Hello. My wife and I are looking for secure, private, simple, functional phone/laptop for the basics+: web, email, video streaming, messaging, photos, et al. I write, using Obsidian and Ghostwriter. I’ll connect to an e-ink monitor/keyboard/mouse, she’ll most likely just use the phone. My questions:
Obsidian and Ghostwriter available on PureOS? If not, similar plain text apps?
Not proficient at Terminal, but do fine in Pop!OS after decades with Apple. PureOS seems similar. Thoughts?
Will my use scenario push the 4MB Ram (or 3 with the librem-5) too hard?
Experience with longevity of phone as daily driver?
Recommended case, or does it not need protection?
Does porting existing phone # to AweSIM lessen privacy?
PureOS and Pop!OS are both in the Debian family, so there will definitely be some similarities. However I have never run Pop!OS so can’t comment more specifically.
I guess so. For sure, it establishes a trail from your old phone to your new phone.
It could be a fairly severe trade-off though, depending on what percentage of your contacts are unwanted and what percentage are wanted.
If you mostly get spammed by businesses that you one time did something with then a new phone number could be a good thing. If you mostly communicate with a mass of friends then it’s going to be painful to change phone number.
If you are using a phone number for two-factor authentication then it could be quite painful to change phone number. For this reason I try to avoid 2FA via phone number and, wherever possible, only accept 2FA via either email address or TOTP (time-based 6 digit code).
I don’t think anyone else can really judge this one for you.
Changing phone number makes your mum slightly more vulnerable to the “Hi Mum” scam.
I think that’s a “no” right now.
I would recommend a case. There are a range of topics about a case in this forum. I think it would be great if Purism could offer a case as an optional accessory with initial purchase, just for those who are time poor.
Bear in mind that the source of videos may itself be a privacy compromise. For example, watching videos on YouTube is not great for privacy. On the other hand, if you are your own source then that privacy problem goes away.
Should work. GNOMEs text editor is preinstalled, it may also does the job you want.
Pop!OS looks a bit different (Phosh delivered by default), but Terminal should be similar. Should not be an issue for you.
3GB (not MB ) are enough to do all the basic stuff you mentioned. The OS takes 1-1.5GB and RAM can also be compressed. Personally I never run out of RAM, but you also cannot open endless amount of things.
It is one of the strongest points, even better than Fairphone. First devices came 2019 on market and it is very likely that they still can be used 15 years later in 2034. The quality of hardware is great, parts are replaceable by your own with a single common screwdriver. Just the black color of the case splinters off a bit (I only notice it when looking close to corners where I may hit something).
Depends on your personal preferences. Some people dropped the phone without breakages, others had broken screens. The metal case is also a good base protection itself, but cannot protect against everything.
About your last question: Batteries uptime. You have to babysit it a bit, because you are carrying a full featured computer in pocket size around and so it is not as optimized as Android or iOS in terms of energy consumption. Without using it the battery is running out of juice in 20h. That is probably the biggest downside.
And depending on your use case it may or may not be something bad: Android apps with Google services obvious do not run. Others may or may not run with Waydroid, but I have no experience with (don’t want to use those myself).
On the upside you can run most software that is available for Debian (and therefor Pop!OS). Just keep in mind that you are running an ARM64 processor, not AMD or Intel and that apps also need to fit into phone screen to be used comfortable.
) are enough to do all the basic stuff you mentioned. The OS takes 1-1.5GB and RAM can also be compressed. Personally I never run out of RAM, but you also cannot open endless amount of things.