Pinephone is a certainly a good bang for the buck, but the hardware is nothing special, and the killswitches are DIP (better than nothing, like Fairphone's current iterations). If you want a cheap solution, this one's the one to opt for. Especially a good option for people who live in (relatively) poorer countries/regions than US or North/West-Europe.
A lot of people in our world simply cannot afford a Fairphone. I can, and I applaud the project, so I went for it. I also applaud the other projects, and remember that perfect is the enemy of good. That a Librem 5 isn't going to be perfect in terms of security, is OK. Its their first iteration (and they had various iterations of it, which lead to considerable delays).
There's also some keyboard smartphones such as Planet Cosmo Communicator and Planet Astro Slide. And some other ones as well such as F(x)tec (which is a good successor to Nokia N900). These are also niche, specific, with their hardware keyboard (which include custom layout such as Dvorak). But they can run alternative OSes, by default. I believe that, for me, this (hardware keyboard smartphone) is going to be the ultimate usability dream, if the keys are large enough. I previously owned a Nokia E71 and Nokia N900, before touch typing became the status quo.
> [...] I recently read a interview by the former CTO that confirms it [...]
I also backed Astro Slide (and own a Cosmo Communicator), and am disappointed with their hardware downgrade from Dimensity 1000 to 800. I hate it when promises are not kept. But it happens. As mentioned I owned a Nokia N900 previously, but I wasn't fond of the keyboard, so I hope Astro Slide's going to be better. And, given its like the Cosmo Communicator (which I am used to), I am confident it will be. The big disadvantage of Planet devices is their slow updates, and being reliant on Mediatek (MTK) which means EOL soon.
With regards to hardware keyboard I read Pinephone is planning such as well, which is great news because its otherwise such an affordable smartphone. Pine64 sells a lot of other cool FOSS stuff such as Pinecil and Pine Camera.