[ElectricSpoon]

When I look the hardware in it, I feels like the pinephone is just a step above what I would have built from a 3d printer, custom PCB, a microcontroller and an IOT modem from sparkfun. Every part is average, but the sum of it allows calling and has a usable idle battery life.

Such a collection of hardware can't realistically compete with mainstream phones which have very tight hardware and software integration to achieve the most performance with the least power draw.

It's a bad phone (and bad portable computer), but mine might work for as long as LTE and my desire to recompile exist. Schematics, opensource and spare parts being available are the crux of it. It's the phone for those wanting to build their phones and it's pretty good at that.