To reiterate, what I want out of a phone:

- Headphone jack
- Square corners on screen, no rounded edges
- No holes in screen
- Smol like my hands
- Ability to install and distribute my own software
- Ability to turn off anything that bugs me
- Ability, when reading ebooks, to silence visual "noise" like clocks or navbars
- I want to neither monetarily nor in platform political power support a company that sells "AI"-branded features as part of their business activities

https://mstdn.social/@bit101/114654781011903274

Heard the phone company was selling some new phones so just wanted to re-up this thought

@mcc tim 'queer traitor' cook will fight you over it

@dysfun I forgot to mention "I do not want me or my loved ones to be abducted to a government work camp because of our gender identity". I keep forgetting that's a thing you need to specify when selecting mobile computing devices

@mcc

Pinephone?

@claudegohier I hear their quality control is kind of poor :( Maybe someday MNT will make a phonelike device.

@mcc remember when phones had user replaceable batteries?

@dragonfrog I do, but the only phones with user replaceable batteries I ever owned were devices categorically different than the objects we today call "phones"

@mcc the real reason I'm so resistant to mandatory two factor authentication requiring an app, is because I'm committed that my next phone will be a Nokia 1110.

I'm entirely serious. I suspect I can't because of work forces me to use apps, but I can dream.

@Bigshellevent Passkey support in a nokia dumbphone might be possible actually. Does it have a camera

I wish the passkey folks hadn't decided every device that holds passkeys needs to have bluetooth and a camera

@dragonfrog @mcc I remember when phones didn't have batteries and all the power to run them was included by the phone company.

@johnefrancis @dragonfrog this is not the same type of device as what we today call a "phone"!

@mcc @dragonfrog I suppose calling today's mobile devices phones is aspirational.

@johnefrancis @dragonfrog So the thing is a big purpose of a computer is to allow me to avoid talking with my voice. So when computers replaced phones (allowing me to type to people rather than speaking to them) this was a big step forward. Now phones are becoming more phonelike again in the sense that you speak to them to control them, and to me this is a step backward.

@mcc This all sounds good to me. One thing I sometimes think about, related to this, is: ability to not have a camera pointed at my face and my surroundings at all times, and ability to know my mic is not active.

@mcc @Bigshellevent but the spec doesn't actually require that, so if you can get the Nokia to act as a usb authenticator it might be doable. I would actually like to see someone do that (but cannot volunteer)

@mcc @Bigshellevent like it’d be pretty wild if one could get a nokia to run something like https://github.com/solokeys/solo1 and just present as a FIDO2 key with resident key slots.

@cthos @Bigshellevent This would be as a USB device?

@mcc @Bigshellevent

Yeah, so just using the phone as a device-bound key over the USB transport. Instead of something like a yubikey or physical solo key.

I don’t actually know how practical this is since I’ve not actually hacked on an old Nokia but I’m tempted to see if I can do something wild on a KaiOS phone I’ve got sitting around (but probably won’t ever have time to get to).

The phone won’t have a secure enclave though, but I’m not sure that actually matters for this thought experiment.

@cthos @Bigshellevent I think I was imagining Nokia developing this as an intentional product, in which case they could do anything they want as long as it's cost-effective. Although I do not necessarily take seriously the "secure enclave" concept as a real thing that helps

@mcc @christine had similar requirements some time last year, and decided on a Pixel 4A.

I don't think there's a flagship phone that does this.

@mayintoronto @christine Sony gets very close with a phone they sell only in Japan :(

@mcc @johnefrancis @dragonfrog

My goal is to add telephone calling to my laptop, and get rid of the telephone device entirely. I need to be able to contact others via the telephone system(s), and not just geeks using decentralized secure FOSS.

Sadly, this is not well documented.

@Amgine @johnefrancis @dragonfrog Oddly I feel like this was easier 10 years ago than it is now.

@mcc
square corners on a screen is just weird. almost every device has it.

@mcc per this theme, cracked screen on my G-Pixel; need to replace soon and open to suggestions. : )

@mcc

Add replacable battery.

@SpaceLifeForm I'm okay with using a spudger honestly

@mcc TBH I got along very well for several years without a smartphone. A flip phone, a Linux laptop and a small quadrille ruled pocket notebook were just fine.

I only got back into smartphones when Mozilla launched the Firefox Phone. I knew a few of the developers here in Portland so I went for it.

@mcc If capitalism and the free market were really all they’re cracked up to be and not window dressing for oligarchs, someone would be developing this right now, because there’s a huge market of people waking up to the surveillance regime and opting out to the extent they can manage.

