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Comment by dmix | Hacker News Reader

You can't complain about availability of phones (or any electronics) while being in the US. Try living anywhere else like Canada.

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Or Australia. I end up importing phones here and missing out on some features our shitty telcos don't provide unless you have a white listed phone

In the US your phone has to be on the whitelist to even get service these days. They're using VoLTE as an excuse to lock the networks down again.

Not for T-Mobile, at least not yet.

I can and will complain when the "abundance of choice" here is overwhelmingly geared toward ad delivery rather than actual long-term ownership and usefulness.

We have decent variety in the US, but I think it's fair to want phones for specific purposes that aren't generally served here. The more repairable phones are hard to come by, and as someone who likes trying alternative OSes the phones that seem best served by e.g. Ubuntu Touch (Volla Phone and Fairphone) aren't available.

There are plenty devices that work well with UT and are available in the US, e.g Google Pixel 3a/3a XL. Mentioned devices still have an Android Kernel and many limitations. Waydroid on the Volla phone isn't stable, Ubports itself mediocre compared to SailfishOS and suffers from competing for developer time over other Linux on Mobile OSses.

You're overestimating the Volla phone and Fairphone, 1st one still doesn't support VoLTE which I heard is essential in the US, 2nd thing isn't even recommended by UT.[1]

Either go with an Xperia + SailfishOS [2] if you want more than a toy or Pinephone + PmOs [3] if you love to tinker on your daily driver. Both have VoLTE support.

1. https://devices.ubuntu-touch.io/

2. https://shop.jolla.com/

3. https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/PINE64_PinePhone_(pine64-...

> 2nd one isn't even recommended by UT.

FP2 is the second device on the "promoted" devices page. That feels like a recommendation?

https://ubports.com/supported-products

> Google Pixel 3a/3a XL.

Doesn't support one of the most interesting features to me in UBports, which is display output for convergence.

> FP2 is the second device on the "promoted" devices page. That feels like a recommendation?

The FP2 is a very old device lacking some features and probably got recommendation back then because other devices were worse. https://devices.ubuntu-touch.io/device/fp2 Otherwise I'd also could have recommended the Nexus5.

On FOSDEM 2023 Ubports developers didn't show off this old phone, either.

Actually, you can.

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