[PLUG-TALK] Android phones that can have their OS replaced?

[John Jason Jordan]

On Thu, 15 Nov 2018 16:22:00 -0800 (PST)
Rich Shepard <rshepard at appl-ecosys.com> dijo:

>I'm looking for recommendations for basic android phones that work with the
>Verizon network and can have their Google-provided OS replaced with an
>open source one. Recommendations appreciated.

I have no answers to your query, but I am highly interested in
responses from others.

I have had my current Android phone (Note 3) for several years and I
have loved it. I especially love the stylus and note-taking feature.

In order to use it I had to install a Google account, which I had no
problem with at the time. I frequently found little requests that I log
in to this account, but I ignored them with no ill effect. Then,
starting about six months ago I started getting popup messages
insisting that I log in to my Google account. These popups appeared in
the middle of using other apps - highly annoying. Worse, some of them
were trying to get me to sign up for non-free, non-FOSS things. I
fiddled with things off and on and finally figured out how to delete
the Google account completely. 

The phone seemed to continue to work just fine as before, and no more
popups, but then I noticed that my Contacts list had disappeared. Of
course, they had all been saved to Google. I knew most of them anyway,
so I recreated my Contacts list, saving them to the SIM card instead.
But in the process I first tried to recover my Contacts from Google
without a Google account. I found several web sites with instructions
for how to do this, but they required installing an app. And guess
what? The Google Play store would no longer work. And after trying to
get it working it suddenly uninstalled itself. As a result I can no
longer install new apps or update currently installed apps. 

My phone is otherwise still working fine and I am in no rush to
reinstate Google on it, but I am keenly interested in any Android phone
that requires no Google account.