@mcc it's a bummer that lineageos doesn't support kite anymore

@mcc https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/sargo/ might meet all your requirements

@bob @mcc the corners on my Pixel 3a (sargo) are rounded, other than that I think it might meet the criteria with a custom rom or mobile Linux

@mcc What's that? About a Google Pixel 3a with LineageOS, I guess? I might have one in a drawer around here somewhere. 😁

@mcc you might like the Vollsa x23. I find their products have the right view of what it should be.

@pcman the what?

@mcc You might want to look at the Sony Xperia 10 lineup.

@coffee I'm using a sony xperia 5, but
- rounded corners :(
- too big :(

@mcc Same, I’m seriously considering a 10(+? 15?) year old Sony Xperia XZ/Z Compact at this point.

@crowbriarhexe I would still be using my X Compact but AT&T forced me to stop.

@hax4libre @bob wait hold on the 3a has rounded screen edges :( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_3a

@mcc my list also includes an SD card slot, good (oleophobic) glass front, good camera... So basically the S20 but in 2025

@mcc @pcman x23, not s23

@mcc
The Sony Xperia has a headphone jack.
And square corners on screen.
I've got one. The rest I don't know.

@mcc @hax4libre apparently this is the magic spell to disable the corner rounding:

adb shell settings put secure sysui_rounded_size 1
adb shell settings put secure sysui_rounded_content_padding 5

@bob @hax4libre in the photos it looks like part of the physical casing…?

@mcc First phone I thought of is the Sony Xperia 5 V. It's almost the perfect modern phone. Unfortunately they stopped updating the "5" line, because apparently everyone wants smartphablets instead of smartphones these days. The biggest downsides at the time was only 3 years of security updates and an exorbitant price.

@warm That's, uh, my phone actually. Well, the 5 III. However, it's still too big, and it still has rounded screen edges.

@mcc > No holes in screen

What? You mean front camera?

@tris No holes in screen. I don't know how I could possibly be more plain than this. No holes at the edges, no holes in the centers, no divots, no edges cut off. I. Want. The entire. Screen.

@mcc Ah, didn't realise any amount of curvature was undesirable. To my knowledge, there isn't any phone that came out in the last 8-ish years that would satisfy those requirements. Sony is the closest you got out of those running Android, otherwise you'll probably have to go for a combination of much older hardware and either Ubuntu Touch or postmarketOS, or explore Windows Phone. I hear the enthusiasts brought most of the modern apps to that system at this point.

@coffee "there isn't any phone that came out in the last 8-ish years that would satisfy those requirements"

Trust me, I'm aware

@mcc @tris Since I've never painstakingly edited anything situated at the far edge of the screen, this requirement feels illusory to me.... if the phone needs rounded edges for structural reasons, then rounded-edge display is just a way to maximize the amount of screen+pixels on the device. Otherwise, there would be a much bigger area of dead space (bezel) around the display.

Divots, mostly the same as long as they're placed on an edge where assigned dead space is normal (even without the physical divot), for example in a title bar, taskbar or status bar.

@mcc @bob My bad. I guess you have to go back to the original Pixel. LineageOS appears to still support it, as well. I did find an old Pixel 2 in a drawer and can confirm square corners, but they had already dropped the headphone jack by then. Not sure I'd really want to go back to that battery and those radios (and lack of 5G) myself. ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

@mcc this fr

@mcc all but the first four: fairphone 5 .

@morfil but the first four are the most important ones which is why I put them first

@mcc not getting effectively bricked at an arbitrary timeline due to loss of security updates because of proprietary drivers would be nice too

@nCrazed I got bricked on an arbitrary timeline by my cell provider so I've realized this one is an illusion for phones :(

@mcc @furilabs #flx1 looks very promising. Definitely checks a few boxes off your checklist.

It is quite large, with a rounded screen and a hole for the front camera though...

Here's a review. https://blog.luigi311.com/furilabs-flx1/

@dacmot @furilabs So.. it checks the less important boxes on my list, but not the more important boxes on my list?

@dacmot @furilabs Also this is running Linux… can it read ebooks *at all*?

@tasket @tris I do not want rounded edges or holes in the screen. I want a rectangular screen. If the phone has rounded edges, then the screen should still have rectangular edges, because it is a screen. All other considerations (other than the headphone jack) are secondary.

To summarize: I want square corners on the screen, with no rounded edges, and I do not want the screen to have holes in it. If you are still confused let me know, and I will explain it again.

@mcc oh aha, yea the newer one doesnt have curved edges. I agree phones are too big, a 6 inch screen is the maximum I'd ever need.

