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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

I have one and it is a pretty good and solid phone. Not quite a smartphone (it runs Linux) and I very much like it. Absolutely indestructible, cheap and unbelievable battery life (so long I sometimes forget I have to charge it at all).

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What model are you talking about? I'd like a portable Linux device. I was born too early for the N900, and it wouldn't get cellular coverage in this day and age even if I were to buy one...

N800 tough. They are pretty serious about the 'tough' bit, I'm fairly sure you could use it in hand-to-hand combat and at least the phone would survive.

Thanks, that looks like a pretty nice phone. Even has a microSD card slot and a 3.5mm jack. Also, I didn't know KaiOS was based on Linux. Is it exposed anywhere? Can you get a terminal on it or ssh into it?

Yes, you can, but I haven't actually used that. The camera is pretty crappy and there are some (minor) UI/UX issues, but overall it is very solid, it's essentially a repackaged 8110 with a focus on battery life and robustness.

It has dual SIM capability but if you use that you lose the SD slot.

There is also GerdaOS (instead of KaiOS) and you can run Debian on it. When I get my next phone (which could well be years, this one is now 4 years old and still going strong) I plan on running stock linux on it to see what else you can do with it. I paid about 80 euros for it.

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