The comments here are awful. What happened to “Hacker” news?
This is a Linux phone that actually works, running Debian. It has a battery that competes with the runtime of any modern phone. It has a snappy UI and can reliably make calls. Already it’s the best Linux phone in the world, just on that basis.
They’re selling it for the same price as the outgoing model despite tons of bullshit tariffs being levied against them. What an achievement!
I want a Linux phone that works, and I want to support a world where Linux phones exist and are financially viable to make, therefore I will buy this as my next phone.
My biggest question is if they use Halium/libhybrys at all, something that is hard to figure out from the marketing but their GitHub repos does have hybris-related stuff. That makes it a non-Linux device to me. Hybris breaks a lot of linux stuff that should just work like flatpak, something I found out incredibly quickly when using SailfishOS.
I don't think depending on Android drivers and having to run a small android just to access said hardware makes it a "linux phone". Especially when the linux experience is compromised because of it.
postmarketOS has no hybris and everything works great, but no device has all the drivers (in fact, no device at all is reported as having a fully functioning camera, let alone everything else) so there isn't a "flagship" device.
If I were to overspend on a linux device I want it to actually run Linux, not a handicapped version of it.
And even then, why stop at the OS? Why is this overpriced "linux" phone not boast having user-friendly and sustainable things like a replaceable battery (probably because it doesn't?). People in this niche don't want just a Linux phone, they want a phone that respects them.
I agree with you, and especially identify with the last sentence. However, I’m fed up with Apple and Google, and any alternative that doesn’t tie me to Google and has all functioning hardware and usable 5G or at least LTE with reasonable specs is a major win in my book. I’ve preordered the FLX1s. The FLX1, which is no longer in production, had a replaceable battery, but lack of a replaceable battery or non-pure Linux in an alternative phone certainly isn’t going to keep me chained to Apple or Google.
> postmarketOS has no hybris and everything works great, but no device has all the drivers
this is why halium exists. OEMs don't produce drivers beyond whatever kernel they ship with, so this is an attempt to build a system that leverages the crap they do ship.
> why stop at the OS?
Because the OS is the only thing you control. The reason the Librem 5 costs so much for a decade-old platform is because they didn't grab a predesigned device from another OEM. Doing everything yourself is going to be the only way to produce a first-class linux phone.
> My biggest question is if they use Halium/libhybrys at all,
That would be a showstopper for now, IMHO. Doing it with maintainable open source Linux drivers is the hard part of having a viable device, from everything I've seen.
Another concern are that I can't find who the developers are, nor even definitively what country they're based in. (I don't see it on their About Us page, ~~and the GitHub repo contributors are hidden.~~ I saw a reference to Sydney, but unclear.) (Edit: my mistake regarding GitHub contributors; they aren't hidden)
Also, it would be nice to have the option of a better hardware provenance than a generic whitebox(?) phone from some unidentified manufacturer in China. Even for individual hobbyist users, and certainly for corporate ones. (This is why I'd like hardware options combinations like Purism for the premium device, and a cheaper device that runs the same software but is still from a brand that at least has a reputation to preserve, like Pine64 or (ha) Google.)
> Why is this overpriced "linux" phone not boast having user-friendly and sustainable things like a replaceable battery (probably because it doesn't?)
Go lurk in their Matrix chat. They've noted in there that they didn't exactly have a ton of choice in stuff like this because you don't really get a ton of options as a small operation.
> in fact, no device at all is reported as having a fully functioning camera, let alone everything else
My Librem 5's camera is fully functioning just fine. Many entries in that table are either outdated or pmOS-specific, or marked as "partial" because they require some tiny manual intervention that's not a big deal in practice.
>(in fact, no device at all is reported as having a fully functioning camera, let alone everything else)
Nit: The Pine64 PinePhone's cameras at least have been fully functional since 2021. It's a very shitty pair of cameras, but they're definitely fully functional.
I know the wiki.postmarketos.org page for it says the camera support is "Partial" and that a bunch of drivers are out-of-tree. This and much of the rest of the page is extremely outdated, and I (maintainer) just haven't had the time to go through that page and fix it up.
> My biggest question is if they use Halium/libhybrys at all
From what I have been able to tell, the folks behind Furilabs are also behind Droidian, which is Halium/libhybrys based. Furilabs/FuriOS is the commercial version of it.
> in fact, no device at all is reported as having a fully functioning camera, let alone everything else
I wish usb cameras were sold in the same form-factor as phone thermal cameras. Then the missing drivers for the built-in cameras wouldn't matter as much.
I think the crucial issue here is Android app compatibility. Desktop Linux programs aren't suited for use on mobile devices; the experience is inevitably poor. Android compatibility is claimed, but no information beyond that is provided. If this device does not run at the very least any app that does not depend on Google Play, e.g. apps from F-Droid, it's dead on arrival. In that case, you are much better off with a Pixel running GrapheneOS. Graphene is very polished and has 100% compatibility with Android. Everything just works and the user experience is as good as an official Android device, only free of Google spyware.
Yeah everything works except payment, and banking apps, and probably some other stuff. Considering Google's policy direction this isn't going to improve sadly
And let's be honest, it's not like there hasn't been spent a decade or more, with thousands of developers working tirelessly on making Android as good as it is today. Like linux laptops not burning up immediately is itself a change upstreamed from android development, but that's just half of the story.
A mobile OS fundamentally needs a different application model -- apps can't just decide to run whenever they like. How will desktop GIMP know that it shouldn't waste my battery when in the background (unless it very specially requests it throuhg an API made just for that)? Does suspending it work as you expect? For how long will you suspend it, shouldn't you kill it as well after a while? Who saves stuff?
I can't help but feel that anyone strongly advocating for a GNU Linux phone (because let's be honest, Android is the linux phone) is just not familiar with the actual context of what it entails.
It doesn't run Debian, it runs (a fork of) Droidian which relies on Android layer underneath. There are other Linux phones that do actually run Debian and don't rely on Android.
True. This seems like an amazing device especially given the total B.S Google and Apple have been throwing at us. I would buy this in a heartbeat if it were available in my country.
I think just like "Made in the US," a lot of people say they want one, but most really don't, due to either price, hardware, and/or software drawbacks.
Then why do all photos of this phone show the logo, not the actual OS it’s running? If it’s running something that is not Android, I would expect a page how the OS actually looks and works before considering it a serious, working alternative to Android.
> This is a Linux phone that actually works, running Debian. It has a battery that competes with the runtime of any modern phone. It has a snappy UI and can reliably make calls. Already it’s the best Linux phone in the world, just on that basis.
"Shut up and take my mo... 170mm x 76 mm, 201g? Sigh - never mind!"
Sorry for adding one more awful comment. If they make a mini version, I will absolutely put my money where my mouth is.
I saw dang's comment of praise here for your post, which is meant to highlight "hackers" bringing something new to the market. Got it, but your post's comments of praise is vacuous if you don't own one and speak from first-hand knowledge. How can you praise it as a phone "that actually works" if you don't own one?
I'm glad for this release but I think users are cynical because of the state of things since the Pinephone and Purism releases. There had been what felt like very little progress towards a "daily driver" device. Mind you I think Sailfish has shown it's doable a long time, but this is cast aside for being paid.
> The comments here are awful. What happened to “Hacker” news?
It’s funny because excessive negativity is peak HN (see: Dropbox post) but yeah, it’s amazing how many people are focused on how this couldn’t/doesn’t work than got it could/does.
I bought 4 Firefox phones, am itching for hardware that I truly own in the age of AI, and I’m ready to be hurt again.
Thank you for doing God's work. I wish I'd bought a Firefox phone - I would have been burned, but some people need to be for us to get anywhere. I tried to make up for it by buying an early generation FrameWork laptop.
Edit: If you notice that this does not match with another comment I've made saying I wouldn't buy this because of the size, I can only offer as a defence that I'm also trying to vote with my wallet about the size of phones so I'm torn.
I think it's probably better on balance to have a small phone that does everything that it should perfectly, and live with the compromise of living with the walled garden, while still being small to easily hold and encourage me to go and use a more appropriate device than something I've pulled from my pocket for any task that requires staring at a screen.
That is a vanishingly low bar, apparently. We don't need to praise something just because it is FOSS. With it's quite old hardware and limited software it instantly becomes unattractive for many.
That was always the challenge for computer phones, to get the phone part of the phone work. There's been many Wi-Fi only PDAs, non-calling data cards for those, non-calling but cellular-enabled ones, etc. before iOS/Android happened.
