The PinePhone is definitely more open and trustworthy, but it also feels pretty useless for the time being. Its Allwinner A64 processor is antiquated, about like a lower-end Android phone from half a decade ago and with only 2–3GB of RAM, but the Phosh software stack isn’t optimized well for these limitations and the device moves at a crawl. Just opening the screen to turn the wifi on or off takes over five seconds. (Yes, there is also UBports, but that is based on 2014-era Ubuntu-specific software that even Ubuntu moved away from, and the whole thing feels like it is bitrotting now.)

I also worry that there isn’t enough of a development community behind the PinePhone to bring it to a basic level of polish. Instead of being the resurrection of the Nokia N900 as a hackable Linux phone, the PinePhone might actually be a repeat of the ill-fated Openmoko Freerunner.