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The new Aquaris E5 HD Ubuntu Edition is now available to preorder

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46 pointsreddotX32 comments

Sorry to crash the party, but i just flashed Android onto my E4.5 Ubuntu edition this weekend, following a month of sheer frustration.

While the UX concept is really nice everything else feels pre-alpha and should definitely not be sold as a commercial product yet. There's so much lacking (You want to import SIM contacts? Sorry, but maybe in a few releases.), Ubuntu Phone is just not ready for use as an everyday phone.

If you want to get this phone, expect around 5 crashes and 5 additional reboots a day (unfortunately it will also really crash while being on the phone). I'm saying this as a not too heavy user.

I really hope things improve and I can switch back in a year or so, but right now going back to Android was the best thing I could do.

Phone updates: May - Import contacts from SIM (among other things)

https://insights.ubuntu.com/2015/05/29/phone-updates-may/

For a not-too-heavy user, the phone is fine as it is now. The system updates in April fixed the battery issues.

Cannot imagine what you have been doing to the phone to crash five times.

Interesting, the battery life and management was the only part where I thought it was really good. I never ever managed to drain it even on long days.

I did not do too much, Browser, GMail, Camera, Music. That's it. It crashed on unlocking quite often. I'd get a black screen and the small rotating logo would appear. After the OS was back again it needed a reboot as no app would start up again in this "recovered" state.

> You want to import SIM contacts?

In all honesty, I don't think this is very common nowadays. If you're migrating from something like a Nokia 1100, your contacts might be in your SIM, but most users are migrating from another smartphone in 2015, and smartphones don't store contacts in the SIM.

Android did it without complaining, iOS apparently does it. My SIM is still the same that I got in 2001. It's a pretty convenient location to store that stuff.

there is few of us who have contacts managed in this way...

You do understand that very few people still have a 14 year old SIM. Does that even support 3G?

To be completely honest, I was unaware the modern smartphones could save contacts to SIM rather than internal contacts db(I quickly looked at my phone and failed to find an option to save-to-SIM).

This is a very very edge case that most people will never use, so lack of support for it is quite acceptable. Mainstream features are what Ubuntu is probably targeting right now.

>You want to import SIM contacts

this feature comes with the next update

Once a ubuntu phone turns up that supports docking, as the original concept video shows, I'm all over it. Until then it's just a niche mobile OS with a restricted number of apps, and likely too many bugs.

I find it funny that it seems that Microsoft will actually deliver on this promise before Ubuntu gets a chance to.

There is a third bq phone with Ubuntu expected in 2015. That phone will be the convergence phone.

That device. Snappy Unity convergence in the pocket ! I will drop my BQ E4.5 for that !

To be honnest I have no idea if Microsoft Continium or any player will release something like that in 2015, any news ?

Microsoft's docking just runs the desktop UI of their universal apps, as far as I know. You won't get the full win32 desktop with the ability to run Visual Studio.

UI-wise it'll look similar to the average user, but it's a pretty different approach.

To be honest, as a Surface Pro 2 User, even with 8GB Ram in Phones becoming theoretically possible, i don't think i'd actually want to compromise any further down for my development environment ressourcewise.

I'm in the same boat. I picked up a bottom-model Surface Pro 3 during a startup liquidation and I'm pretty happy with it for VS2015, but I definitely agree that there's not much more "down" to go.

Agreed. I'm also on a SP3 (but the i5 version), and I wouldn't want to try doing serious work in a desktop environment on a cell phone processor.

Maybe things will change in a few years as ARM/Snapdragon/etc processors continue to improve and phones get more memory, but for the time being I think MS's approach to phones + large monitors is preferable.

Working on it. It will come pretty soon

Happy ubuntu phone user here (E4.5) will probably skip the E5 and wait for the next one if it's beefier in spec.

The only gripes I have with Ubuntu touch atm are:

1) Lack of USB or Bluetooth tethering 2) Lack of USB or Bluetooth tethering 3) Lack of USB or Bluetooth tethering 4) Lack of FDE

FDE == Full Disk Encryption?

Yep, it's coming soon(tm) according to Canonical

source Mark's AMA: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1j166z/hi_im_mark_shu...

you can have USB tethering but you have to install the terminal app :wink: for now http://i.imgur.com/KQZNl1v.jpg

Yep that works fine for my laptop. But I still need bluetooth tether for my android tablet. Sadly I still need that for essential apps (City Mapper, airline checkin apps, k9mail, chat secure)

Does it have wifi tethering?

Not yet

In my opinion, it's a race between FirefoxOS phones and Ubuntu phones as to who gets 4G first. I've been using FirefoxOS phones for a while (Open, Open C and now Flame) but I'm missing the 4G connection, and that may well be what tempts me away from FirefoxOS.

I'm using an Xperia Z3 Compact flashed with Firefox OS and can report that the 4G radios work perfectly. :)

Are there instructions for that device anywhere?

It's in the mainline B2G repo, so you should be able to follow the instructions at https://github.com/mozilla-b2g/b2g to get a build. Use `./configure.sh aries` to configure for the Z3C. Other supported devices include the Nexus 4 and Nexus 5.

https://github.com/mozilla-b2g/B2G/blob/47113646d3d1692a267c...

Nice, thanks. I knew the Nexus devices were supported, but I prefer smaller phones.

That's great news, thanks! You may well have just changed my summer.

The Meizu MX4 is expected to be released to Europe pretty soon. It has 4G. Obviously, it will be significantly more expensive than the E5.

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