Your comment is a good example of a corrective post, and the upvotes are deserved, but they get extra energy from this objecting-to-the-objections quality. On the internet, everybody needs something to object to!
> but they get extra energy from this objecting-to-the-objections quality.
Should they not? It would be unfair "extra energy" if the comments were fair criticisms, but they're not in the spirit of hacker or entrepreneurial culture. The parent seems to be arguing that most of these comments are entirely ignoring who the product is for to leap to hardware comparisons pre-hoc. And I agree with that conclusion; there is nothing intellectually stimulating or helpful in a discussion about how a dev kit appeals to the broader consumer market.
Why do none of the modern phones have a flat back? It's crazy to me that seemingly everyone is jumping on the train to have the camera stick out from the back. I guess the camera lens needs more space, but why not then add some additional material so it's still even? I feel like I'm missing something obvious, do people not put down their phone on flat surfaces or something?
This! Just add those 1-2mm and stuff bigger battery in there… (and make it more rugged so most likely no need for additional cover that is even more bulky)
While your comment makes sense if you were commenting on an Apple or Samsung phone, but this is a Linux phone. We should be glad there are Linux phones being made available at all and the smallest problem is if there is a camera bump or not.
I hope one day comes when the biggest issue with a Linux phone is a camera bump or some other mechanical detail.
I generally agree with your sentiment, but of all the phones I've seen with unwieldy overbites hanging out the back, this is one where the protrusion is small enough that I could live with.
Or make it in a wedge shape? This may sound crazy, but in 2012, I had a Samsung phone (maybe a Galaxy Nexus -- can't remember exacly). It had different thicknesses at the bottom and the top, and a smooth curvature in between that was pleasing to the hand. The display too, was ever so slightly curved, not enough to fit the contours of a human cheek as you held it up, but just enough to not feel like you're pressing a glass slab to your face.
I actually find a bump better for putting your phone down on a flat surface, and my logic is this:
If your camera lens is flat to the body of the phone, it's more prone to being scratched on a table. With a bump, the lens becomes slightly elevated as the phone balances between the bottom of the case and the edge of the bottom of the camera bump, giving the lens(es) a tiny clearance
But is it really thin if there are parts that are thicker? The "depth" or whatever should be measured where it's thicker, not thinnest.
I guess I'm too much of an office worker to get that most people have their phones in their pocket, as soon as I sit down at my desk the phone gets placed on the desk.
Pixel phones have a bump that stretches from left to right, so it leans on a flat surface slightly tilted up, but still stable. Unlike phone that have the bump on a corner only and will move if you tap it.
If Apple with their trillions of dollars decided that their new phone should be a thinner one, it tells us that the general public for some reason likes it.
Hopefully it's the base Debian with a thin vendor package set (kernel, u-boot, DTBs, firmware, out-of-tree DKMS, and a Halium-based bridge to HALs) tied together by a meta-package. With apt pinning, upgrades would become normal Debian transactions, security updates would track Debian, and the vendor layer stays limited to an LTS kernel delta, boot bits, and a small Halium shim.
Droidian is effectively what you describe. It's the closest feasible thing to Debian, packaged as a Project Treble GSI (so yes, it needs Halium since it coexists with the device-specific kernel build and the usual AOSP early boot environment).
My first time hearing of this and I'm very interested.
Does anyone know if it can run a full desktop mode when docked? Windows phones and some Samsung phones used to be able to do this and it was a neat trick.
I would love to have a phone I could hook up to a hotel TV with a keyboard and use like a lite desktop
It's probably usable, but dips down below what even extra-cheap Xiaomis and such offer. I really want to see a Linux phone's specsheet that's even a little competitive.
I've always considered it a benefit if they don't spend needless money and waste my battery life on rendering more pixels than I'll ever see.
My eyesight hasn't gotten better and as a teenager the 720p pixel density of the phablet called Galaxy Note 2 was already smaller than I can make out during normal use (i.e. not if I'm actively trying to see if I can make them out)
But sure, higher number sells better, no matter if this actually makes any difference to anyone
If it were just that "higher number sells better" reasoning then it wouldn't make sense the density increases had a pretty hard stop after ~2014. Same with why 8k TV hype died down but 4k TV became mainstream - it's about the genuine limit for a typical person at typical TV viewing distance unless they have an absolutely massive TV.
I always thought Samsung had a clever approach with a toggle to just render at the lower resolution if you wanted the lower rendering load. Then you still only need to develop 1 cutting edge screen with all of the latest improvements but it will please both use cases well as the cost overhead of shipping models 2 separate screens would.
> But sure, higher number sells better, no matter if this actually makes any difference to anyone
I'm not sure if I'd call it "making a difference", but I've noticed pixelation at one point on my 5.2" 1080p phone (424 ppi). I'm absolutely not the average person, sure, but higher resolutions are markedly nicer for me. A 16" 4k laptop is significantly crispier than my 13.5" 1500ish p framework screen. Yet you will find people who say that 4k below a 28" monitor size makes no sense.
It's all about how sensitive your eyes are and how much you lean towards the screen like a poorly postured crustacean lol
I agree it won't be awful by any means, but it's relatively meaningless to directly compare DPIs of screens which have different typical viewing distances.
Why do they keep making them BIGGER and BIGGER? Our hands don't grow that fast, most adult males have been struggling using their phone with one hand. Only the vocal minority prefers to oversized phone-computer, most of us just want to use it briefly on the go before tucking it back into the pocket, without it tearing a hole in it (which my last two phones have done).
If anyone is listening -- can you put a cap on the dimensions? 5.5" screen is plenty, if I want the cinema experience I will either a) go to cinema or b) use some VR/AR device, for the rest of use cases, like watching a movie on a bus/plane/train, it doesn't weigh up against carrying a brick with you.
My complaint is also, why do they weight so much? Even phones with the same dimensions of an older one keep increasing their weight. This phone is 201 g, which has become the new normal so I can't complain really much but it's still not the phone for me. And it's about 170 mm tall, which it's huge but sadly normal in 2025.
I haven't thought about it as much as I have about sizes, but you do have an interesting point to ponder. I can only offer an explanation, but no consolation:
I guess electronics has gotten denser, and density for the same volume is what quite literally translates to larger weight. The density thing is because they're able to cram more electronics, as our fabrication technology inches forward (i.e. Intel/TSMC/Nvidia/etc trying to break the 1nm barrier for transistors).
Remember the old Nokia phones, where the plastic shell likely amounted to as much volume that a modern phone instead dedicates to the entire front camera device? The latter will weigh much more than the plastic, for the same volume. Now apply that to _every_ component in the modern phone, and the difference is multiplicative -- there's just more features in every cubic millimeter of the phone today. No wonder it's getting heavier.
I don't but could you not forget that some people don't have a car.
You can walk or use transit in proper cities.
When I need a bag then it is not a phone it is a laptop without keyboard.
The context is the same though, regardless of screen size? The UI and/or UX doesn't change much when the screen is physically smaller? The resolution usually stays the same, and even if it shrank or grew, most apps wouldn't care as the libraries used to render their widgets are more or less "resolution invariant".
I mean I get what you're implying, I am just making sure I understand the meaning of "context" here. But if you have large fingers, smaller buttons obviously make the device harder to use, no two ways about it. However, in Android and iOS both, it's possible (for the user) to scale everything up, to help solve that very problem.
The bigger battery argument is a valid one too, but you have to keep in mind that most of the battery is consumed by the screen on average, and larger screen will eat more battery, so it's a bit like the rocket equation -- bigger rocket needs more fuel, more fuel needs more space and adds weight to the rocket, more rocket more fuel again and so on. In terms of batteries and rockets both, there's a golden middle there somewhere, I think. But it's a moving quantity since both screens and batteries are different -- OLED vs LED-lit LCD screen and LiPo vs LiOn for battery and so on. In short: I don't think a 5,5" phone (my preferred size) will suffer from shorter battery life, perhaps on the contrary (vs. a 6,5"). Especially considering that _large_ phones tend to be made _thinner_, since their ergonomics depends more on thickness (for the large width and height), perhaps becoming a problem with more than 8mm thickness, while a 5,5" phone can in fact be used comfortably even if it was 8-10mm thick, since it's smaller in the other two dimensions. That extra afforded thickness can directly translate to a battery that is as large or larger in terms of capacity as one for a 7mm "slick" 6,5" phone.
