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I tried it for months (like 5) with the BQ Aquaris E4.5 and ended up flashing Android on top. It got me raging. Most reviews are from folks who had it for a fe

I tried it for months (like 5) with the BQ Aquaris E4.5 and ended up flashing Android on top. It got me raging. Most reviews are from folks who had it for a few hours and then go back to their usual feature-full system. I did an honest effort though. It's not even about the apps. I could manage without them. The problem is Ubuntu phone was utterly broken. Slow as hell. Everything browser based, but they provided the worst browser (it couldn't even parse css for some sites). The team behind was like 10-15 people. You cannot pull this show with such a small team. The phone email app was left to the community. They have only recently figured out how to provide email notifications (this is the extent of brokenness - a mobile OS which cannot notify you of new emails...). There were problems with the calendar, the Wi-Fi, the contacts sync.. The gesture system was awesome. but the UI was laggy, buggy. The idea of scopes was nice, but they were broken: the news scope didn't pull the news, the one showing the weather didn't show the weather etc. to the point I just left the app list. And the worst was the lock screen. No pattern unlock. instead a circle which would show a text in the middle informing you of how many pictures you've taken or how many messages you've sent. But no way for it to provide actual notifications! This was an OS that was live, commercially sold, and in reality it looked like a pre-alpha build of a proof of concept. I am sure some things have improved (cannot get worse), but Canonical has clearly not the muscle to take this idea anywhere and is of course leveraging on community to do their job while milking whatever profits from the few adventurers who pay for it. I wouldn't be surprised if they dropped the project entirely at some point. I'll be sorry for the people which have contributed apps to this ecosystem. Ubuntu phone pretty much killed the reputation that Canonical had left for me.

slgeorge 11y ago
I'm sorry you're so upset and had such a poor experience. To my knowledge the online sales objective was for Ubuntu Phones to be for developers and technical enthusiasts. As you said it's not full mature. Unfortunately, it sounds like that didn't make it a great fit for you! On a point of fact, creating an Open Source mobile OS takes years and costs millions: Firefox OS is a comparable example. A lot of people have worked hard for years on it, so this is fantastic to see - the team in in Canonical working on mobile is hundreds not tens. I wish them the very best of luck.
se6 11y ago
Canonical should have made it clear that when the E4.5 was available last year, it was intended to early adopters / dev / enthusiasts only. But my guess is that it was probably awkward to present it that way to BQ. Anyway, being a long time Linux enthusiast and running Ubuntu as my main OS for many years, I bought the E4.5 to support the project and was not expecting an experience which would match Android. Having said that, it has improved so much and I would venture to say that as of 2016, it is starting to be ready for general public. It is my main phone, and everything pretty much works, the UX is great. The main annoyance is that it is a bit slow: starting an app takes a few seconds. But might be due to the not too potent hardware of a E4.5. Ubuntu phone seems the only alternative we have to the smartphone OS duopoly and to feel and be in control of the device in our pocket. That is priceless to me.

slgeorge 11y ago

I'm sorry you're so upset and had such a poor experience. To my knowledge the online sales objective was for Ubuntu Phones to be for developers and technical enthusiasts. As you said it's not full mature. Unfortunately, it sounds like that didn't make it a great fit for you! On a point of fact, creating an Open Source mobile OS takes years and costs millions: Firefox OS is a comparable example. A lot of people have worked hard for years on it, so this is fantastic to see - the team in in Canonical working on mobile is hundreds not tens. I wish them the very best of luck.

se6 11y ago

Canonical should have made it clear that when the E4.5 was available last year, it was intended to early adopters / dev / enthusiasts only. But my guess is that it was probably awkward to present it that way to BQ. Anyway, being a long time Linux enthusiast and running Ubuntu as my main OS for many years, I bought the E4.5 to support the project and was not expecting an experience which would match Android. Having said that, it has improved so much and I would venture to say that as of 2016, it is starting to be ready for general public. It is my main phone, and everything pretty much works, the UX is great. The main annoyance is that it is a bit slow: starting an app takes a few seconds. But might be due to the not too potent hardware of a E4.5. Ubuntu phone seems the only alternative we have to the smartphone OS duopoly and to feel and be in control of the device in our pocket. That is priceless to me.