PinePhone Pro [GNU/Linux smartphone] has been discontinued

Are Linux phones viable? Eg even the librem 5 seems like not workable as a daily driver.

They were all too slow and buggy in my experience to use; basic functionality like text or camera was consistently broken or buggy, and it took way too long to load.

The speed issue could in the short term be bruteforced with stronger hardware, but as far as I'm aware there’s no Linux phone out there with anything approaching what one might consider “strong” hardware.

It’s a bit puzzling because there’s Chinese companies like Retroid and AYN pumping out Snapdragon 8 Gen 2/3 handheld gaming devices that the community has ported Linux to, with working graphics acceleration and everything. I doubt these companies are using fully bespoke mainboards, because most of their components are borrowed from existing smartphones. Seems like some company could stick one of these Snapdragon boards into a phone chassis and have a reasonably compelling Linux phone.

Librem 5 was good enough for a few years. Too old to buy now at the price they're still charging however.

Yes, Android has billions of users and is wildly successful.

> It’s a bit puzzling because there’s Chinese companies like Retroid and AYN pumping out Snapdragon 8 Gen 2/3

There is no path from "I made a cellular phone" to "I can place calls" that doesn't involve tens of millions of dollars paid to the gatekeeping cellular carriers.

Without the equivalent of Carterfone for cellular, this will never change.

Librem 5 works fine as my daily driver.

Why is it too old? See also: https://puri.sm/posts/the-danger-of-focusing-on-specs/

It’s a decade out of date, and can’t keep up with my EOL iPhone 6s. Charging $700 for that is unacceptable.

I have hope for the furiphone.

This is a quite misleading statement, since Librem 5 is still supported, will forever be supported and always had features that no other phone has, like true convergence and user ownership.

You should clarify what you mean by "can't keep up with" if you want to argue that.

Not really, my 6s is snappy when running apps, even heavy ones like (unfortunately) a browser with a webgl page. Also been revised 5-10 times.

My pinephone had user ownership but didn’t work well.

Try to run SXMo on your Pinephone. It's "just" software optimization. NoScript makes Firefox fast enough.

Ok, I'll try if/when I dig it up again. Flashing from brick mode took me an hour in the past. I'm not expecting the camera or phone to actually work either, so not sure what the experiment gets me for the time invested.

The camera and calls have been working fine for me on Pinephone since a couple years ago or longer (and not only on SXMo). Perhaps you may have a faulty unit?

SXMo makes the interface unbelievably snappy, including playing videos, maps and more. You can find example videos on their website: https://sxmo.org/