I had a phone where the top half of the touch screen broke, so I installed "quick cursor" to be able to access it. I still use it on my new phone since it enables me to control everything using only about 1/3 of the touch screen. This should really come built in to the OS, especially since the app requires some pretty aggressive permissions to work.
I completely agree with you, my app functionality should be built inside the OS because of better integration, privacy reasons, etc.
I just wanted to add that because of this permissions my app needs in order to work, I will never add the internet permission to Quick Cursor. I took this decission 5 years ago when I started the app because I understood the privacy risk, and my app will never have internet access permission.
In order for an app to have access to internet, it needs to have the android.permission.INTERNET added to its manifest, otherwise it won't work. This can be checked easily, there are some apps that shows you this info about your installed apps, or by manually looking at the AndroidManifest in the .APK of the app.
I have to say reading the statement "requires some pretty aggressive permissions to work" sounds like there's a problem with Android permissions model. I mean, if the app needs permissions, one should normally assume it needs these permissions in order to, well, be permitted to do its work? In other words, a "good-natured" app should not need more permissions than it needs to work, and the last part is kind of a tautology. Either that, or Android has broken permissions model, which may apparently be too coarse -- as in you need "access to Internet" for auto-update to work, despite auto-update normally being done by Google (when a Google-forked Android) over a secure channel etc.
And can you give a number on the "vocal minority"? Because companies usually sell what customers want and if the majority of the phones on the market is big, then that's what people want.
The problem isn't that this hypothetical vocal minority is completely imaginary, but that consumers will repeatably gravitate toward the biggest and most glitterliest product. Only few realizes it's not what they want.
The problem isn’t that the majority of phones are big, it’s that virtually all are big and heavy. There is no modern, properly supported smartphone with 4.x” or 5.x” diagonal or below 150 grams anymore.
In all frankness, I think this is the legandary "if people wanted a faster horse..." statement of Henry Ford -- consumers don't always know what they want, and I know quite a few who couldn't confidently answer the question "why did you buy a 6,5" iPhone?" with anything else but "I have used iPhone all my life and this is the size they sell", meaning the consumer doesn't choose much, the choice is to buy a newer iPhone. The simplified argument that goes along "phones are getting larger because consumers want larger phones" is indeed only that -- a very simplified way to look at it. There's much more going on there.
It's very similar to smart TVs. Yes, most people do prefer smart TVs, but vendors use it very successfully to sell inferior displays (poor color, poor contrast etc), to compensate and to pull more selling margin, since that's how the consumer functions (being utterly unable to quantify display quality for an uncalibrated TV). Anyway, I am digressing -- the point of my comparison is that it's complicated and not nearly as simple as "consumers want larger phones / TVs with slow menus and shitty picture as long as there's Netflix in there".
Yes, but no "flagship" devices from mainstream brands, only specialty/novelty stuff. The last <6" flagship I'm aware of was the Asus Zenphone 10 in 2023.
Technically yes: there is iPhone 13 Mini and in Android world there is 2 or 3 Unihertz models and some "no-name" Chinese Aliexpress brands (Cubot has some small model, AFAIR, and there is several even more no-name offers).
Realistically no. All these Android models are underspecced. Old cores (8+ years old), small screen resolutions (small in PPI, not like small as screen proportion to big ones), small amount of RAM and storage (latest Uniherz is happy exception in this area, but not in the others), very bad cameras, very short OS update period (if ever).
iPhone 13 mini is Ok-ish (my wife uses one): camera is still very poor, but all other is usable.
Android is worse. If all you need are phone calls, and messaging with Telegram/Whatsapp/Signal it is Ok. But if you need good camera, good browsing experience (many open tabs) or something specific you are out of luck. Even Google Maps could be sluggish. Plus zero-days in old Android versions.
Good cameras is my pet peeve: good ones go only to flagship models and maybe sub-flagship ones (like, flagship and sub-flagship can be differentiated by addition of tele-module, which is most useful for me).
I think your argument is flawed -- perhaps rephrasing it to say is that _Apple_ tried bringing back a smaller _iPhone_ and _presumably_ few _existing_ customers bought them, would have made a better one? Because I would assume most of iPhone buyers are either _existing_ iPhone users, or people who swear to Apple software (iOS, MacOS) so this is about being able to read the statistics correctly.
Add to the above that iPhone "mini" might have been slower or just "worse" and it wasn't just the screen that was reduced in size, so the word of mouth might have been that the phone is simply worse, and that contributed to poor sales.
There's no way of telling how a 5,5" phone would fare until there's consistent prolonged feature-parity based sales of such phones that are otherwise identical to other offerings by the same brand, across multiple brands (if I am a die-hard Fairphone customer, I am not buying an iPhone regardless of screen size) to help gather proper statistics.
As the article points out, the iPhone 13 mini sold half as much as the other iPhone 13 models, while competing with the iPhone SE which was the same size at half the price. That isn’t exactly terrible.
We desperately need Linux phones to succeed, especially in the current geopolitical situation. Not everybody lives in a country aligned with either the US (Apple/Google) or China (Xiaomi etc.).
Well, the CPU is OK for mobile, but the GPU/GPU-driver situation is not. Just look at the Pinephone to see a device with fine CPU performance that struggles with UI. Though, in fairness, some of this could be fixed with more optimized software.
Also still waiting for more userspace tools to support the v4l2-requests API for hardware video decoding.
And don't forget _overdimensioning_. Vendors love this because volume scales cubically with increase in any one of width, height and depth -- they're not the ones carrying the phone, but they can pack more features into one, quite literally. FOSS vendors more so since they need more ground to compete on (hardware being older and price being high enough because of economy of scale).
Its not the OSS nature. Any product from scratch will be expensive to start with and reduce in price eventually. There is a reason why Tesla didn't start with Model Y first.
Underspeccing is specific to mobile industry. But I agree with you here. Going for premium specs is a better way to start. But they'll have to pick a specs that works for them the company and can reach maximum people. So I also acknowledge that it's tough.
Omfg ! The phone I didn't know I wanted. I've grown so sick of Google's BS with android and their policies.
I want a phone that I own and I can hack a little bit.
This is going to be my next phone !
I'm very curious about the Android app support and if by any magic it can do payment. But even if it doesn't it's still going to be an improvement over my pixel
Does this support connection to a docking station so it can be used like a desktop?
If so, I'm very interested.
Edited to add: some reviews say it supports mouse and keyboard via dock, The Register says it didn't support an external USB-C display (that was from March this year, so the earlier version), but then another review said that used it as an Ethernet router, so Ethernet via dock must work.
I tested with 2 different USB-C docks and a USB-C to HDMI monitor cable. They're the only ones I have.
One is from a Gemini PDA and has USB-A, USB-C and Ethernet. I think I did not test Ethernet but I can do that. The dock contains an Ethernet controller: it's a USB-attached Ethernet card, effectively. It works on Android, macOS, Windows, Linux, etc.
As far as I recall the FLX1 detected the Ethernet port but I didn't test it.
The other dock has audio, various sizes of USB, and HDMI out. All the ports worked except display. You can drive the phone with a full sized keyboard and mouse, which is amusing but useless. You can power the phone from the dock while in use.
But it can't drive a display, which is a damned shame and a deal-breaker for the form-factor. Otherwise this could be a real PC in your pocket.
The company told me it was working on wireless display support but I do not own any wireless displays to test with.
Thank you for clarifying, and thanks for your contributions to The Register!
It's most definitely a shame that it doesn't support an external display via the dock (which kinda makes moot the fact it supports other peripherals), I've used two different docks (both requiring DisplayLink drivers) with my home Linux setup and every kernel update is a crapshoot as to whether the dock-connected displays will blink back into life post reboot, or stubbornly stay blank until I roll back to the previous kernel version and await the drivers to catch up.
As such, I kinda understand that it may be harder than expected to get working for a device like this.
Having recently setup a new GrapheneOS device, however, it means I'm less motived to change mobile platforms again. Desktop-via-dock support could have convinced me.
It does mot support display output via USB C, and I'm guessing Ethernet will also be very limited because the usb is 2.0, which is very sad to see on a Linux phone.
I wish someone with with money would just make a deal with a niche Chinese company like blackview or oukitel to allow making a Linux for their hardware. Not trying to make the same stuff as everyone does as it will be niche for quite a while.
If all you want is a smartphone that runs Linux- this will do the job. But it's hardly serviceable when banking apps won't run on it.. and you're sure to get sub-par performance on anything else on top of the slow chip.
