The modular Fairphone4 is coming to the USA with /e/OS degoogled Android. Since it is about one-quarter the cost of the new Librem phone, there might be interest among Purism users.
Strange that they can go to 5G, but are stuck on WiFi 5. Also, they do not have a headphone jack. Part of the reason why the Librem phone is expensive is that we are supporting software development. Unlike prior smartphone OSs that failed in the past, Purism is contributing their work upstream, so everyone benefits.
As a software developer, I prefer running a regular OS. So de-Googled is nice, but I still want my standard Linux distribution. It seems like you have to create a free account. Ideally, I should not have to create an account on anyone’s server to use my phone.
You don’t need an /e/ account to run /e/ on any supported phone. They do offer /e/-drive, if you’d like to use backup to their servers, but it’s totally optional. And free of charge, up to a certain storage limit.
I haven’t tried to buy a phone directly from Murena, so I’m unsure if you have to create an account to purchase or not, but if so, I think that would be used strictly for the purchase.
It is propietary modular desing but also convencional propietary desing overall.
Yes more cheaper than L5 because NORMAL peoples already payed the android develop & device vendor for you with theys data and you have the luxury of saying here that it is cheaper than L5-PureOS
Yes, I installed postmarketOS on it. Installation is easy with the UBports installer. I loved the feeling of freedom versus the exploitative, locked-down nature of android (“de-googled” or otherwise), but the experience is still rough, so I switched back to CalyxOS until my Librem 5 arrives so I can use that. With postmarketOS on Fairphone4, audio doesn’t work at all. Battery status doesn’t work at all, so I could never tell how much charge I had remaining, and the phone would randomly run out of charge and die while I was using it.
Even with an android flavor installed, things work well from a functional standpoint, but controlling the phone is difficult. There are no kill switches. Even with a vpn, it seems like there are constant leaks, with IPv6, DNS, or system apps. Verifying that a process or app has actually stopped is difficult. Preventing apps from starting on boot is difficult. I do not know how to prevent internet connectivity on boot. I cannot compile my own code or install apps from source. Basically, I hate using any flavor of android on the Fairphone 4, but I am using it as a stopgap until I receive my Librem 5 or until postmarketOS becomes more usable on the Fairphone 4.