Someone should do a Linux phone that scales
way back:
1. you can dial phone numbers somehow
2. you can talk on the phone
3. you can hear the person on the other line
4. the cell reception on the phone is decent quality
5. antenna is properly placed for very good reception
6. basic SMS works, all the time
7. has been extensively tested to work with a single carrier, any other carrier is no warranty
8. boot time and shutdown time are so small that it opportunistically shuts down instead of suspend
9. bonus goal: contacts, can maybe play snake
Librem 5 fails #5 and #8 (and can't really succeed at #8 unless you just drop into a command line, but then you wouldn't be able to input phone numbers). I've read some reports that #1, #2, and #3 have improved enough to be usable. On #7, they offer a bundle with a simcard for a carrier that was tested with the phone. (Doubt it was extensively tested, though.)
Of the little I've read about Pinephone and Pinephone Pro, they've had problems with #3, #6, and #7, and #8.
Overall, however, both appear as a smartphone complete with messaging and browsers. But Librem 5 can't do hardware acceleration for Firefox ESR (because the etnaviv driver doesn't have recent enough OpenGL features for webrender to work).
Pinephone is too slow to browse.
I'm not sure about Pinephone Pro (though I'd be quite surprised if it passes the Firefox webrender tests).
I'd much prefer a much more basic device that gets all the basics right, and then be pleasantly surprised that I can play mp3s on it, too.