At the moment GrapheneOS is better for more people. It's secure, reliable and polished. But in the long run the continued development of Linux phones and getting away from the current duopoly is definitely a good thing.
I'm using GrapheneOS now, and will switch to a Linux phone when the basics are nailed down and the price is reasonable.
With a de-Googled Android device you get lots more apps, but it's still Android.
This is Debian atop an Android kernel, with Android in a container. The native OS is a desktop Linux. You can upgrade your OS with `apt update ; apt-get full-upgrade -y`.
If you want a pocket Linux phone, I think it's about the best.
As much as I'm interested in running Linux on my next mobile device, I'm not inclined to trust a single company to provide both the device and the OS. I have no reason to distrust Furi Labs, but trust is earned, not granted.
First of all, why is there so little documentation about "FuriOS"? What exactly has Furi Labs changed from the base Debian system to warrant a rebadging? Why can't I know which software it's using? Why are there so few screenshots and videos of the device (besides from the "volunteered" reviews)?
I understand that selling hardware is how they recoup their development costs, and focusing on a single device allows them to deliver a better user experience. But I would still like to try their OS on a device I may already have, before I decide to shell out $550 for, frankly, pretty lackluster hardware.
Interesting since Apple and Goog both ship their OS on their hardware.
It's Debian with Phosh and Halium (Android drivers) installed to an older ubiquitous Android handset. Not perfect but a compelling shortcut. Distros have been created with less differentiation.
First Linux phone in a while that is not a decade behind hardware wise. This one is only perhaps half that, haha. My iPhone 6s is still snappy however, so it should be fine.
You're partially correct. Ubuntu Touch was discontinued by Canonical (the company behind Ubuntu) in April 2017.
However, Ubuntu Touch was picked up by the UBports project (that by now has their own foundation) and has been continued to this day. Currently they are preparing a Ubuntu Touch release based on Ubuntu 24.04 (moving on from Ubuntu 20.04). See https://www.ubuntu-touch.io/ for more.
Regarding the FLX1(s): FuriLabs worked on a way to support Ubuntu Touch apps (that can be found at https://open-store.io/) natively on FuriOS. It's also possible to boot Ubuntu Touch on their FLX1 hardware.
It says "The FLX1s from Furi Labs runs a fully optimized Linux system called FuriOS", never heard of FuriOS but seems they're not using Ubuntu Touch, at the very most it's a fork of it.
I need a head phone jack too, but I guess using a USB-C to 3.5 mm Headphone Jack Adapter is way cheaper and simpler than engineering a brand new Linux phone that caters exactly to everyone's preferences : )
how does that happen btw? like it's understandable when a website is hosted on a vape (lol), but even a cheap vps should be able to handle like 10-20k views in the span of a couple hours (which is the max load from HN i'm assuming), unless you're hosting video or some such
It depends! You can make a website with a static text file or you can make a video run as the background. There are more ways to mess it up than to get it right, actually.
> The FLX1s from Furi Labs runs a fully optimized Linux system called FuriOS, packing a lightning fast user interface, 3 hardware switches for microphone, camera and modem/gps, and a privacy centric approach like no other.
Another expensive phone... sorry but the price is 3x of my phone which has 6Gb RAM (compared to 8 Gb here) and the same number of cores, maybe less performant but who cares, I am not planning to do machine learning on a phone anyway. Also mine has better screen resolution despite lower price.
Yes the firmware is non-free, but I have kernel sources so I can either try to port a open-source OS on it, or simply reverse-engineer and patch the existing firmware.
Also I am not sure if Linux desktop environment (Wayland, Pipewire and friends) is a good choice. Why not use AOSP, which is free, has everything, is optimized, has lot of f-droid apps and is tested on millions of devices? It has modern languages like Kotlin, and GUI frameworks like Flutter. And are there mobile apps for standard Linux desktop?
> Whether used for coding, ... designing, or multitasking with everyday apps, our device delivers the performance
Sorry, I don't think small screen with tiny keyboard is any good for coding or design. Smartphone is only good for taking/watching photos, reading or chatting.
There is a difference between a programming language support and having complete GUI framework, set of libraries and applications. Also what would you use to write GUI for Linux? Non-reactive libraries are not an option due to being outdated and inefficient programming style.
It is one thing if AOSP has some fundamental issues that cannot be patched/fixed, and another thing if someone just doesn't like it.
The comments here are awful. What happened to “Hacker” news?
This is a Linux phone that actually works, running Debian. It has a battery that competes with the runtime of any modern phone. It has a snappy UI and can reliably make calls. Already it’s the best Linux phone in the world, just on that basis.
They’re selling it for the same price as the outgoing model despite tons of bullshit tariffs being levied against them. What an achievement!
I want a Linux phone that works, and I want to support a world where Linux phones exist and are financially viable to make, therefore I will buy this as my next phone.
My biggest question is if they use Halium/libhybrys at all, something that is hard to figure out from the marketing but their GitHub repos does have hybris-related stuff. That makes it a non-Linux device to me. Hybris breaks a lot of linux stuff that should just work like flatpak, something I found out incredibly quickly when using SailfishOS.
I don't think depending on Android drivers and having to run a small android just to access said hardware makes it a "linux phone". Especially when the linux experience is compromised because of it.
postmarketOS has no hybris and everything works great, but no device has all the drivers (in fact, no device at all is reported as having a fully functioning camera, let alone everything else) so there isn't a "flagship" device.
If I were to overspend on a linux device I want it to actually run Linux, not a handicapped version of it.
And even then, why stop at the OS? Why is this overpriced "linux" phone not boast having user-friendly and sustainable things like a replaceable battery (probably because it doesn't?). People in this niche don't want just a Linux phone, they want a phone that respects them.
I agree with you, and especially identify with the last sentence. However, I’m fed up with Apple and Google, and any alternative that doesn’t tie me to Google and has all functioning hardware and usable 5G or at least LTE with reasonable specs is a major win in my book. I’ve preordered the FLX1s. The FLX1, which is no longer in production, had a replaceable battery, but lack of a replaceable battery or non-pure Linux in an alternative phone certainly isn’t going to keep me chained to Apple or Google.
> postmarketOS has no hybris and everything works great, but no device has all the drivers
this is why halium exists. OEMs don't produce drivers beyond whatever kernel they ship with, so this is an attempt to build a system that leverages the crap they do ship.
> why stop at the OS?
Because the OS is the only thing you control. The reason the Librem 5 costs so much for a decade-old platform is because they didn't grab a predesigned device from another OEM. Doing everything yourself is going to be the only way to produce a first-class linux phone.
It uses halium and libhybris. Flatpak apps work perfectly fine on my FLX1. I have no usability issues with the phone at all.
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> My biggest question is if they use Halium/libhybrys at all,
That would be a showstopper for now, IMHO. Doing it with maintainable open source Linux drivers is the hard part of having a viable device, from everything I've seen.
Another concern are that I can't find who the developers are, nor even definitively what country they're based in. (I don't see it on their About Us page, ~~and the GitHub repo contributors are hidden.~~ I saw a reference to Sydney, but unclear.) (Edit: my mistake regarding GitHub contributors; they aren't hidden)
Also, it would be nice to have the option of a better hardware provenance than a generic whitebox(?) phone from some unidentified manufacturer in China. Even for individual hobbyist users, and certainly for corporate ones. (This is why I'd like hardware options combinations like Purism for the premium device, and a cheaper device that runs the same software but is still from a brand that at least has a reputation to preserve, like Pine64 or (ha) Google.)
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> Why is this overpriced "linux" phone not boast having user-friendly and sustainable things like a replaceable battery (probably because it doesn't?)
Go lurk in their Matrix chat. They've noted in there that they didn't exactly have a ton of choice in stuff like this because you don't really get a ton of options as a small operation.
> in fact, no device at all is reported as having a fully functioning camera, let alone everything else
My Librem 5's camera is fully functioning just fine. Many entries in that table are either outdated or pmOS-specific, or marked as "partial" because they require some tiny manual intervention that's not a big deal in practice.
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>(in fact, no device at all is reported as having a fully functioning camera, let alone everything else)
Nit: The Pine64 PinePhone's cameras at least have been fully functional since 2021. It's a very shitty pair of cameras, but they're definitely fully functional.
I know the wiki.postmarketos.org page for it says the camera support is "Partial" and that a bunch of drivers are out-of-tree. This and much of the rest of the page is extremely outdated, and I (maintainer) just haven't had the time to go through that page and fix it up.
