The new Blackberry DTEK60 is based on Android but supposedly hardened and has much longer term security updates. You can still use the Play store. I know, Blackberry? But seriously, it's not a bad looking phone and has good hardware specs.

All the same, I'm in the same boat as you. Thinking about switching to land-line and buying a separate camera and GPS navigation device. Hello 1990's! Idk. Not liking my options.

The DTEK60 sounds interesting. If Blackberry can get this to market for a realistic price (300-400 is okay, 700 is not) I will probably get one of those.

Previous answers to the same question:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12957435

Android is what you configure it to be. Sure, there are some switches to flip if you want to be google-free. But you can replace pretty much every privacy-impacting function on the phone.

When it's pwned at firmware [1] and/or hardware level, all those actions are in vain.

[1] http://www.kryptowire.com/adups_security_analysis.html

I find this project interesting: https://neo900.org/ Everything will be open-source, apart from the modem. But they do disconnect the modem from any direct input like audio. Have a look at this presentation: https://neo900.org/stuff/cccamp15/ccc2015talk/talk.pdf

Android is also what you pay for. If you buy a $99 phone from China, don't be surprised if there is Chinese government spy code in the firmware.

For the record, companies like Apple and Xiaomi provide methods to verify the integrity of your phones software if you bought it in China. But then we are not talking about $99 phones anymore.