Please Don’t Buy This “Privacy-First” Phone

Confidentiality phones are not a new concept, even if they could be a bit gadgets and idiots. You have to make a lot of uncomfortable compromises to really go locked. Another of these confidentiality devices focused on confidentiality has just appeared, but you should probably not buy it.

A company called UNPLUGGE announced the UP phone, a “confidentiality phone” in accordance with other projects such as the Purism Libre 5, the Pinephone or any phone powered by Galpheneos. The phone runs on apluggedos, a version of Android that eliminates Google’s services and adds features such as an integrated firewall, a “log” VPN and a physical death switch that the company indicates “physically deactivate the circuits” to completely reduce power. The phone itself is apparently a revival of an old project, and the specifications include a Mediatek Dimensity 1200 chipset of four years, an OLED, 8 GB screen of RAM and a main camera of 108 megapixels – The specifications are apparently unchanged from the previous model.

I have a plot concerns about this phone. Mainly, the fact that he had the specifications of a mid -range phone in 2021-2022, but that he is sold at incredibly high prices, costing $ 989 – a price that also includes a one -year subscription following Unplugged confidentiality, but it’s probably too expensive. This subscription will also cost $ 130 a year, by the way. For the context, the Mediatek Dimensity 1200 is used in phones like the Nord 2 OnePlus, which has not been sold in the United States, but you can probably find it between $ 150 and used $ 250. Yikes.

Then we have to approach people behind this phone. Aplugged was co -founded by Erik Prince, which founded the private military company Blackwater in 1997 and received countless government security contracts when he was his CEO. The recent “companies” in which it has been involved include a crowdfunding campaign which has collected more than a million dollars to “liberate” Venezuela (which has never done anything with this money later), as well as a “partnership” with the government of the equator to “help to fight gangs” (which was considered by some as a case of political marketing). Aplugged is at least semi-conscient of prince’s reputation, because his website does not mention it anywhere, but he always promotes the phone on his podcast and in the appearances with the media.

As for this specific project, the Graphène Privacy Project has labeled the aircraft a “clear scam”, arguing that it is considerably late on safety fixes, lack of basic security features and is “much worse than the use of an iPhone”.

This phone will probably not be an outright scam – the equipment is old, but exists definitively and should be easily wrapped in a new phone. However, even if it is a legitimate product, this phone is far Too expensive for what you get. And frankly, you should probably not support this company or its co-founder anyway. If you really want a confidentiality phone first, buy a pixel and install graphenes on it. This is probably the least shady approach, although you are always aware of obvious gaps, such as the fact that you will not have Google services.

Source: the rod