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> My biggest question is if they use Halium/libhybrys at all
From what I have been able to tell, the folks behind Furilabs are also behind Droidian, which is Halium/libhybrys based. Furilabs/FuriOS is the commercial version of it.
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> in fact, no device at all is reported as having a fully functioning camera, let alone everything else
I wish usb cameras were sold in the same form-factor as phone thermal cameras. Then the missing drivers for the built-in cameras wouldn't matter as much.
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I think the crucial issue here is Android app compatibility. Desktop Linux programs aren't suited for use on mobile devices; the experience is inevitably poor. Android compatibility is claimed, but no information beyond that is provided. If this device does not run at the very least any app that does not depend on Google Play, e.g. apps from F-Droid, it's dead on arrival. In that case, you are much better off with a Pixel running GrapheneOS. Graphene is very polished and has 100% compatibility with Android. Everything just works and the user experience is as good as an official Android device, only free of Google spyware.
> If this device does not run at the very least any app that does not depend on Google Play, e.g. apps from F-Droid
It does.
I have an FLX1, a review sample.
https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/03/furiphone_flx1/
I had 3 app stores on mine: Amazon, F-Droid, and Aurora. Apps from all 3 worked.
"I think the crucial issue here is Android app compatibility ..."
I thought there was a robust android emulator for linux such that I could run android apps - and call an Uber or whatever - from desktop linux ...
Is that not so ?
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Yeah everything works except payment, and banking apps, and probably some other stuff. Considering Google's policy direction this isn't going to improve sadly
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And let's be honest, it's not like there hasn't been spent a decade or more, with thousands of developers working tirelessly on making Android as good as it is today. Like linux laptops not burning up immediately is itself a change upstreamed from android development, but that's just half of the story.
A mobile OS fundamentally needs a different application model -- apps can't just decide to run whenever they like. How will desktop GIMP know that it shouldn't waste my battery when in the background (unless it very specially requests it throuhg an API made just for that)? Does suspending it work as you expect? For how long will you suspend it, shouldn't you kill it as well after a while? Who saves stuff?
I can't help but feel that anyone strongly advocating for a GNU Linux phone (because let's be honest, Android is the linux phone) is just not familiar with the actual context of what it entails.
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It doesn't run Debian, it runs (a fork of) Droidian which relies on Android layer underneath. There are other Linux phones that do actually run Debian and don't rely on Android.
You are referring to postmaketOS for which the project leaders themselves claim there is no flagship device where everything works as expected?
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True. This seems like an amazing device especially given the total B.S Google and Apple have been throwing at us. I would buy this in a heartbeat if it were available in my country.
Hear hear. I’m excited about this and may get one just to support the cause even though my iPhone 13 mini is still just fine.
I think just like "Made in the US," a lot of people say they want one, but most really don't, due to either price, hardware, and/or software drawbacks.
Many want one, fewer agree to afford.
It never was, it's VC news
>I want a Linux phone that works
That's Jolla C2 or some Sailfish-compatible Xperia 10.
Both GNOME Shell in the phone context and Plasma Mobile are evolutionary dead ends.
> Both GNOME Shell in the phone context and Plasma Mobile are evolutionary dead ends.
That's a hell of a hot take. Could you elaborate on why you think so?
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> Linux phone that actually works
Then why do all photos of this phone show the logo, not the actual OS it’s running? If it’s running something that is not Android, I would expect a page how the OS actually looks and works before considering it a serious, working alternative to Android.
> This is a Linux phone that actually works, running Debian. It has a battery that competes with the runtime of any modern phone. It has a snappy UI and can reliably make calls. Already it’s the best Linux phone in the world, just on that basis.
"Shut up and take my mo... 170mm x 76 mm, 201g? Sigh - never mind!"
Sorry for adding one more awful comment. If they make a mini version, I will absolutely put my money where my mouth is.
I saw dang's comment of praise here for your post, which is meant to highlight "hackers" bringing something new to the market. Got it, but your post's comments of praise is vacuous if you don't own one and speak from first-hand knowledge. How can you praise it as a phone "that actually works" if you don't own one?
I'm glad for this release but I think users are cynical because of the state of things since the Pinephone and Purism releases. There had been what felt like very little progress towards a "daily driver" device. Mind you I think Sailfish has shown it's doable a long time, but this is cast aside for being paid.
> The comments here are awful. What happened to “Hacker” news?
It’s funny because excessive negativity is peak HN (see: Dropbox post) but yeah, it’s amazing how many people are focused on how this couldn’t/doesn’t work than got it could/does.
I bought 4 Firefox phones, am itching for hardware that I truly own in the age of AI, and I’m ready to be hurt again.
Thank you for doing God's work. I wish I'd bought a Firefox phone - I would have been burned, but some people need to be for us to get anywhere. I tried to make up for it by buying an early generation FrameWork laptop.
Edit: If you notice that this does not match with another comment I've made saying I wouldn't buy this because of the size, I can only offer as a defence that I'm also trying to vote with my wallet about the size of phones so I'm torn.
I think it's probably better on balance to have a small phone that does everything that it should perfectly, and live with the compromise of living with the walled garden, while still being small to easily hold and encourage me to go and use a more appropriate device than something I've pulled from my pocket for any task that requires staring at a screen.
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The phone for Furries? Count my furry friends in!
Har har - from their FAQ[1]: Furi is pronounced “Fury”. FuriOS is pronounced “Furious”. We simply couldn’t afford the Fury part of the domain names.
1: https://furilabs.com/faq/
> Already it’s the best Linux phone in the world,
That is a vanishingly low bar, apparently. We don't need to praise something just because it is FOSS. With it's quite old hardware and limited software it instantly becomes unattractive for many.
That was always the challenge for computer phones, to get the phone part of the phone work. There's been many Wi-Fi only PDAs, non-calling data cards for those, non-calling but cellular-enabled ones, etc. before iOS/Android happened.
> The comments here are awful. What happened to “Hacker” news?
The contrarian dynamic strikes again: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
Your comment is a good example of a corrective post, and the upvotes are deserved, but they get extra energy from this objecting-to-the-objections quality. On the internet, everybody needs something to object to!
> but they get extra energy from this objecting-to-the-objections quality.
Should they not? It would be unfair "extra energy" if the comments were fair criticisms, but they're not in the spirit of hacker or entrepreneurial culture. The parent seems to be arguing that most of these comments are entirely ignoring who the product is for to leap to hardware comparisons pre-hoc. And I agree with that conclusion; there is nothing intellectually stimulating or helpful in a discussion about how a dev kit appeals to the broader consumer market.
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Why do none of the modern phones have a flat back? It's crazy to me that seemingly everyone is jumping on the train to have the camera stick out from the back. I guess the camera lens needs more space, but why not then add some additional material so it's still even? I feel like I'm missing something obvious, do people not put down their phone on flat surfaces or something?
This! Just add those 1-2mm and stuff bigger battery in there… (and make it more rugged so most likely no need for additional cover that is even more bulky)
More than rugged, add some knurling so it doesn't slip out of your hands so easily.
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Most people put replaceable cases on that extend past the camera bump, so making it flat isn't necessary for those people.
Doesn't that just reinforce that they might as well have made a better device?
I'm not a case user but even I agree
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The Pixel 9a is nearly flat (no camera bump). It's great for running GrapheneOS on.
For now. I'll never buy google hardware again after they pulled the rug on publishing drivers for my current pixel.
While your comment makes sense if you were commenting on an Apple or Samsung phone, but this is a Linux phone. We should be glad there are Linux phones being made available at all and the smallest problem is if there is a camera bump or not.
I hope one day comes when the biggest issue with a Linux phone is a camera bump or some other mechanical detail.
I generally agree with your sentiment, but of all the phones I've seen with unwieldy overbites hanging out the back, this is one where the protrusion is small enough that I could live with.
Or make it in a wedge shape? This may sound crazy, but in 2012, I had a Samsung phone (maybe a Galaxy Nexus -- can't remember exacly). It had different thicknesses at the bottom and the top, and a smooth curvature in between that was pleasing to the hand. The display too, was ever so slightly curved, not enough to fit the contours of a human cheek as you held it up, but just enough to not feel like you're pressing a glass slab to your face.
I actually find a bump better for putting your phone down on a flat surface, and my logic is this:
If your camera lens is flat to the body of the phone, it's more prone to being scratched on a table. With a bump, the lens becomes slightly elevated as the phone balances between the bottom of the case and the edge of the bottom of the camera bump, giving the lens(es) a tiny clearance
People prefer thin to flat. It spends more time in a pocket than on a table. People don’t really put their phones down.
