hello friends! new(ish)!
Portables
Smartphones
Personal tracking devices.
Android
A Java VM (Dalvkit) running on top of the Linux kernel, comes with Google if you don't set it free. Needs some debloating but still the best bang for buck. See Android ricing for unlocking and tweaking. /g/ seems to favor a couple in particular.
- Google Nexus Popular flagship line that comes with OTA updates as soon as they are released. Mid range phone starting at $350
- Samsung Galaxy S/Note series Samsung's flagship series. They are expensive, for at least $700 in the US and up to $1000 US dollars in other countries, but they are also very powerful. Stock ROM is extremely bloated (in some cases it's literally heavier than Windows 8!) but most of that bloat can be removed by flashing a custom ROM like CyanogenMod or Replicant. Easily riceable, gets a lot of hacks and homebrew software.
- Motorola Moto G Popular starter android that goes for cheap. gets OTA updates very quickly.
iPhone
Jailbreak the Unix-based iOS with evasi0n.
Jolla
Jolla is the recent phone running Sailfish OS, a partially (the underlying is opensource, the UI is partially proprietary) open source operating system based on Meego and build on Qt, developed by fired Finns after Microsoft jewed Nokia to death. Meego in turn was based on Maemo, the Debian-based N900 OS. Capable of having Android apps installed. Sailfish OS. Sailfish OS can be installed on Android devices, N9 and the N950.
A startup is working on resurrecting the legendary N900 into the FLOSS Neo900, so fund it!
Firefox
Fully open source OS made by Mozilla, and based on Firefox/Gecko (the rendering engine). It uses the same kernel used by Android.
There are some phones running it, officially:
Windows Phone
Mostly Lumia by Nokia. The App Store doesn't contain as much software as Android and iOS.
Tizen
Soon to come Meego fork by Intel on Samsung phones.
Ubuntu Touch
Opensource operative system developer by Canonical, created to have the same look&feel as Unity on the desktop. While it used to share the kernel/graphical stack with Android, now it uses it's own stack, sporting Mir as the graphical system (instead of SurfaceFlinger). They want to unify the desktop and phone.
It currently runs, albeit buggy/glitchy, on some Android phones/tablets, like the Galaxy Nexus, the Nexus 4, the Nexus 7 and the Nexus 10.
Ubuntu Touch is famous for being the operative system of the Ubuntu Edge, the phone for which Canonical had an indiegogo campaign. While the campaign failed, Ubuntu Touch is still actively developed.
Tablets
Nvidia
Tegra Note is basically a highly powerful tablet. Everything else about it is poorfaggotry however.
Nexus 7 has stock KitKat android, a great screen and is sleek and fast. Also comes with goodies like OTA updates. Beware if you care about software freedom because the Nexus 7 is tied to Google (obviously.)
Windows
Windows RT Tablets: Avoid at all costs! Just showing you the models so you know what to avoid.
- Surface 2
- Nokia Lumia 2520
Windows 8 Atom Tablets: Get a tablet that runs Full Windows 8 32bit with great battery life (7+ hours).
- Lenovo Miix 8
- Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 8
- ASUS TF100
- ASUS VivoTab Note 8
- Dell Venue 11 Pro
Windows 8 Pro Tablets: Get a tablet with laptop hardware specifications. Fast, a bit hot and 4+ hours battery life.
- Surface Pro 2