Which phone ?
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Hi,
I'm in the process of choosing a phone. Which one is "the best choice" today ?
I'm thinking about the Volla 22".Any advice ?
Regard,
Nicolas -
@drpi The term 'best choice' will never be appropriate. Each has its strengths and weaknesses. We are in a transitional period to move to ubuntu 20.04 and the development is really complicated and full of pitfalls. It all depends on how each smartphone will be updated. Choose a recent smartphone. The Volla 22 as well as the fairphone 4 could be good choices.
See https://devices.ubuntu-touch.io/
The advantage of the basic flashed Volla 22 with Volla OS (which is a powerful OS) is that you can already install two other OSes on the SD card (UT, Sailfish OS) and switch from one OS to the other. The basic flashed Volla 22 with UT does not currently support multibooting. See indiegogo
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@drpi you may take a look here: https://forums.ubports.com/search?term=best phone&in=titles
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@drpi If you're from Europe, Volla 22, Shiftphone and Fairphone 4 seems to be the good choices however I don't think any of those have a stable port yet, meaning a Stable channel for OTA updates. They may be daily drivable alreayd though depending on your use case.
I can only vouch for the Fairphone 4 and I can say that it's a very solid device and UT runs smoothly on it. -
@drpi Few UT phones have every feature fully working, so the best phone is whatever suits your requirements most completely, because only you know what features are essential to you and what can be sacrificed.
In other words whatever phone is best for you may be the worst phone for somebody else. Furthermore what is best today may not be so in a few months time when UT changes to 20.04 base.
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Thanks all for your answers.
Of course there's no ideal phone.I thought about the Volla 22 since it seems there is hard work from the vendor to make UT has good as possible on this device.
I admit I'd prefer a Fairphone 4 since it is more "future proof" (because of the repairability). But it is much more expensive and I don't know if UT is/will be well supported on it.
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@drpi The plan is that the FP4 becomes available for sale with UT preinstalled, if that helps.
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@lakotaubp That's interesting but I think I'll make my choice before this happens :winking_face:
Anyway, thanks for letting me know. -
@drpi
Before that comes in fairphone shop you still can purchase, pristine or not, a fairphone 4 and install UT on it, fairphone 4 already has a good UT port for it wich will be soon quite perfect ^^ -
@keneda I might take advantage of Black Friday prices to buy a Fairphone 4 and install UT on it myself.
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@drpi said in Which phone ?:
take advantage of Black Friday prices to buy a Fairphone 4
If you find an extraordinary promotion, do not hesitate to share the web link..
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To throw a spanner in the works, a Pinephone, Fairphone and Volla phone are expensive compared to a new 5G Android phone, let a lone a second hand device. You need to weigh up what UT is to you and how you are going to use it for the cost outlay. Developing on it would make it really worth it, but as a daily driver there are cheaper alternatives (case in point, I have bought Motorola Moto G XT1032 for less than £10(UK) that runs e/O/S, Motorola G4 Plus £32 that runs Sailfish OS (Jolla), Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 £60 that runs UT and is now running 20.04). I would get a Fairphone if it was economically viable to do and also gave me enough to use it as a fully working daily driver.
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@domubpkm Is saving 50€ extraordinary ? Probably not. But it is still 50€.
Many French online shops sell the FP4 at 529€/599€ depending on the configuration. -
@mrt10001 I want a UT phone. I currently use a Pinephone but it is hardly usable as a daily driver. And I don't see a brilliant future for this phone. I more and more believe the hardware is badly designed. Maybe I'm wrong. If this device becomes usable, I'll have a spare phone in my drawer. But for now, I need a device which just works.
I like the Fairphone philosophy . Yes it is an expensive phone considering its technical characteristics. But it is repairable and (supposedly) fabricated with another spirit (compared to other manufacturers). I'm sensible to these arguments.
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@drpi
Yes Fairphone is acting in a completly different way, and scale, than other sellers.
Doing so, they can't sale their phones at the cheap price others do. -
@drpi To make myself a bit clearer as the aim is for the FP4 isto be available preinstalled and sold that way it will be getting a lot of support. There is already a version of 20.04 available to try, and 16.04 has devel and RC update channels available now. I use it as my DD already. There is still some polishing to do but it already works very well so would make a good choice if the price is not an issue of course.
If not a new device the OP5/5T now have 20.04 support available a nd the Pixel 3a is also looking good. -
@drpi As others have pointed out, for a cheap alternative, look at the Google Pixel 3a (bad battery life), Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 (supported for 20.04, but unlocking the bootloader is meddlesome) and the Oneplus 5/5T.
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@lakotaubp Not clear enough yet
Fairphone 4 with UT preinstalled sold by whom? when will the product be available? Will the preinstalled ubuntu version be identical to a homemade flash? In short, this deserves more clarification (if you know ). -
Does anyone have a comparison between FF4 and the Volla Phone?
I do have a Volla Phone, but I find the performance to be rather disappointing (of course this is personal perception/preference). I see that the FF4 has a mid class CPU, but no OLED. How is performance and display quality compared to the Volla Phone?
I am quite excited by the FF4 and love the concept, and I’m happy that it will be so well supported, but I am more of a sensible person in regards to responsiveness and performance (coming from an iPhone 11 pro where everything (including the gallery of 5k photos) opens and happens instantly). I am trying to get as close as I can, so I am also looking into the OP7 direction (since a port is being worked on), or the S10 which should also be quite powerful.
Not yet using UT as daily driver, but I want to in the future.
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@s710 If your Volla is a Vollaphone 22, I can give you a rough performance comparison.