But is it really thin if there are parts that are thicker? The "depth" or whatever should be measured where it's thicker, not thinnest.
I guess I'm too much of an office worker to get that most people have their phones in their pocket, as soon as I sit down at my desk the phone gets placed on the desk.
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Pixel phones have a bump that stretches from left to right, so it leans on a flat surface slightly tilted up, but still stable. Unlike phone that have the bump on a corner only and will move if you tap it.
If Apple with their trillions of dollars decided that their new phone should be a thinner one, it tells us that the general public for some reason likes it.
People keep asking for this year over year over year ad nauseam. Folks, give it up. It's completely irrelevant.
It made sense when the sensor sizes were a pittance of what they are now 25 years ago. It doesn't make sense in 2025.
Should we still have 480p cameras?
Give me an 8000mah battery. That should take up some more space.
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Hmm... great to see another linux phone but... why on earth they are so vague about the OS? Not to mention no screenshots of the UI...
Also - not so sold on the privacy switches…
the FuriPhone FLX1 was A Debian-powered brick that puts GNOME in your back pocket
previous discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41839326
Hopefully it's the base Debian with a thin vendor package set (kernel, u-boot, DTBs, firmware, out-of-tree DKMS, and a Halium-based bridge to HALs) tied together by a meta-package. With apt pinning, upgrades would become normal Debian transactions, security updates would track Debian, and the vendor layer stays limited to an LTS kernel delta, boot bits, and a small Halium shim.
Droidian is effectively what you describe. It's the closest feasible thing to Debian, packaged as a Project Treble GSI (so yes, it needs Halium since it coexists with the device-specific kernel build and the usual AOSP early boot environment).
The Furilabs people are literally the Droidian people.
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My first time hearing of this and I'm very interested.
Does anyone know if it can run a full desktop mode when docked? Windows phones and some Samsung phones used to be able to do this and it was a neat trick.
I would love to have a phone I could hook up to a hotel TV with a keyboard and use like a lite desktop
I asked this question as well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45318229
Answer: no, but they're working on wireless display support.
"USB-C 2.0" in the specs reveals that. DisplayPort Alt Mode requires at least USB 3.0, the PinePhone Pro would be a Linux phone supporting that.
On another note, I've successfully connected to wireless displays (Miracast) on Linux using https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-network-displays
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> 6.7" 1600x720
It's probably usable, but dips down below what even extra-cheap Xiaomis and such offer. I really want to see a Linux phone's specsheet that's even a little competitive.
I've always considered it a benefit if they don't spend needless money and waste my battery life on rendering more pixels than I'll ever see.
My eyesight hasn't gotten better and as a teenager the 720p pixel density of the phablet called Galaxy Note 2 was already smaller than I can make out during normal use (i.e. not if I'm actively trying to see if I can make them out)
But sure, higher number sells better, no matter if this actually makes any difference to anyone
If it were just that "higher number sells better" reasoning then it wouldn't make sense the density increases had a pretty hard stop after ~2014. Same with why 8k TV hype died down but 4k TV became mainstream - it's about the genuine limit for a typical person at typical TV viewing distance unless they have an absolutely massive TV.
I always thought Samsung had a clever approach with a toggle to just render at the lower resolution if you wanted the lower rendering load. Then you still only need to develop 1 cutting edge screen with all of the latest improvements but it will please both use cases well as the cost overhead of shipping models 2 separate screens would.
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> But sure, higher number sells better, no matter if this actually makes any difference to anyone
I'm not sure if I'd call it "making a difference", but I've noticed pixelation at one point on my 5.2" 1080p phone (424 ppi). I'm absolutely not the average person, sure, but higher resolutions are markedly nicer for me. A 16" 4k laptop is significantly crispier than my 13.5" 1500ish p framework screen. Yet you will find people who say that 4k below a 28" monitor size makes no sense.
It's all about how sensitive your eyes are and how much you lean towards the screen like a poorly postured crustacean lol
This is approximately 240 dpi, on par with MacBook retina display's DPI. Should be fine, unless you want to use a magnifying glass.
I agree it won't be awful by any means, but it's relatively meaningless to directly compare DPIs of screens which have different typical viewing distances.
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It's a testament to Xiaomi's excellence. They're the third global phone maker for a reason.
The size of the Chinese market is an equally important reason.
Why do they keep making them BIGGER and BIGGER? Our hands don't grow that fast, most adult males have been struggling using their phone with one hand. Only the vocal minority prefers to oversized phone-computer, most of us just want to use it briefly on the go before tucking it back into the pocket, without it tearing a hole in it (which my last two phones have done).
If anyone is listening -- can you put a cap on the dimensions? 5.5" screen is plenty, if I want the cinema experience I will either a) go to cinema or b) use some VR/AR device, for the rest of use cases, like watching a movie on a bus/plane/train, it doesn't weigh up against carrying a brick with you.
My complaint is also, why do they weight so much? Even phones with the same dimensions of an older one keep increasing their weight. This phone is 201 g, which has become the new normal so I can't complain really much but it's still not the phone for me. And it's about 170 mm tall, which it's huge but sadly normal in 2025.
I haven't thought about it as much as I have about sizes, but you do have an interesting point to ponder. I can only offer an explanation, but no consolation:
I guess electronics has gotten denser, and density for the same volume is what quite literally translates to larger weight. The density thing is because they're able to cram more electronics, as our fabrication technology inches forward (i.e. Intel/TSMC/Nvidia/etc trying to break the 1nm barrier for transistors).
Remember the old Nokia phones, where the plastic shell likely amounted to as much volume that a modern phone instead dedicates to the entire front camera device? The latter will weigh much more than the plastic, for the same volume. Now apply that to _every_ component in the modern phone, and the difference is multiplicative -- there's just more features in every cubic millimeter of the phone today. No wonder it's getting heavier.
I like large screens because I value having plenty of context visible, e.g. in a webpage or a conversation.
Also, don't forget the bigger batteries that large phones enable.
I don't but could you not forget that some people don't have a car. You can walk or use transit in proper cities. When I need a bag then it is not a phone it is a laptop without keyboard.
The context is the same though, regardless of screen size? The UI and/or UX doesn't change much when the screen is physically smaller? The resolution usually stays the same, and even if it shrank or grew, most apps wouldn't care as the libraries used to render their widgets are more or less "resolution invariant".
I mean I get what you're implying, I am just making sure I understand the meaning of "context" here. But if you have large fingers, smaller buttons obviously make the device harder to use, no two ways about it. However, in Android and iOS both, it's possible (for the user) to scale everything up, to help solve that very problem.
The bigger battery argument is a valid one too, but you have to keep in mind that most of the battery is consumed by the screen on average, and larger screen will eat more battery, so it's a bit like the rocket equation -- bigger rocket needs more fuel, more fuel needs more space and adds weight to the rocket, more rocket more fuel again and so on. In terms of batteries and rockets both, there's a golden middle there somewhere, I think. But it's a moving quantity since both screens and batteries are different -- OLED vs LED-lit LCD screen and LiPo vs LiOn for battery and so on. In short: I don't think a 5,5" phone (my preferred size) will suffer from shorter battery life, perhaps on the contrary (vs. a 6,5"). Especially considering that _large_ phones tend to be made _thinner_, since their ergonomics depends more on thickness (for the large width and height), perhaps becoming a problem with more than 8mm thickness, while a 5,5" phone can in fact be used comfortably even if it was 8-10mm thick, since it's smaller in the other two dimensions. That extra afforded thickness can directly translate to a battery that is as large or larger in terms of capacity as one for a 7mm "slick" 6,5" phone.
I had a phone where the top half of the touch screen broke, so I installed "quick cursor" to be able to access it. I still use it on my new phone since it enables me to control everything using only about 1/3 of the touch screen. This should really come built in to the OS, especially since the app requires some pretty aggressive permissions to work.
Hi, Quick Cursor dev here.
I completely agree with you, my app functionality should be built inside the OS because of better integration, privacy reasons, etc.
I just wanted to add that because of this permissions my app needs in order to work, I will never add the internet permission to Quick Cursor. I took this decission 5 years ago when I started the app because I understood the privacy risk, and my app will never have internet access permission.
In order for an app to have access to internet, it needs to have the android.permission.INTERNET added to its manifest, otherwise it won't work. This can be checked easily, there are some apps that shows you this info about your installed apps, or by manually looking at the AndroidManifest in the .APK of the app.
