Mine has been collecting dust. The signal is so bad, even on Wi-Fi, it’s nearly useless. I’d feel guilty selling it. And i paid around $800 USD…
The keyboard’s the star here, and it has all the important keys for terminal use (though it’s a little too wide for my hands, I’d prefer a 4 or 5 inch screen version)
Aside from the keyboard it is like a 2018 era generic Chinese android phone with no support or updates.
Physically I feel the balance of the phone is a bit top heavy, with the curves it’s very slippery to hold onto especially using while lying in bed etc.
Sadly the phone’s mother (fxtec) died in childbirth, so to speak. And the whole “XDA phone” thing was a dud, XDA was a ghost town by the time this thing was in our hands.
Big thanks to the guy keeping lineage working on it!
Even using Wi-Fi in my house, it constantly drops connections. I was hoping to use it to basically VNC to my desktop but it is so slow and disconnects constantly. There’s some speculation that some of the antennas were not soldered properly or something like that.
Mine also has large black dead spots in the bottom corners of the screen, seems like it was over tightened during manufacturing. Maybe that’s also what broke the antenna!
it’s mostly fixed now, after convincing fxtec to send me a new USB board, but in the time it took to do that, I’ve moved on to a flippy razr phone. for now, single handed use beats having the keyboard for me
Being super clumsy I dropped mine shortly after receiving it which smashed the screen. I pre-ordered mine and due to it being a brand new and relatively obscure device there weren’t any cases or screen protectors available.
To be honest though I was considering abandoning it not long after getting it anyway. I ordered one with Ubuntu Touch. They hadn’t finalised the Ubuntu Touch support so I received it with Android installed with a promise that instructions to flash Ubuntu Touch to it would materialise soon, don’t know if they ever did. IIRC the Android version on there was vanilla AOSP and there wasn’t much integration work done for the physical keyboard. The keyboard is mainly what I bought the phone for and whilst it worked OK hardware wise a keyboard of this size is nowhere near as efficient as an on screen one.
Must be nice. I bought mine 5 years ago and apparently will never receive it. $700 - poof! $700 gone forever. At this point, it’d be good for a paperweight.
Keyboard looks a lot like the one on my now defunct HTC Desire Z, my last physical QWERTY phone… And I miss it too much…Happy to see something like that again! 2011 memories
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Mine has been collecting dust. The signal is so bad, even on Wi-Fi, it’s nearly useless. I’d feel guilty selling it. And i paid around $800 USD…
The keyboard’s the star here, and it has all the important keys for terminal use (though it’s a little too wide for my hands, I’d prefer a 4 or 5 inch screen version)
Aside from the keyboard it is like a 2018 era generic Chinese android phone with no support or updates.
Physically I feel the balance of the phone is a bit top heavy, with the curves it’s very slippery to hold onto especially using while lying in bed etc.
Sadly the phone’s mother (fxtec) died in childbirth, so to speak. And the whole “XDA phone” thing was a dud, XDA was a ghost town by the time this thing was in our hands.
Big thanks to the guy keeping lineage working on it!
Yeah, I heard that many units have antenna issue. Before buying I asked the seller to test it for me. My unit was unaffected by the issue.
Yeah, the situation with the company is not great.
There actually 4 maintainers for this device! It was a surprise for me. Usually it’s 1 guy.
Nice! I’m jealous.
Even using Wi-Fi in my house, it constantly drops connections. I was hoping to use it to basically VNC to my desktop but it is so slow and disconnects constantly. There’s some speculation that some of the antennas were not soldered properly or something like that.
Mine also has large black dead spots in the bottom corners of the screen, seems like it was over tightened during manufacturing. Maybe that’s also what broke the antenna!
That’s sad 😢
I heard that the antenna issue can be fixed manually, but it’s not an easy fix.
I remember Droid 2. My first smartphone. Back on ol Android Froyo.
I loved mine while it worked and it’s quite tragic that we’re unlikely to see another one. f(x)tec, the company, doesn’t have a great record.
True 😥 Did you broke yours?
it’s mostly fixed now, after convincing fxtec to send me a new USB board, but in the time it took to do that, I’ve moved on to a flippy razr phone. for now, single handed use beats having the keyboard for me
Being super clumsy I dropped mine shortly after receiving it which smashed the screen. I pre-ordered mine and due to it being a brand new and relatively obscure device there weren’t any cases or screen protectors available.
To be honest though I was considering abandoning it not long after getting it anyway. I ordered one with Ubuntu Touch. They hadn’t finalised the Ubuntu Touch support so I received it with Android installed with a promise that instructions to flash Ubuntu Touch to it would materialise soon, don’t know if they ever did. IIRC the Android version on there was vanilla AOSP and there wasn’t much integration work done for the physical keyboard. The keyboard is mainly what I bought the phone for and whilst it worked OK hardware wise a keyboard of this size is nowhere near as efficient as an on screen one.
for what it’s worth, the screens are very easy to replace and readily available on AliExpress ( search for elephone u screen replacement )
Must be nice. I bought mine 5 years ago and apparently will never receive it. $700 - poof! $700 gone forever. At this point, it’d be good for a paperweight.
This is weird. I saw an announcement on Discord that they finished shipping all devices in November 2024.
Cool. We need more phones like this
Planet Computers seems like a good option for people wanting devices like this
I considered their Astra or Communicator, but they don’t support LineageOS, which is important to me.
I’d love one running an ARM build of Fedora or something
You can run Droidian, which is galium-based (special Android compatibility layer to talk to hardware).
Running on mainline is also possible, but the support is not great. Here is the PMOS page.
Sweet!
I’m always jealous of EN-ANSI keyboard users who get neat devices like these in their native keyboard layout.
I don’t think I’ve had one in my choice of keyboard layout since the Nokia e70… 20 years ago.
I’ve always wanted this phone but it was too expensive lol. Congrats!
Are they finally shipping them? They announced that phone like 647 years ago.
Yes, this managed to ship all devices in November 2024.
Keyboard looks a lot like the one on my now defunct HTC Desire Z, my last physical QWERTY phone… And I miss it too much…Happy to see something like that again! 2011 memories
I keep mine in a closet with other things I’m too attached to throw out.
Me too, it’s with his friends Blue Angel, Jas Jar, Diamond and the good old Nokia 6600
Man I’ve been eyeing that one for years, I just can’t quite justify the flagship price for the specs :/
Let us know how you like it!
Same. But recently I managed to buy almost new for 300 EUR.
I only recently started using it, so maybe later I will make a post about it :)
Oh maybe i should look for a used one! It would make a decent mobian device I think (
though it’s a little low on RAM8Gb would be amazing)Try looking at their unofficial Discord server. It’s usually cheaper then on eBay. But ask to test the antenna, some units have issues with that.
Omg that looks awesome!
Bummer that they’re out of stock…
Yeah…
I wish companies produce more phones like this.
Photon Q…. Haven’t heard that in a while but I remember wanting it so bad.
I’m jealous. I always love a good phone with a keyboard. Wish we could get more of these back in style.