15 ms·

Furilabs Linux Phone

223 points by nikodunk 2y ago

Narishma 2y ago
> Fast, performant and cheap. What's the difference between fast and performant?
- VyseofArcadia 2y ago
  Hasty guess: fast is responsiveness, performant is performance per watt?
  - polotics 2y ago
    fast is latency, performant is bandwidth
    - VyseofArcadia 2y ago
      I doubt they're using those words to mean that specifically when they are trying to sell a phone to consumers. No one sells phones on "bandwidth".
- chrisoconnell 2y ago
  Something can be fast, but lack efficiency or the ability to utilize the speed. For example, a car can have 1,000hp, but utilizes a large turbo which takes a long time to spool up, leading to poor performance. It may also have poor handling characteristics. On the other hand, let's use a car like a Mazda Miata, which only has 181hp. It is not fast, but it is an incredibly performant car, with exceptional handling and driving dynamics. Speed and performance are not directly correlated, and are independent metrics. Performance is more of an indication of the overall dynamics of action, intention and results.
  - psd1 2y ago
    Alternate explanation: the copy was bashed out late at night by an engineer in crunch mode. Don't parse "covfefe", discard it.
siddhartpai 2y ago
https://archive.is/WSQ9G https://archive.is/WSQ9G
- georgyo 2y ago
  It's sad that basically a static page is getting hugged to death.
kak3a 2y ago
Who will be buying these? Developers?
- vngzs 2y ago
  It's a Linux phone that runs Android apps, so they ostensibly don't have the problem of building the ecosystem.
  - freedomben 2y ago
    Importantly though, it won't have Google Play and the increasingly mandatory GMS, so a lot of Android apps won't work properly. Definitely cool though and worthy of some attention.
    - GranPC 2y ago
      We do however ship with microG. I have heard of people using Uber, Spotify, Lyft, Signal, etc. So Android app support isn't that bad despite no GMS.
      - freedomben 2y ago
        Amazing, thank you! You just sold a phone :-)
DaveChurchill 2y ago
"I love the new furry phone"... Just like DuckDuckGo I think the name will hamper adoption of this.
- vngzs 2y ago
  It's "fury phone": > Furious Support from the FuriOS team
  - rendaw 2y ago
    They could say it's pronounced "Wendigo" and people would still read it "Furry".
    - krunck 2y ago
      If people read "fury" as "furry" then that's a literacy problem.
      - prophesi 2y ago
        As someone who reads/watches a lot of Japanese media, "fury" isn't how I would first read "furi". I do like "FuriOS" and think it avoids this issue, but other portmanteaus might be better avoided.
      - avazhi 2y ago
        You’re right. And if you can’t understand why almost everyone will read ‘furi’ as furry and not ‘fury’, then you’ve got a phonics problem.
- FrustratedMonky 2y ago
  Have to say, main reason for clicking to check it out was I thought it was a Phone for Furries. Curiosity got me to look. Maybe it will drive traffic.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
pmontra 2y ago
> Phone: 171mm x 82mm x 12mm : 280g 280 grams is a lot even for today's phones. 12 mm is half a inch. Very thick. The other dimensions are 6.7 x 3.2 inches. Ok, this might be a phone for people that want to prove a point but it's too cumbersome. How about starting with something reasonable and fit it with only what fits within those bounds? An example: 160 x 80 x 9 and 200 g. That would be a big phone but not bigger than many phones on sale.
- porphyra 2y ago
  It takes lots of engineering effort to make things svelte. That makes it incredibly hard for "indie" phone makers to come up with something competitive in this regard. Likewise with price --- Android phones with similar specs can be found for only $200.
  - wmf 2y ago
    Why bother when you could pay HMD (aka "Nokia"), Foxconn, ASUS, etc to make a dramatically better phone with your logo and your OS on it?
    - HumblyTossed 2y ago
      Can you actually do this with the numbers Furilabs probably expects to hit? Surely there's a minimum number to order before the companies you mentioned will even take you serious.