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I have to say reading the statement "requires some pretty aggressive permissions to work" sounds like there's a problem with Android permissions model. I mean, if the app needs permissions, one should normally assume it needs these permissions in order to, well, be permitted to do its work? In other words, a "good-natured" app should not need more permissions than it needs to work, and the last part is kind of a tautology. Either that, or Android has broken permissions model, which may apparently be too coarse -- as in you need "access to Internet" for auto-update to work, despite auto-update normally being done by Google (when a Google-forked Android) over a secure channel etc.
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And can you give a number on the "vocal minority"? Because companies usually sell what customers want and if the majority of the phones on the market is big, then that's what people want.
Hmm, or they fabricate the demand so they can fulfill it. SUVs anyone?
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The problem isn't that this hypothetical vocal minority is completely imaginary, but that consumers will repeatably gravitate toward the biggest and most glitterliest product. Only few realizes it's not what they want.
The problem isn’t that the majority of phones are big, it’s that virtually all are big and heavy. There is no modern, properly supported smartphone with 4.x” or 5.x” diagonal or below 150 grams anymore.
In all frankness, I think this is the legandary "if people wanted a faster horse..." statement of Henry Ford -- consumers don't always know what they want, and I know quite a few who couldn't confidently answer the question "why did you buy a 6,5" iPhone?" with anything else but "I have used iPhone all my life and this is the size they sell", meaning the consumer doesn't choose much, the choice is to buy a newer iPhone. The simplified argument that goes along "phones are getting larger because consumers want larger phones" is indeed only that -- a very simplified way to look at it. There's much more going on there.
It's very similar to smart TVs. Yes, most people do prefer smart TVs, but vendors use it very successfully to sell inferior displays (poor color, poor contrast etc), to compensate and to pull more selling margin, since that's how the consumer functions (being utterly unable to quantify display quality for an uncalibrated TV). Anyway, I am digressing -- the point of my comparison is that it's complicated and not nearly as simple as "consumers want larger phones / TVs with slow menus and shitty picture as long as there's Netflix in there".
Do smaller phones still exist?
Genuinely asking. I’m on iPhone, which hasn’t changed form factor in quite a while.
Yes, but no "flagship" devices from mainstream brands, only specialty/novelty stuff. The last <6" flagship I'm aware of was the Asus Zenphone 10 in 2023.
Yes and now.
Technically yes: there is iPhone 13 Mini and in Android world there is 2 or 3 Unihertz models and some "no-name" Chinese Aliexpress brands (Cubot has some small model, AFAIR, and there is several even more no-name offers).
Realistically no. All these Android models are underspecced. Old cores (8+ years old), small screen resolutions (small in PPI, not like small as screen proportion to big ones), small amount of RAM and storage (latest Uniherz is happy exception in this area, but not in the others), very bad cameras, very short OS update period (if ever).
iPhone 13 mini is Ok-ish (my wife uses one): camera is still very poor, but all other is usable.
Android is worse. If all you need are phone calls, and messaging with Telegram/Whatsapp/Signal it is Ok. But if you need good camera, good browsing experience (many open tabs) or something specific you are out of luck. Even Google Maps could be sluggish. Plus zero-days in old Android versions.
Good cameras is my pet peeve: good ones go only to flagship models and maybe sub-flagship ones (like, flagship and sub-flagship can be differentiated by addition of tele-module, which is most useful for me).
yes. I use this one https://www.unihertz.com/products/jelly-star
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They did try bringing back smaller ~5.5" phones, and hardly anybody bought them.
https://www.tomsguide.com/news/iphone-12-mini-sales-a-disast...
https://www.macrumors.com/2022/04/21/iphone-13-mini-unpopula...
I think the vocal minority is the other way around.
I think your argument is flawed -- perhaps rephrasing it to say is that _Apple_ tried bringing back a smaller _iPhone_ and _presumably_ few _existing_ customers bought them, would have made a better one? Because I would assume most of iPhone buyers are either _existing_ iPhone users, or people who swear to Apple software (iOS, MacOS) so this is about being able to read the statistics correctly.
Add to the above that iPhone "mini" might have been slower or just "worse" and it wasn't just the screen that was reduced in size, so the word of mouth might have been that the phone is simply worse, and that contributed to poor sales.
There's no way of telling how a 5,5" phone would fare until there's consistent prolonged feature-parity based sales of such phones that are otherwise identical to other offerings by the same brand, across multiple brands (if I am a die-hard Fairphone customer, I am not buying an iPhone regardless of screen size) to help gather proper statistics.
As the article points out, the iPhone 13 mini sold half as much as the other iPhone 13 models, while competing with the iPhone SE which was the same size at half the price. That isn’t exactly terrible.
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Poorly optimized apps need big batteries.
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We desperately need Linux phones to succeed, especially in the current geopolitical situation. Not everybody lives in a country aligned with either the US (Apple/Google) or China (Xiaomi etc.).
New Linux phone drops
Looks inside
Still the good old A76 and A55 cores (they're 8 years old at this point)
You’re expecting cutting edge tech in something that gets no financial backing to make it practical? That doesn’t seem fair.
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That used to mean couple SI prefixes worse than current gen processors, which was why old equalled useless. Not anymore, so okay.
Well, the CPU is OK for mobile, but the GPU/GPU-driver situation is not. Just look at the Pinephone to see a device with fine CPU performance that struggles with UI. Though, in fairness, some of this could be fixed with more optimized software.
Also still waiting for more userspace tools to support the v4l2-requests API for hardware video decoding.
As much as I admire the FOSS nature, it's always the problem of underspeccing and overpricing the tech at the same time.
And don't forget _overdimensioning_. Vendors love this because volume scales cubically with increase in any one of width, height and depth -- they're not the ones carrying the phone, but they can pack more features into one, quite literally. FOSS vendors more so since they need more ground to compete on (hardware being older and price being high enough because of economy of scale).
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No economies of scale. Niche things will always be more expensive.
If you are small, there is no way around it if you want to grow.
"overpricing" is often higher cost of parts at lower quantity, future R&D and other costs that are much higher than for big corporation.
Its not the OSS nature. Any product from scratch will be expensive to start with and reduce in price eventually. There is a reason why Tesla didn't start with Model Y first.
Underspeccing is specific to mobile industry. But I agree with you here. Going for premium specs is a better way to start. But they'll have to pick a specs that works for them the company and can reach maximum people. So I also acknowledge that it's tough.
2x A78 + 6x A55? G68 MC4 GPU.
It's not great but should be pretty usable, spec wise!
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Omfg ! The phone I didn't know I wanted. I've grown so sick of Google's BS with android and their policies. I want a phone that I own and I can hack a little bit.
This is going to be my next phone !
I'm very curious about the Android app support and if by any magic it can do payment. But even if it doesn't it's still going to be an improvement over my pixel
Does this support connection to a docking station so it can be used like a desktop?
If so, I'm very interested.
Edited to add: some reviews say it supports mouse and keyboard via dock, The Register says it didn't support an external USB-C display (that was from March this year, so the earlier version), but then another review said that used it as an Ethernet router, so Ethernet via dock must work.
I am the Register reviewer.
I tested with 2 different USB-C docks and a USB-C to HDMI monitor cable. They're the only ones I have.
One is from a Gemini PDA and has USB-A, USB-C and Ethernet. I think I did not test Ethernet but I can do that. The dock contains an Ethernet controller: it's a USB-attached Ethernet card, effectively. It works on Android, macOS, Windows, Linux, etc.
As far as I recall the FLX1 detected the Ethernet port but I didn't test it.
The other dock has audio, various sizes of USB, and HDMI out. All the ports worked except display. You can drive the phone with a full sized keyboard and mouse, which is amusing but useless. You can power the phone from the dock while in use.
But it can't drive a display, which is a damned shame and a deal-breaker for the form-factor. Otherwise this could be a real PC in your pocket.
The company told me it was working on wireless display support but I do not own any wireless displays to test with.
Thank you for clarifying, and thanks for your contributions to The Register!
It's most definitely a shame that it doesn't support an external display via the dock (which kinda makes moot the fact it supports other peripherals), I've used two different docks (both requiring DisplayLink drivers) with my home Linux setup and every kernel update is a crapshoot as to whether the dock-connected displays will blink back into life post reboot, or stubbornly stay blank until I roll back to the previous kernel version and await the drivers to catch up.
As such, I kinda understand that it may be harder than expected to get working for a device like this.
