It will just be someone else’s hardware with some custom software and a new badge
My approval/disapproval totally depends on how NitroKey decides to make a Linux phone. If it has a MediaTek SoC that will never get mainline Linux support, then it will have the same problems as the Volla Phone. If it uses a Snapdragon, then it has some hope of eventually getting mainline Linux support in a couple years like the F(x)tec/XDA Pro1-X, but hopefully its cheaper, so more people can afford it. If it is going to use a Linux kernel and Linux drivers (like the PinePhone and Librem 5), then I’ll stand up and applaud, and tell everyone to buy it.
I predict that NitroKey is going to announce a rebadged Qualcomm or MediaTek phone. However, another possibility is that NitroKey has worked out an agreement with PINE64 to rebadge the PinePhone.
As for the OS, I predict that it will either be Sailfish OS or Ubuntu Touch. I lean toward Ubuntu Touch because it has the best security of the mobile Linux OSes, and NitroKey is focused primarily on security, but UT has poor maintenance and there is no company to provide support for the OS, so Sailfish OS might win on those grounds. Both Ubuntu Touch and Sailfish OS support running on top of Linux kernel/drivers and Android kernel/drivers (through libyhybris).
Where does it say it’s actually about a phone that will be announced? For all we know it will be the name of an innovative and dedicated authenticator product aimed to be used for phones.
I’d love to see a new Linuxphone to hit the market, it’s just that I don’t see any statement of it and people are suggesting Nitro to be announcing a phone, thus adding to the hype.
All I have seen is this toot but it is from Nitrokey themselves, if you look at comments below they also write “No exact timeline yet. Stay tuned” and “Details tba soon. Stay tuned.”
So they are only teasing, seems like there is no real info yet.
I was very happy to see your post including the toot so thank you for that. It’s the people replying to it that take it or want to believe Nitrophone will be a phone. I wish it will be a phone
As a minor observation, if it will be a Linuxphone a toot in #linuxphone would be a more obvious choice in order to gain momentum by potential buyers rather than #opensource I guess.
It is now in the shop:
https://shop.nitrokey.com/shop/product/nitrophone-1-199
From their page:
It is based on the high-quality Pixel 4a and GrapheneOS
Ah, so they went with an Android variant. 
I was hoping for another GNU+Linux phone.
100% Open Source
Open source allows verifying absence of backdoors.
There is no way it can be fully FLOSS with a Google phone.
Indeed, but one hasn’t been able to prove itself yet. It’ll be a while before this bandwagon actually starts rolling.
Not interesting, because
- “Schutz vor Spyware und Zero-Day-Exploits” - marketing phrase. How could anybody promise to protect anything from a zero-day?
- Buying google hardware puts even more money into the google surveillance capitalism ecosystem
It is ironic (and maybe worrisome?) that pixel phones seem to be the ones that are easiest to install custom ROMs on.
Promise? Probably not. However there are technologies to protect against zero-days i.e. protections against bugs where the bugs were not known about at the time that the protection technology was put in place.
What the hell is wrong with our world that makes companies try to sell the idea of “de-googling” one’s phone via purchasing a Google Pixel device…
This is a total yawn fest.
Glad the Librem 5 is a thing.
There is a modicum of sense in de-googling a google device as you can’t degoogle a linux device 
Pixel devices are the only ones that are supported by grapheneOS, I suppose they choose the OS, and then the device that came along with it.
If someone installs lineageos on the librem5 is it then a de-linuxed device?