Ask HN: All I want for Christmas is a Linux phone • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: All I want for Christmas is a Linux phone

#11

Post by rchaud » Fri, Nov 23, 2018, 8:04 PM UTC

jamieweb wrote: post #9

I bought a Meizu MX4 Ubuntu Phone in 2015 for €300. This was quite early on in the development of Ubuntu Touch, and overall it was pretty good. The operating system was pretty solid, and I really liked the lock screen design and pull-out Unity sidebar. It was fast and sleek, but didn't quite yet have the polish of something like iOS - which of course is to be expected for something early in development. As usual with…

How is the battery life now? I'm considering buying a used one online if I can find it and trying out the Ubuntu builds available now.

Also, did Ubuntu come as the default OS, or was it an Android phone onto which you installed Ubuntu?

Re: Ask HN: All I want for Christmas is a Linux phone

#12

Post by jamieweb » Sat, Nov 24, 2018, 3:09 AM UTC

rchaud wrote: post #11

jamieweb wrote: post #9

I bought a Meizu MX4 Ubuntu Phone in 2015 for €300. This was quite early on in the development of Ubuntu Touch, and overall it was pretty good. The operating system was pretty solid, and I really liked the lock screen design and pull-out Unity sidebar. It was fast and sleek, but didn't quite yet have the polish of something like iOS - which of course is to be expected for something early in development. As usual with…

How is the battery life now? I'm considering buying a used one online if I can find it and trying out the Ubuntu builds available now. Also, did Ubuntu come as the default OS, or was it an Android phone onto which you installed Ubuntu?

The battery life is still good, although I switched to a different phone in early 2017 and have only used the Meizu as a secondary handset since then.

It came with Ubuntu pre-installed. I believe that the pre-installed Ubuntu ones have an unlocked bootloader, so you can put whatever you want on it as long as it's compatible. I know that a few people got CyanogenMod working.

I currently have Android Flyme on it, which is the standard Meizu OS that comes with the normal version of the phone. It's really good, but I would say lacking in security. I use it as a 'dirty' phone, for connecting to public Wi-Fi and insecure stuff like that, so I don't have anything confidential or important on there, and I never sign-in to things in the browser or apps.

Re: Ask HN: All I want for Christmas is a Linux phone

#13

Post by dman » Sat, Nov 24, 2018, 3:12 AM UTC

caymanjim wrote: post #8

vhodges wrote: post #7

Not for Christmas, but https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/ is coming next year.

They can't even make a simple website that renders properly. Not promising.

People who make great websites cant make phones that run linux either :)