Is One Plus One still a good device for Ubuntu Touch in 2021?

deutch1976 · 14 May 2021, 11:14

Hi there. I am considering to get a One Plus One and install Ubuntu Touch on it. Is it still worth it for a good UT experience? Thanks

Lakotaubp · 14 May 2021, 11:47

@deutch1976 It worked well for me the other week on the new halium dev https://forums.ubports.com/topic/6012/halium-7-1-test-channel/57 and many do still use it and it is reliable. It is getting on now so maybe look at a newer device if you can. The OP 3/3T works well now and the OP 5/5T will be on the installer shortly https://forums.ubports.com/category/53/oneplus-5-5t

deutch1976 · 14 May 2021, 11:54

@lakotaubp it is just for some tinkering. I have a chance to get one for 35€ or trade for another phone

Lakotaubp · 14 May 2021, 12:16

@deutch1976 Then go for it and install the halium dev update channel. That will give you a fully working camera and might be more fun and help for tinkering. Enjoy

deutch1976 · 14 May 2021, 12:53

@lakotaubp thanks. I have a brief experience with Ubunt on a BQ 4.5 . I am more used to tinker with Sailfish OS but Ubuntu seems cool too. Loved Linux on Dex where i could use Ubuntu on a desktop environment

Moem · 14 May 2021, 17:22

@deutch1976 It's possibly the most completely supported device. It's a really good device in itself and there is no reason I can think of to prefer a newer phone. You can even replace the battery if need be.

Lakotaubp · 14 May 2021, 19:21

@moem Must admit I have no intention of getting rid of mine anytime soon.

odo · 16 May 2021, 12:09

@deutch1976 In my experience the video performance is a bit weak compared to newer phones. I'd recommend a newer device if watching videos on YT, news channels etc. is important. Besides this you can't go wrong with the OPO.

deutch1976 · 17 May 2021, 09:28

@odo managed to get the phone from a trade. Took some time but was able to install Ubuntu Touch on it. Youtube videos run very smoothly. Some apps crash but it is being nice to use

flohack · 17 May 2021, 10:39

@odo Just saying the performance would be fine if we would have real hardware decoding in Ubuntu Touch. Until that is solved all YouTube decoding runs on the main CPU. And that of course wastes battery and creates lags...

Keneda · 17 May 2021, 10:50

@flohack
How can we know wich device has hardware decoding (and if "real" on not lol) ?

"Until that is solved"
What is the problem to solve this "issue" ? (just a question ^^)

I noticed that on MX4, although it's a device listed as having hardware acceleration enabled, when in 3G even if i see video (youtube) is loaded in advance, it freezes often, but if i switch on 4G, same video, i can play it quite smoothly, is that because video encoding from youtube is more compressed with 3G bandwich ?

flohack · 17 May 2021, 11:42

@keneda none of the UT devices uses hardware decoding in the browser. Its a limitation of the QtWebEngine implementation that cannot access the Android decoding pipeline.

Videos in the media player App can use that, in contrast. So, ultimately we need once more (sigh) to "fork" QtWebEngine, inject our code, fix it until its fine and then try to upstream that to Qt. But, they are likely to reject it, it serves no value outside the UT space with the specifics of libhybris and all that magic to make this work.

We do want to prevent forking of projects since we are not able to maintain everything properly. But, I understand upstream projects questioning us if this is a thing that others can use except us. And I dont know if there will be a "Yes" to that answer.

flohack · 17 May 2021, 11:43

Also we should not forget that older hardware does not ahve decoding capabilities for the latest and greatest codecs from Google. So that devices might struggle even with Android on them to keep up. Thats the disdavantage of hardware decoding, it cant be updated.

Keneda · 17 May 2021, 12:03

@flohack Thanks for clarifying.

And i believe MX4 hardware is still capable of lot of things ^^

Utouch is very usable on it, and video still stay playable in Morph (4G), also i noticed on UBdious video playback runs better than on Morph (in 3G).

odo · 17 May 2021, 13:06

@flohack Interesting point. I will keep my OPO as a 2nd device.

odo · 6 Aug 2021, 17:33

Surprise. Some weeks ago I switched to helium devel channel because of the camera problems. With OTA 17 this was fixed, and today I decided to go back to stable (after many updates on hd). Watching a video on YT I realized that the phone performed much better than on hd. No lags at all. What a difference, I did not expect this.
2nd phone? I'm not sure, perhaps the OPO becomes my main device now. To answer the headline question: A very good device in 2021!

deutch1976 · 14 Sept 2021, 14:02

Hi there. There is a strange bug that is happening to me. Everytime there is an update i loose the ability to connect my One Plus to my computer. It does not recognize it

AppLee · 14 Sept 2021, 14:06

Hi @deutch1976

It's better to create a new thread for your issue as I think the OP already got their answer.

Thanks.