      - wmf 2y ago
        The Linux phones all fail anyway so if you don't have the volume just don't bother.
        psd1 2y ago
        Are you suffering from burnout? There's an undercurrent of despair in your comment. Don't do it to yourself, you only get one brain. Help us available. DM me if you want.
sandreas 2y ago
I'm so desperately looking for a DIY portable device that does not suck to build my portable audio player, best case supporting android with any of the following custom roms: LineageOS CalyxOS GrapheneOS /e/OS I even considered making a player myself using the T113-S3 SoC, unfortunately not having the required skills. There are so many people trying to build prototypes, but this seems to be a space that is not easy to manage. Here is my personal favorite Audio Player base device, best I found so far: https://github.com/yuansco/TinyEmbedded-Dual https://github.com/yuansco/TinyEmbedded-Dual
- gitaarik 2y ago
  Not Android, but it's an open-source music player: https://www.crowdsupply.com/cool-tech-zone/tangara https://www.crowdsupply.com/cool-tech-zone/tangara
  - sandreas 2y ago
    Thank you. Yeah I did know that. For my use case it unfortunately is too clunky and it does not have headphone remote (afaik), but I really considered buying one, just in case it gets added. In Android, headphone remote works out of the box... that's why I would like to use one. There is the HiBy M300, which in my opinion would be worth having a custom rom :-) Indeed there seems to be efforts. https://github.com/reindex-ot/hiby_digital_m300 https://github.com/reindex-ot/hiby_digital_m300 https://www.head-fi.org/threads/hiby-digital-m300-android-digital-audio-player-the-gen-z-music-player-discussion-thread.970428/page-39 https://www.head-fi.org/threads/hiby-digital-m300-android-di... https://store.hiby.com/products/hiby-digital-m300 https://store.hiby.com/products/hiby-digital-m300
- heavyset_go 2y ago
  Check out Rockbox if you haven't already.
jchw 2y ago
Apparently it is based on Halium, so it's probably not going to run mainline Linux any time soon. On the other hand, I'm less happy with Android than I pretty much ever have been, so having some more options outside of relatively unusable Linux phones and being stuck with modified Android firmware certainly does not hurt. I am definitely interested, especially if the team working on it is as active as it seems they are. Definitely one of the biggest bummers with PinePhone and PinePhone Pro was realizing that the community was largely on its own; that could work well, but in practice progress has been slow and painful and I stopped paying attention. I would really like to see more projects doing cellular Linux devices in general. It doesn't need to be a candybar smartphone, if someone can jam a cellular modem into a MicroPC I'm sold at any price I can afford.
- GranPC 2y ago
  I work on this device. We are currently QAing the latest update with our community, which contains a lot of goodies and improvements shaped directly from community feedback. You can see previous changelogs at https://furilabs.com/changelog https://furilabs.com/changelog I am obviously a little biased, but this is probably the first Linux phone that people can actually use. Someone in our community switched from iPhone to this without much of an issue.
  - rendaw 2y ago
    I don't care about running stuff out of the box, but NixOs support would be awesome!
    - yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
      Does anyone have NixOS+Halium working?
      - forgotacc240419 2y ago
        Possibly the OnePlus 6? This isn't an area I'm too well versed on though
imzadi 2y ago
I think we have different definitions of cheap
rw_panic0_0 2y ago
design is kinda ugly + 500 dollars is not cheap
- onli 2y ago
  I honestly think it looks fine. Nice texture at the back, pretty metal accents around the camera and at the side button, good logo. The uneven bezels (the one at the bottom is larger) are less nice, but that's just a reality of the budget this probably moves in, not even the Fairphone 5 did solve that yet.
caiusdurling 2y ago
Took me ages to connect the fact the phone was flipping around at hyper-speed on the webpage because I had the cursor over it whilst scrolling down. Had to move to the right side of the page to then scroll down.
2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
Furry-labs or Fury-labs?
anoncow 2y ago
Furi OS was what turned me away. Never heard of it and that makes me realise we don't have an android alternative OS which is permanent. Do we have any OS which is permanent? Shouldn't we have one?
- GranPC 2y ago
  FuriOS is a derivate of Droidian, which in turn is basically Debian with Halium support. So it's pretty much Debian + some custom patches for usability, hardware support, performance, so on. We intend to upstream as many of our changes as possible as time permits, but right now we are laser focused on improving the experience day in and day out.
  - deng 2y ago
    Hi, thanks for answering questions here. How do you handle device encryption?
