While Sailfish, Nemo Mobile and Sxmo manage to feel somewhat smooth, slow storage and meager AllWinner A64 memory bandwith are what make the PinePhone feel like that.

I found postmarketOS and DanctNIX Sxmo and Phosh good enough to be bearable (it helps that I am used to slow systems thanks to being exposed to terribly slow business software at my day job).