Nice! I've been waiting for something like the FairPhone to show up in the US.
A sweet bonus would be if they also provided and fully supported de-googled image or at least had an option to download the de-googled image after accepting some disclaimers. Or perhaps even set up a public community for phone hackers to help them build said image i.e. crowdsource the work.
An optional large shell for a bigger battery would be a nice upgrade too. My current phone has a 10,000mAh battery and lasts a very long time after disabling background networking on most apps.
Why do none of the good phone options get sold in the US??!? E.g. Sony has one of the few modern smartphones in a reasonable size (xperia 10II (might be the dumbest name though)), and way too few of the bands work in the American market.
As someone who works in e-commerce related to phones, I think a big part of the answer is that the US is not a big market when it comes to selling phones without a contract.
In the EU it's common practice to buy without a contract, whereas this is very rare in the US.
In other words, carriers have way more power in the US.
> I think a big part of the answer is that the US is not a big market when it comes to selling phones without a contract.
If that was true, then Wal-Mart wouldn't bother carrying every pre-paid SIM under the sun in the same section of the store that sells shitbox Motorolas, nor would Amazon bother carrying the same exact Motorola shitboxen - all unlocked, mind you.
I can and will complain when the "abundance of choice" here is overwhelmingly geared toward ad delivery rather than actual long-term ownership and usefulness.
We have decent variety in the US, but I think it's fair to want phones for specific purposes that aren't generally served here. The more repairable phones are hard to come by, and as someone who likes trying alternative OSes the phones that seem best served by e.g. Ubuntu Touch (Volla Phone and Fairphone) aren't available.
There are plenty devices that work well with UT and are available in the US, e.g Google Pixel 3a/3a XL. Mentioned devices still have an Android Kernel and many limitations. Waydroid on the Volla phone isn't stable, Ubports itself mediocre compared to SailfishOS and suffers from competing for developer time over other Linux on Mobile OSses.
You're overestimating the Volla phone and Fairphone, 1st one still doesn't support VoLTE which I heard is essential in the US, 2nd thing isn't even recommended by UT.[1]
Either go with an Xperia + SailfishOS [2] if you want more than a toy or Pinephone + PmOs [3] if you love to tinker on your daily driver. Both have VoLTE support.
> FP2 is the second device on the "promoted" devices page. That feels like a recommendation?
The FP2 is a very old device lacking some features and probably got recommendation back then because other devices were worse. https://devices.ubuntu-touch.io/device/fp2
Otherwise I'd also could have recommended the Nexus5.
On FOSDEM 2023 Ubports developers didn't show off this old phone, either.
Plenty of models that can work with all frequencies, so I am not sure if that's enough of a justification.
Anyway, your point reminds me that the my "dream smartphone" would be one with no cellular connectivity at all. I'm still waiting for some company to start producing a keychain-sized 4G (or 5G) hotspot with an eSIM, which (I hope) would lead to more people asking for the return of the iPod Touch and for something equivalent in the Android/Mobile Linux/Windows world.
> Anyway, your point reminds me that the my "dream smartphone" would be one with no cellular connectivity at all.
You mean a PDA (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_digital_assistant)? Modern smartphones are basically a PDA with cellular connectivity (this is more obvious with early smartphones like the Treo 650), so if you take out the cellular connectivity, what you have is once again a PDA.
Personally what I want is a dumb flip phone which can act as a 4/5G hotspot for my 7" tablet.
When I'm on the internet, browing maps, reading books, I find a phone screen too small. But I don't want a massive phone.
A dumb flip phone that lasts a week on a charge so that I can camp with it, combined with a 7" tablet that I can throw in my bag, for when I want to read, but doesn't need cellular connectivity so that it lasts without spying on me.
I don't think this distinction makes any sense nowadays. A "smartphone without cellular connectivity" is a lot more than a "Personal Digital Assistant". Could a Palm Pilot stream music? Did it have an app store? GPS? Microphone? Could it make VoIP calls? Could it connect with an external modem so that it could work as a softphone?
If I had to plug a surf stick every time on the device to use it as a phone or to connect to the internet via 4G, then of course I'd rather have it integrated with the device already. Wireless connection is not a nice-to-have, it is the key feature.
Eh, getting the device out of my pocket, turning it on, activating the wireless connection, remembering to charge it every day vs. just plug it in. And on top of that my phone can already give me a hot spot (with bad battery life). Not quite sure I see any big advantage.
>turning it on, activating the wireless connection.
Can be managed by bluetooth LE.
> remembering to charge it every day
People do it for their smartwatches. Also, making it in a key fob format would lend itself naturally to some nice key holder accessory where you can charge it (wirelessly, even?) or it can have a spring-loaded usb port to charge in your car.
Non-US corporations, of any size, have no duties towards US residents whatsoever. It's entirely their choice whether or not to enter foreign markets. Americans are not default humans, and they do not decide what products other nations' companies offer them.
Not a duty to the people buying, a duty to the owners of the company. To make a profit out of easy opportunities. Or justify not doing it, to the owners.
