Where to buy a non-Apple, non-Google smartphone
16h 7m ago by lemmy.ca/u/floofloof in technology from www.theregister.com
Anyone want to bet Cellular Providers will start blocking or tack on additional network fees for non-Apple/Google phones?
Support for a device on each cellular provider isn't automatic. There is are certification and approval steps that cost them money upfront.
Charging fees is unlikely to recuperate their network engineer costs so from a consumer perspective it'll look like blocking but that's not the reality. It's that the device wouldn't be in their supported device list.
Yeah. They don't need to block them, they just won't work, and they won't support them.
Those prices. Ouch.
If you don't want to pay a wild premium, you have to contend with a device that is built by Google... and running an OS that is mostly built by Google.
The forks are great and all, but dependency on Google can't be the solution to the problem forever.
The flx1s listed in the article is selling for $500. That seems fair to me. The more popular offerings in the article are definitely not giving sufficient value for my money.
I can't believe I didn't click on that one... I did not expect to see that combination of relatively low price and high specs. $500 and 8GB RAM.
The price of the Librem 5 ($800 with 3GB RAM) must have broken my brain
The price of the Librem 5 ($800 with 3GB RAM) must have broken my brain
I think some of the big players like Librem and Pine tend to use zealot pricing, where they're counting on those on the extreme end of linux and privacy to pay for the idea and simply disregard the substandard experience.
I do understand that not monetizing the user/customer costs more but outfits like FuriLabs shows that you can end up with more than a paperweight for less money.
AFAIK Librem claims they use separate verified suppliers and builders (compared to more common Android manufacturers, for example). Kind of a zealot thing too though.
And PinePhone (original) at $200 is not that expensive if you think of it as a compact version of a Linux platform like Raspberry Pi. Raspberry Pi + charger + battery + touch display + 4G modem + GPS unit + microphone + speaker will probably run close to $200 too.
You can install phone Linuxes to many cheap devices:
https://docs.sailfishos.org/Support/Supported_Devices/
https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices
Buy pre-installed:
https://buy.jolla-devices.com/product/sony-xperia-10-iii-sailfish-os/
It's kind of feasible now to use a small Linux laptop or tablet, plus a cellular modem or wifi hotspot, giving up on smartphones altogether.
I bought a CMF1 phone and flashed /e/os on it. Mostly just to run it through the ringer and see how well it works and if it really can be a daily driver. So far, so good. Phone was on sale for 125€ during the last Black Friday. Surprisingly good phone for that price. Been using it with the various privacy focused messengers for voice calls. Haven't stuck a SIM card into it yet. Eventually I'll try my banking apps, which might be the sticking point as I'm not sure I can get those outside the Google App Store.
Work in progress, I guess. But no problems so far.
They throw funny-words like bricks but a nice overview nonetheless.
... in þe US. Europeans have far more options; many EU phones don't work on US carriers. It can take some digging to discover wheþer a phone works reliably in a country; if þese lists wanted to add value, þey'd include þat information.
Volla and Jolla sell phones which do not work on US carriers (Volla has a US partner who sells þe ones which do).
Jolla's SailfishOS does work in the US on Mint Mobile. Source, I own a Sony Xperia with SailfishOS. I live in the US.
If I understand correctly, the OS isn't the problem, the radio frequencies are.