Kind reminder, you should cover your selfie camera or use LineageOS!
Since 2021, the industry collectively decided that a front-facing camera constantly staring at you was - “normal” 🤦
The Last Guardians:
Looking back, since 2021, the industry gave us the last two devices that didn’t just rely on software toggles, but offered physical reassurance.
The Asus Zenfone 8 Flip: By putting the camera on a flip module, the screen was unblemished, and the camera was physically tucked away when not in use. Coupled with a RhinoShield privacy case that featured a sliding cover for the back camera, you had a device that was effectively blind to the outside world until you decided otherwise. It ran a near-Stock Android interface, minimizing the telemetry bloat out of the box. I’ve used this phone as my daily driver since 2021 until now.
The Lenovo Legion Pro: While marketed as a gaming phone, it featured a side-mounted pop-up camera (completely hidden by default compared to the Zenfone 8 Flip). Adding to that, its aggressive resource management - designed to prioritize gaming - had the side effect of ruthlessly killing background trackers and telemetry services. This was my second phone, that I kept exclusively for gaming, as many of them were a privacy nightmare that I didn’t want on my main phone while playing with my friends.
The Shift:
So, how did we get here? Why did manufacturers sacrifice mechanical parts like pop-up cameras? The “notch” and the “hole-punch” won, normalizing the idea that a camera should always be pointed at your face. Well, I don’t like it.
If you can’t physically hide the camera, you have to surgically remove the software that watches through it. The battlefield has moved entirely to software.
This is why my latest recommendation is the OnePlus 13 running LineageOS.
We can no longer rely on a pop-ups, mechanical motors or cases to protect us. We have to rely on an open-source Operating Systems that we can audit. LineageOS allows us to strip away the “always-watching” Google and manufacturer services.
The OnePlus 13 is currently the most powerful hardware that still allows this level of freedom.
It stands alone as the only LineageOS device offering a massive 24GB of RAM, ensuring that no matter how heavy the task or local AI model, the phone never flinches. It backs that up with a big battery that actually survives a power user’s day. It restores our ability to interact with the physical world through the IR blaster, and unlike modern “nanny” software, it allows automatic call recording right out of the box.
But more importantly, these aren’t just specs - they are privacy tools. That massive RAM allows us to run services locally, keeping our queries off the cloud. The raw power ensures we can encrypt, filter, and block trackers in real-time without slowing down. We may have lost the mechanical cameras of 2021, but with this hardware and LineageOS, we gain something arguably more important: a device where your data never leaves your hands.