@dos @lupyuen The CHIP also had a custom distro. NTC and the community did a lot towards the same goal. The Pinephone was impressive but the community behind it seemed to have many goals. There was supposed to be a BSD distro available too.

Having received the early released PocketCHIP and the first available Pinephone version, neither were a disappointment. The Pinephone was arguably the best Linux Phone in terms of hardware support and the community.

The hardware isn't very powerful and that's a fair point to make but it's about as open as possible. Perhaps it's not powerful enough now but it was always underpowered. The budget SoC from 2012 lasted in a Linux smartphone for about 4 years.

My point is that it is possible. A phone that could not play videos made Linux phones a reality.

@dos I just saw the Librem in you name. The Librem was the phone we secretly wanted too. The hardware in the Librem was not a SBC that got turned into a smartphone. When people broke their Pinephones, it was a sad sight to see. Doing that to a Librem would have been devastating.

The SoC in the Librem was much stronger and perhaps the device was better in many ways as a usable phone. The Pinephone was an accomplishment in many ways but I think it's safe to say that both helped pave the way for Linux smartphones.