I'll stay with my Librem 5, which is also totally usable, runs actual Debian, runs Waydroid too, and does not bring me Halium pain.
I'll stay with my Librem 5, which is also totally usable, runs actual Debian, runs Waydroid too, and does not bring me Halium pain.
No videos? Fine, I rarely take videos.
No bluetooth? Mildly annoying, but especially with the 3.5mm jack, I could live without it.
No GPS? This one would be a deal-breaker for me.
But depending on the person I can see it being usable.
For most people, it can be difficult to predict future scenarios for Bluetooth that's unrelated to wireless earphones. I always use wired earphones and didn't think I ever needed Bluetooth and always had it disabled. However, I was later forced to use it to configure new devices. E.g.:
- internet router (Eero) from ISP has no buttons or a status display so required Bluetooth on smartphone to configure it
- battery backup power station (Delta Ecoflow) require Bluetooth to configure them
The common theme is for device manufacturers to avoid adding elaborate LCD displays or touchscreen interfaces to the actual device and instead -- offload the configuration UI to the customers' smartphones... which necessitates pairing via Bluetooth.
And an app that eventually gets delisted or whatever and your interfaceless device gets turned into a pumpkin...
Last week for the first time I've used WebUSB to configure flight controller for my drone/wing. Felt like magic.
In fact all things from that chart are there and have been there for years now, including 20h battery life and encrypted SIP calls.
My L5 gets nowhere near that listening to MP3s on road trips.
There was also another issue that may have caused interrupt storms when kill switches were set to off, but that has been already fixed recently.
There are some small power consumption improvements coming in kernel updates soon too, though these shouldn't make a drastic difference, just an extra hour or so.
I'm glad I own the phone for the same reason that I regret not holding on to my G1 (the first android phone): Its a neat piece of history. But alas, it will never see use as an actual phone.
The question is whether you're able to live without Android & iOS, perhaps with some limited help from Waydroid. If the answer is yes, as it is for me, then it's a great daily driver.
I use it because it's familiar, hackable and respectful to my attention. It works the way I want it to work and it's capable enough to fulfill all my needs. Switching to Android would be a downgrade on all these aspects. I'm aware that it would be an upgrade in some other aspects that I care about less.