@warm Oh! Cool, I guess I missed out then.

The 5 line was at least narrow enough to grip it, so it's the one I got.

@warm Wait, I'm concerned about this photo on GSMArena https://www.gsmarena.com/sony_xperia_5_v-pictures-12534.php

@mcc it has a headphone jack 😅

It does run Linux, but unlike others like pinephone you can install Android apps. So probably yes, if there isn't a Linux one, there are plenty of Android ones.

@dacmot Oh, okay! I was trying to find photos from different angles and didn't see it but I see it now. So that's something…

That's interesting about the android apps, is it running android apps inside linux somehow? Or is it just you install Android

@mcc They are still a bit long, I have an S23 and it's like the perfect size for me, I dont want to buy a Samsung again and was really hoping Sony would continue the 5 line.

Whats wrong in the image?

@warm The screen edges are rounded rather than rectangular. This resembles my XPeria 5 III, which has rounded screen edges of about that size.

@mcc oh I see, thats very very miniscule though aha. Nothing compared to what id call actual rounded screens. Dont think we are getting any more compact phones with these sort of specs for a while though.

@warm Yeah, but I paid a lot because I thought I was getting non-rounded screen corners, and then they turned out not to be rounded :( If I'd known I was still compromising I might have gone with a similar but cheaper phone.

@mcc unihertz.com/collections/jelly…

not sure how valuable smol is - but this is all for it. I admit, Unihertz is a jerk about lineage and other OSes, so not sure what value you place on "install and distribute my own software". My wife has a TickTock and I a Titan, and we both use the in-house fdroid repo without issue.

@silverwizard Too smol :( They are very cute and I kind of want one but my hands are bigger than that :(

Oddly, the $35 phone from wal-mart I got as a temporary thing seems to satisfy more of my requirements than the phone I actually use (but unfortunately it has so little RAM it can't really run Discord)

@mcc according to the FAQ,

Can I use Android apps?

Yes. FuriOS allows for running apps inside a container running Android codenamed Andromeda. This container has complete integration with the host and makes all Android applications work like native applications.

There is a caveat however:

Why don’t some apps don’t work?

Some apps, like banking apps for instance, utilise:

Google Play Integrity API
custom root protection checking
other checks

So depending on what features from the above are included in the apps, will determine if the app will function or not in furiOS.

@dacmot okay, you have me very curious about this device now

@mcc I thought they might be too smol! Unihertz makes phones for no one, but damn am I glad they are doing it

@silverwizard they are following their truth

@mcc Your pain sounds a lot like my problem with 16:9 (or wider) computer displays... I can barely tolerate them.

@mcc
The iPhone 4S was the last phone I had that I really loved. It ticked most of your boxes.

@neverbeaten Yeah…

… … that was also the last iPhone I used…

@silverwizard @mcc It's too bad Unihertz doesn't support (at least tscitly) community projects like LineageOS, if they did I'd probably have a whole fleet of their phones in drawers ready to give away to friends

@mcc
I have to buy a new phone this year and as far as I can tell by setting a hard line at "headphone jack" I'm cutting out every single other criteria except maybe the remove-distractions one :(

@mcc @pcman you typed s23 instead of x23 which appears to throw off the results entirely
https://volla.online/en/volla-phone-x23/

@sneexy @pcman okay, found it, thanks!

This has rounded corners AND a hole in the screen :(

@sneexy @pcman @mcc As someone for whom rounded screen edges and holepunch cameras are a mere dislike and not a dealbreaker, I was briefly interested, but it looks like it doesn't have a headphone jack either?

@keithzg @sneexy @mcc hi
My x23 does and I use it all the time.
Listed choices but at their core, concerned about privacy

@pcman @sneexy @mcc Okay, that's more interesting, the photos and big descriptions didn't at all show a 3.5mm jack, looks like there was a table at the bottom of the page that I wasn't seeing because (in my browser on my 4a running LineageOS heh) it's black text on dark grey

Still a bit leery as looking at https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/MediaTek_Helio_G99_(MT6789/MT8781) it seems like community projects haven't gotten the Volla x23's SoC running a normal Linux stack, in fact not even *booting*, which doesn't speak well for longevity...

@keithzg @sneexy @mcc. I also use a Bittium Tough Mobile 2. Might be a little closer, has the screen side camera behind the glass & Squaire box around front camera

@pcman @keithzg @sneexy I just wish phone vendors would let us have bevels again. Bevels are nice. They give you a way to hold the phone without activating the screen

@sneexy @mcc sorry, eyes are not what they used to be.