Fairphone 4 with PostmarketOS?
this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2025
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Linux Phones
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That's a lot of hardware for a $300 device. These phones generally won't be subsidized by app stores or carriers and even larger companies have trouble hitting that price point right now. I can see the appeal for SD card storage, but it's much slower and less reliable than emmc. E-ink isn't really ready for everyday phone usage, it's refresh rate just isn't fast enough. I have a color reader and it's great for reading, but you could never do anything like watch a video. I think software is way more important right now than bespoke hardware. What OS are you going to run on it? What GUI? Where are you going to get Linux apps made for a phone screen?
I agree with you about e-ink being at early stages, but why do you think it's a lot for 300$? beside ram and a processor that can support video output (so it possible to consider the same of the first Samsung Dex) it an hw of 2020, not even the best one, 300$ was in fact for the idea to support the cost of sw, I mean I was talking about hw of 5yr ago with 1 front and 1 back camera
Mobile SOCs are expensive, and there aren't many around that support non-android OS fully. Mobile SOC vendors aren't in the business of keeping 5 year old chips around just in case a hobby project needs some. The lower end chips don't generally come with video out features. These might all be hurdles that are solvable, but the design expertise for a decent handset isn't cheap. Other hardware vendors can get away with selling cheap phones because they will have larger scale orders and they can make money back by preloading crappy apps. A Linux phone isn't going to have huge volumes of sales, at least at first. And it's not going to sell if it's full of crapware. This issue is just way harder than it seems on the outside, even well known SBC vendors like pine64 struggle and they have a lot of SOC experience at this point. All of this is also glossing over the fact that there isn't a great Linux phone OS that is daily driver ready. I think it would be better to find something mid end that already exists and spend the effort getting the software to a better state.
yes, for sure you are right...my was a long shot...😁...but duopoly is a shit and I just have the sensation that there are a lot of different projects (from sw and hw to rebranding o creating new things) that maybe is better to merge and do something more significant.. don't know maybe still dreams
Dreams are fine, it's cool to imagine what a device that hits the perfect balance for yourself would be. But I've been following this topic for a long time and I'm more of a realist about it at this point. New devices are fun, but they rarely push the mobile Linux ecosystem anywhere. I think things like PostmarketOS having extra funding to get audio improvements in a great sign, I think a lot of projects are really close to being ready for more than just devs and tinkering. I'm sure these projects need help with translation or documentation if anybody can find the time.
Biggest issue is that Qualcomm, Mediatek and anx others don't use mainline kernels. They all have their ancient forks with garbage code stapled on to run Android. That means you're either using that ancient code through a translation layer (Halium + libhybris, used in UB Touch, Droidian) or try and write drivers that can be merged upstream (postmarketOS).
RISC-V doesn't have any CPUs with similar performance to ARM, still work in progress and not guarantee the manufacturers will care any more about mainline Linux.
yeah, processor and sw are the reason why the title was a dream...😄...I was talking about risc-v hoping for a new contender in the market, I mean, considering the future scenario, performances, are something Foss communities can go by for few years
I can’t use banking apps on postmarket os so I won’t try anything new even though I can keep my old phone as a spare and continue to use the apps for 3 extra years with a physical authenticator after official support is dropped for my model.
Whelp Linux aren’t perfect better go back to the duopoly 🤪
Their websites work fine on mobile.