Having recently setup a new GrapheneOS device, however, it means I'm less motived to change mobile platforms again. Desktop-via-dock support could have convinced me.
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It does mot support display output via USB C, and I'm guessing Ethernet will also be very limited because the usb is 2.0, which is very sad to see on a Linux phone.
I found more detailed specs here:
https://liliputing.com/flx1s-is-a-new-linux-phone-thats-most...
Shame, it lost a few things.
Product info: https://web.archive.org/web/20250920071806/https://furilabs....
I wish someone with with money would just make a deal with a niche Chinese company like blackview or oukitel to allow making a Linux for their hardware. Not trying to make the same stuff as everyone does as it will be niche for quite a while.
https://www.topcpu.net/en/cpu-c/mediatek-dimensity-900-vs-ap...
1/3 to 1/2 of the performance of an Apple A18.
So, perfectly serviceable, then.
If all you want is a smartphone that runs Linux- this will do the job. But it's hardly serviceable when banking apps won't run on it.. and you're sure to get sub-par performance on anything else on top of the slow chip.
LIkely, as long as you aren't playing any demanding games or anything
What does the 's' at the end signify? Has the hardware been revved?
(I've been waiting for something like this for perhaps a decade. Now it's here and I don't have enough work to afford it. :-/)
My best guess would be "slim" as the flx1 is quite bulky and looking at the spec, this one is a little bit less large but suite thinner.
It is a mistake to not offer a separate switch for GPS. It means you can't use a map without turning on your cellular modem.
I'm excited about this. But it still seems like pixel hardware plus grapheneos is a better option? This is a question.
At the moment GrapheneOS is better for more people. It's secure, reliable and polished. But in the long run the continued development of Linux phones and getting away from the current duopoly is definitely a good thing.
I'm using GrapheneOS now, and will switch to a Linux phone when the basics are nailed down and the price is reasonable.
“Buying Google products” is never a better option.
Maybe, but I think that's a conclusion for an individual to reach rather than a piece of information to help them decide.
Why? It's not like any of them is completely open-source hardware, so why bother?
Pixels have decent hardware and have an open-bootloader. I'm fairly sure your desktop is not better/worse than that either.
I like buying used. I feel better about that. Maybe that is misguided.
Define "better".
With a de-Googled Android device you get lots more apps, but it's still Android.
This is Debian atop an Android kernel, with Android in a container. The native OS is a desktop Linux. You can upgrade your OS with `apt update ; apt-get full-upgrade -y`.
If you want a pocket Linux phone, I think it's about the best.
Looks interesting. Posh is a bit too adventurous for me (I wish there was a smartphone running FOSS android out of the box)
MurenaOS? Runs just fine on the Fairphones.
Do you mean "phosh"?
As much as I'm interested in running Linux on my next mobile device, I'm not inclined to trust a single company to provide both the device and the OS. I have no reason to distrust Furi Labs, but trust is earned, not granted.
First of all, why is there so little documentation about "FuriOS"? What exactly has Furi Labs changed from the base Debian system to warrant a rebadging? Why can't I know which software it's using? Why are there so few screenshots and videos of the device (besides from the "volunteered" reviews)?
I understand that selling hardware is how they recoup their development costs, and focusing on a single device allows them to deliver a better user experience. But I would still like to try their OS on a device I may already have, before I decide to shell out $550 for, frankly, pretty lackluster hardware.
Interesting since Apple and Goog both ship their OS on their hardware.
It's Debian with Phosh and Halium (Android drivers) installed to an older ubiquitous Android handset. Not perfect but a compelling shortcut. Distros have been created with less differentiation.
First Linux phone in a while that is not a decade behind hardware wise. This one is only perhaps half that, haha. My iPhone 6s is still snappy however, so it should be fine.
It may be possible to install Ubuntu Touch or Droidian on it...?
The website is down from all the visitors at the moment.
Anyone here can share their experience with the phone?
Happy it has multi-boot. Not a buyer, but it's a feature I intend to keep my eye on.
Is Furi supposed to be pronounced like fury or furry?
> Furi is pronounced “Fury”. FuriOS is pronounced “Furious”. We simply couldn’t afford the Fury part of the domain names.
https://furilabs.com/faq/
Although it makes me think of pronouncing like FLCL.
Personally, I'd rather to buy a Google Pixel and then install GrepheneOS. But, it depends on your budget and willingness to sacrifice features.
Why Ubuntu touch, it was discontinued right?
You're partially correct. Ubuntu Touch was discontinued by Canonical (the company behind Ubuntu) in April 2017.
However, Ubuntu Touch was picked up by the UBports project (that by now has their own foundation) and has been continued to this day. Currently they are preparing a Ubuntu Touch release based on Ubuntu 24.04 (moving on from Ubuntu 20.04). See https://www.ubuntu-touch.io/ for more.
Regarding the FLX1(s): FuriLabs worked on a way to support Ubuntu Touch apps (that can be found at https://open-store.io/) natively on FuriOS. It's also possible to boot Ubuntu Touch on their FLX1 hardware.
It says "The FLX1s from Furi Labs runs a fully optimized Linux system called FuriOS", never heard of FuriOS but seems they're not using Ubuntu Touch, at the very most it's a fork of it.
It is not. It is unrelated except that they have a shared ancestor in Debian.
my bad I got confused by this in their website >Multi-Boot Ubuntu Touch, other OS and KVM virtualization
It looks pretty good! If they come out with one that includes a headphone jack I'll be sold
I need a head phone jack too, but I guess using a USB-C to 3.5 mm Headphone Jack Adapter is way cheaper and simpler than engineering a brand new Linux phone that caters exactly to everyone's preferences : )
The previous model had a headphone jack, and a better spec or two.
That industrial design sure looks familiar...
Furi is such a dreadful name
Hug of death :(
how does that happen btw? like it's understandable when a website is hosted on a vape (lol), but even a cheap vps should be able to handle like 10-20k views in the span of a couple hours (which is the max load from HN i'm assuming), unless you're hosting video or some such
It depends! You can make a website with a static text file or you can make a video run as the background. There are more ways to mess it up than to get it right, actually.
> how does that happen btw?
People write their sites in slow languages "because it's I/O bound anyway" and put content which could easily be static in a DB.
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Serve even statical pages with direct DB access on every hit, using some slow and bloated JS/Python backend, and voila.
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Static sites are not that popular, generally speaking.
Anyone competent can put a static site up on CF pages or even a lame VPS and serve huge amounts of traffic just fine. That’s not what they do.
One of my things was briefly on the front page, I got ~15k views in about 10 minutes. That was a few years ago, might be different now.
It's a WordPress site.
https://web.archive.org/web/20250920113525/https://furilabs....
Actually useful archive link: https://web.archive.org/web/20250920071806/https://furilabs....
> The FLX1s from Furi Labs runs a fully optimized Linux system called FuriOS, packing a lightning fast user interface, 3 hardware switches for microphone, camera and modem/gps, and a privacy centric approach like no other.
Seems to be working fine.
https://furilabs.com/shop/flx1s
"Error establishing a database connection"
So it only works fine if you don't care what a FLX1s is.
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Another expensive phone... sorry but the price is 3x of my phone which has 6Gb RAM (compared to 8 Gb here) and the same number of cores, maybe less performant but who cares, I am not planning to do machine learning on a phone anyway. Also mine has better screen resolution despite lower price.
Yes the firmware is non-free, but I have kernel sources so I can either try to port a open-source OS on it, or simply reverse-engineer and patch the existing firmware.
Also I am not sure if Linux desktop environment (Wayland, Pipewire and friends) is a good choice. Why not use AOSP, which is free, has everything, is optimized, has lot of f-droid apps and is tested on millions of devices? It has modern languages like Kotlin, and GUI frameworks like Flutter. And are there mobile apps for standard Linux desktop?
> Whether used for coding, ... designing, or multitasking with everyday apps, our device delivers the performance
Sorry, I don't think small screen with tiny keyboard is any good for coding or design. Smartphone is only good for taking/watching photos, reading or chatting.
Modern(ish) languages like Rust, Python, and Kotlin support Linux. Flutter as well.
ssh also exists, for development and other things.
There is a difference between a programming language support and having complete GUI framework, set of libraries and applications. Also what would you use to write GUI for Linux? Non-reactive libraries are not an option due to being outdated and inefficient programming style.
It is one thing if AOSP has some fundamental issues that cannot be patched/fixed, and another thing if someone just doesn't like it.
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