So, as everyone not under a rock knows, Android being an open and fully enjoyed experience may soon come to an end.
it may not! I don't really know. What I do know, is that regardless of the times we live in, I like to screw around with stuff, so I went on ebay and bought a Oneplus 6T to do just that.
edit: American, Tello. Unlocked International firmware
I'm using PostmarketOS on Phosh. I was using Plasma Mobile and found it functionally close to vanilla Android, just chaotically buggy and wrong.
Phosh is Librem's DE and is fairly solid, in my experience thusfar, the featureset is limited but utilitarian and it looks ok.
My scenario is simple. I want to schism my personal, federated and foss goings on off of my Android phone, leaving it a vehicle for four things, calls, messages, gps, and a hotspot and use this device as a tiny device for those personal things.
carry two phones?!
My situation is that I can make calls, but I can't receive them. The mobile settings are rather simple in the gui so I'll be using a terminal for all of the mms settings if I want that, but that doesn't solve my speaker crackle issues or connection problems. I had success with xmpp using dino between the protocol and jmp, but my limits with jmp.chat for those calls are more limiting than my normal isp, not that I make that many. If everyone I knew used xmpp, it would be a great phone lol.
I also need to reliably make and recieve calls, I have a few responsibilities that make it so not getting a call could potentially be a fatal situation, so for now, at least, I can't rely on the OP6T for cellular use.
This is a problem with my hardware. If you want to go drop the cash on a linux phone for the full support, by all means. It may be my solution in a few years but buddy, this was $140 on ebay lol.
Oh and the camera works, barely, but the zoom is broken, again, likely not a problem you'd have on a retail linux phone.
So how is it as a... palmtop?
Fucking, brilliant. Firefox? Full. Wanna run a server in the background? Do it. Want Linux software? Lol, any. Vlc? Yep. Jellyfin? Yeeep. If it's a webapp, it works. Ebooks? Duh. Music? Yep. Bluetooth? You bet.
The biggest limitation youll have with software isn't finding and running it, but finding apps designed to be horizontal or have hidden tabs rather than permanent frames.
This makes thunderbird entirely unusable, as well as keepassxc. Luckily, there are a few apps for every horizontal one to find as an alternative. I found secrets for keepass and geary for email, both decent vertical clients.
There is also no separarion between your pin and your password. They are the same thing. On a laptop, this is whatever. You're used to using your password everywhere. On a phone with no fingerprint reader? I had to get clever with it and come up with something I could one-hand on a keyboard but still be a decent, memorable password.
The hardware space for these sorts of solutions has a few choices. There are some used gpd win devices out there that run Linux, but as outlandish as carrying two phones sounds, it's easier than carrying any extra laptop, micro or not.
So for that reason, I find these to be extremely capable choices for those looking for software freedom and utility, but I do not see it as a replacement for a phone. For a laptop or a cyberdeck for the sake of privacy? Absolutely.
IF you had a functional camera and network?
then... maybe? For me, if it's reliable then it's a likely yes, but as-is right now, no.