so who cares.

    And I’d get rid of ChromeOS, I don’t want that shit. Install it to the internal drive.

    The speakers work as well.

    The better one can be bought from Lenovo as well, for over $400.

    No idea if the Teracube phone has a better CPU or not, didn’t look up anything about the CPU. I should probably wait till next month to decide. Well, if the government shuts down, and I get no money, I probably shouldn’t buy anything. But having no money, and possibly never getting more, might be fun.

    Eh, if I have no income, I can sell my Xbox. The Series S might require internet, since I might not have that for the rest of my days, might as well get rid of it, before it’s useless.

    Looks like eBay is the best bet, Amazon sucks anyways, so does eBay though. And don’t think Backmarket has it.

    The phone is more convenient, don’t need a backpack, or a laptop bag to bring it places. The reason the phone may win, and it’s new.

  • Phone + Linux Tablet

    Don’t want iOS or Android anymore?

    Well, another option would be a Linux Tablet, and any phone. Only use the phone for messages and calling. Don’t send any sensitive messages on it, or anything political. Same with calls. You might want to use a phone with a hotspot, in case you need it for the tablet. I’d just keep my iPhone.

    Back the phone up, then reset it, then set it up new, disable Find My at some point in the process, and make sure location crap is disabled when setting it up new.

    Or you could get a hotspot, and use something like JMP.chat. Or plug a USB modem into the tablet if you can. Or a tablet with cellular connection.

    But I wouldn’t want a cellular connection on my tablet.

    ARM will have better battery life, but it looks like in the US at least, you’d have to buy an old used one. Intel might have as shitty or worse then my Steam Deck’s battery life. So I wouldn’t want Intel or AMD.

    There’s a cheap Chinese tablet on eBay for $210, with Intel, but I doubt the battery lasts long. 3-4 years ago, people have some complaints on Reddit about that brand. I won’t bother looking at my phone to see the brand name, they don’t deserve a mention by name. Two complaints were related to Windows, I’d put Linux on it, so I don’t care. But the shipping wasn’t very good. And one person said that their tablet after I forget how long, it failed to boot, even to the bios.

    So it’s way cheaper then a tablet with Linux on it for a reason, well an Intel one.

    There’s a PDA thing, that I’d buy, if it didn’t come from the UK. Was it ARM? Probably, but I forgot. Can’t remember much nowadays. There’s probably tariffs, and I refuse to give Trump and the other assholes money.

    So if you’re in the US, you may not find anything you actually want.

    I might buy the Teracube 2s. Nice, they are in the US. Does it ship from the US too? That’ll be the last thing I buy online most likely. Even though I will eventually need another filter for my water filter thing. Walmart has it, but I don’t like Walmart, rather not use their app, or go in their store.

    That isn’t the best option, but it doesn’t cost $1,000 either. /e/OS is based on Android. I’ll only use open source apps on it. I will flash it myself, so I save some money.

    I won’t buy a Pixel phone, not used or refurbished either. So no GrapheneOS for me.

    The Teracube doesn’t have 5G, but I don’t care. Will have to wait for a SIM card though, it doesn’t do eSIM like my iPhone. Maybe switch back to Tello. I’d buy the JMP eSIM adapter, but there will be tariffs, so I won’t. The 9esim adapter might work, but on Amazon, it’s hard to tell if it comes with the USB reader, you might need. And I trust JMP more anyways. Think I heard about their chat service a long time ago, may have gotten better.

    Removable battery is nice, another benefit to Teracube. The better option would be Fairphone, but not in the US. I won’t buy from a shady eBay seller. I looked at their other phones, and saw one, that said PIN locked. So they sell stolen phones? No thanks. That means all their shit, might be stolen from overseas.

    I’d only buy a used or refurbished phone, if it has a new battery. A new screen might be nice too, depending on how old it is.

    You can also leave the country, but other countries might fall too. And the shit that he’s doing doing, is affecting the world. Don’t forget, World War 3 is likely going to happen. France is getting ready to fight Russia.

    Other countries are trying to pass age verification laws as well. I know of the UK and Europe, don’t know who else. They claim it’s to protect children, read and understand the bill, or read a reliable source of news. I don’t want any spyware on my phone, and I don’t want to give my ID to some or all sites. Hackers will love you though, if you give your ID to some site.

    Well, good luck, the government is corrupt as fuck.

  • Going offline may be the safest option soon

    If the government weakens Section 230 and passes KOSA.

    KOSA may require you to upload your ID to sites. Or the government will develop age verification at the device or operating system level. And seeing as this government is corrupt as fuck, it won’t just be “age verification”.

    If the darkweb is no longer a thing, well all there will be on the internet is propaganda basically. I see no point in paying for that myself.

    Since most if not all my bills except rent, is internet related, I’ll save over $100 a month.

    Everybody in congress and the senate needs to be fired. Democrats included.

    Don’t you remember Craigslist Personals? I’m pretty sure it was the government who made them remove it, they passed some law or something. Yeah people abused it for prostitution. That doesn’t mean Craigslist endorsed it. They could have just got more moderators, or not just relying on people reporting stuff.

    Eventually, all that’ll be on TV is propaganda too.

    If things don’t get better, I guess I won’t be using tech online. If at all. Might want to get rid of the stuff while it’s still worth money, or sell to somebody who believes in propaganda, or doesn’t mind age verification spyware.

    What’s bullshit, is I won’t be able to do my online visits for my counseling anymore. Not that I should do it online if things don’t get better. Eh, eventually no health insurance anyways. Or money.

    Bluesky might be gone soon.

    Will age verification be required to use the internet or just some sites?

    Remember conservatives say “don’t tread on me”, so I’d think they’d be pissed.

    Intel CPUs might not be safe, with their IME. And neither is AMD. Perhaps if you use a network card that has a chipset newer then the computer, it won’t be able to access internet. Unless you updated the bios, like I did recently on my desktop. And laptop. Not the SFF PC though.

    Perhaps a Raspberry Pi 5 is safer nowadays.