And the duty to owners is what you said yourself in your other comment, so I'm not sure why you seem to not understand what I'm saying.
You are making the exact blinkered US-centric assumptions I'm poking fun at. US companies may be duty bound to put increasing owner value above other considerations, but fortunately out here in most of the world, your law does not apply to us, and our laws are not modelled on yours.
I can assure you, for example, that in many nations companies can legally have many reasons for choosing not to export a product to a specific country that don't make any reference to profit. Again: all you know is your laws. Your laws are not our laws. It's a big world out here, not encompassed by the mores of the nation you just happen to come from.
> Plenty of models that can work with all frequencies, so I am not sure if that's enough of a justification.
Only some chipsets work with all frequencies and when 90% of the population of the planet all use the same settings why spend the cost to cover the other 10% which would double your chipset costs but would unlikely increase sales.
Americans bully each other over the colour of their chat bubbles because apparently not buying iPhone makes you appear poor. There are lots of justifications to avoid increasing costs to try selling to the Americans.
Hum, maybe I meant the size of a key fob? It could be a bit thicker, I'd guess it would hold something like ~2000mAh. For just the radio, and for something that would be used only while on the go (otherwise you can use your home/your job connection), why couldn't that work as long as a feature phone, which could go for a week in a single charge?
In my experience with hotspots on the go, it's having to maintain the WiFi AP that kills their battery fast. Maybe there's a better protocol to run between the hotspot and other devices, although you'd need one that would also allow for 5G speeds.
- WiFi AP in super reduced Rx/Tx power mode when not charging. The only requirement here is that signal is strong within a 3ft radius from the hotspot, and acceptable on a 6ft radius. It really shouldn't need more than that.
- WiFi AP in normal mode when charging.
- WiFi AP completely shut-off when the paired device reports that they have access to any other trusted wifi network.
My idea here is that for me at least, mobile data is truly a connection of last resort. Almost anywhere I go there is WiFi available. And the places where there isn't, perhaps I simply don't need an always-on fast connection?
I feel like I recall reading that getting some certification here is more annoying than it should be, which means some devices are just straight up not brought here - curious if anyone knows if this is true or not.
Does it? I thought Americans were still using alternative frequencies to everyone else.
[Edit]
It appears that the US doesn't overlap with the majority of the world for most of the ranges, except for one band at the top which overlaps with Japan/Korea.
At this point frequency compatibility is purely a firmware setting, no? It seems like every 5G (and even 4G) phone these days supports every frequency on a chipset level and just enables/disables some of them depending on the intended region.
Honestly it would be a huge selling point for this device if it had excellent custom ROM support on top of the repairability. There are phones from 2015 still being supported today by Lineage.
Lineage: My S5 (klte, 2014)[0] still works and is still getting updated last I checked.
I did buy a newer phone a few months ago, but I'm keeping the S5 around as a spare. In fact my previous S2 is still working as well, but I don't think it receives updates (also it has no battery right now - luckily it can operate with just power plugged in).
I still have my original LG V20 and I bought the international/dual-sim version to be my main. It's like the Thinkpad of smartphones. Along with my T480, it's on the best gadgets I've owned.
They aren't responsive to Americans. I used a reshipper and they wouldn't forward loose batteries, FP was unresponsive and we had to throw away batteries because they couldn't be returned or forwarded. Shame....
Otherwise FP works fine with Google Fi and T-Mobile in the US. Maybe not the best coverage but worth it to be able to swap parts easily.
I think they would be perfect. I was hoping they had a rom for my phone but I could only find one supporting a really old version. If they partnered with Nokia to build supported images for their phones that would be incredible.
I have an old Nokia smartphone. I barely use it as a phone; really it's just for 2FA, when the provider insists on SMS for 2FA.
An inexpensive Android device which is hackable and exposes GPIO pins would make an interesting robotics platform. If this device supports replaceable CPU, then perhaps it also exposes GPIO.
I ran a Samsung S5 (?) like this many, many years ago and it was pretty cool but holy crap it was a beast. My jeans pockets started to stretch out from carrying it, and it was impossible to keep it in a jacket pocket at all.
I did similar with a galaxy S4 (third party battery w/special back case to accommodate the larger size). Worked nice but eventually the battery bulged.
The tradeoff with replaceable batteries is if when you swap the phone loses track of time until finding a cell tower. Fine if in range but a risk when hiking far away, and might also propagate the wrong time to your smartwatch.
That's quite a line-up they have! I have a Elephone S3 pro, two day battery is really great when traveling, no worries. I'll strongly consider an Ulephone next..
A sweet bonus would be if they also provided and fully supported de-googled image or at least had an option to download the de-googled image after accepting some disclaimers. Or perhaps even set up a public community for phone hackers to help them build said image i.e. crowdsource the work.
An optional large shell for a bigger battery would be a nice upgrade too. My current phone has a 10,000mAh battery and lasts a very long time after disabling background networking on most apps.