I was going through Pine64’s page again after I found the latest KDE announcement. With that said, I seem to see a lot of issues with firmware on the Pine, whilst the Librem is just plain out of budget for me. Was interested in how many people here run a Linux mobile as a daily driver, and how has your experience been?
I’m considering purchasing the Pine but I’d like a better screen, more RAM and a better CPU. Don’t know if I should wait for a new model to be released (are they even planning to do that? Is the company active?). I will only really use it to browse the Web, and might even look to desolder a couple of parts that I know I won’t use.
Thanks.
Edit: I am willing to watch content and use banking apps from the browser. Do you think it’ll be fit for me?
Edit 2: overall, I am much saddened about the state of affairs regarding private computing on the go. I desperately hope that Linux on mobile takes off, even though its incubation looks disheartening at the moment. Thank you everyone for your comments.
Disclaimer: I’m an android user and would love to switch to a Linux phone.
Problem with android is updates being locked by carriers or Google themselves. To get updates after 2-3 years you basically have to buy a phone that has unlockable bootloader and supports LineageOS, AND you have to have the technical skills to Install and set up LineageOS, I do, but no one else I know does, they just happily buy a new phone because app X,Y,Z stopped working on their old phone, which is perfectly usable. And if you have a phone where bootloader is locked (I’m looking at you, Verizon, EVERY PHONE THEY SELL THEY LOCK), oops there’s an expensive paperweight, can never be running anything other than Android 8 or whatever it came with.
Show me a linux phone that isn’t an expensive paperweight after 2 years.
My problem is the lack of availability of custom ROMs on new devices like the newest OnePlus and ASUS. Not the fault of the maintainers but it is what it is. I don’t want to be locked to Pixel hardware because come what may I will never trust Google on a single thing