    - GranPC 2y ago
      Once you turn on full disk encryption, the phone will reboot once and begin to encrypt the entire filesystem in the background. Further reboots will require that you input your FDE password (which can be different from your lock screen password/PIN) in a minimal rootfs-based UI.
  - freedomben 2y ago
    Are all of your patches open source? Given enough time, could a user build a "factory image" of FuriOS from source?
    - GranPC 2y ago
      Yes. It doesn't even require a lot of time, all the build scripts are on our GitHub.
  - anoncow 2y ago
    Thanks for the answer. All the best!
deng 2y ago
Given the open issues at https://github.com/FuriLabs/issue-tracker/issues https://github.com/FuriLabs/issue-tracker/issues I think it's fair to say that whoever buys this is in for a bumpy ride. I mean, that is to be expected, however, I think they should be more honest about the current state, like for instance PostmarketOS does at https://postmarketos.org/state/ https://postmarketos.org/state/
- HL33tibCe7 2y ago
  > https://github.com/FuriLabs/issue-tracker/issues/78 https://github.com/FuriLabs/issue-tracker/issues/78 If SMS doesn't work, I have serious concerns about everything else...
rendaw 2y ago
It says "Wired/Wireless and NFC combo" under battery charging, but there's no mention of NFC under "Connectivity". Is it charging only? I'd like a linux phone but the Purism phone eschewed NFC too.
- GranPC 2y ago
  There's NFC, although the Linux stack support for NFC is a little limiting. However the NFC hardware is passed through to the Android container, so if, for example, your bank doesn't demand that you pass SafetyNet, you can pay with the phone. (I have done this)
  - Neikius 2y ago
    How would you check what the banking app you are using requires?
    - GranPC 2y ago
      That's a good question, sorry I missed your comment. I honestly don't know of an "easy" way to do that. If you have enough time on your hands you could decompile it and take a look. You could also try running it on a spare phone with a ROM that doesn't contain Google Play Services (or where it's been disabled). However, SafetyNet isn't the only line of defense. These apps often have their own root checks, which doesn't pose a problem for us because the Android image isn't rooted. (But it runs inside LXC, and you can attach a root shell into it.) Another thing they don't like sometimes is the system build fingerprint not being recognized. We have an overlay(fs) system that allows users to customize everything inside the Android container without the hassle of rebuilding the system images or having to stay on the ball when we update things. It's not hard then to pick up the build fingerprint line from a "trusted" device and just drop it in build.prop. All of this is a bit of a hassle, to put it mildly. But if we try to talk to any bank or contactless payment provider right now, they'll tell us to kick rocks. I guess it's a matter of time until we grow or a very smart person figures out a very clever hack. :)
  - rendaw 2y ago
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
zamalek 2y ago
Very tempting. What is the deal with play store integrity, i.e. is wallet (and some banking apps) supported?
- GranPC 2y ago
  Afraid not. These things usually require hardware attestation to ensure you're running the exact software Google wants you to run. Now, if someone figured out a way to bypass it, that would probably work for a bit. But it's a cat and mouse game.
  - numpad0 2y ago
    It's not just what Google wants you to run, it's what Google promises to some of its customers through a face it has on one of numerous facets(facing banks in this case) as what they let users do with phones, and a humanware chain of trust that allows the server and the phone to be viewed as sort-of secure computing environment. From an idealist standpoint, it shouldn't be done that way by taking away rights from users, but trivializing it as how specifically Google wants you to do it isn't accurate either.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
- freedomben 2y ago
  It says "F-Droid, Aurora Store, and other sources'" so I'm guessing there's no Play store and probably no GMS and other increasingly mandatory proprietary dependencies. Open source Android is in rough shape as a result of Google's tightening the ratchet. Edit: In a different comment one of the devs clarified that it does have microG, so quite a few apps will actually work.[1] [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41840021 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41840021
- numpad0 2y ago
  Why does this question always come up? There's zero technical reasons you can't electronically pay with all-open software stack e.g. Ethereum on GNU/Linux, it's pure matter of trust. With currently available payment standards, it's like asking for a live credit card with someone else's private key and an open debug port, all at the same time. Things don't work that way.
neilv 2y ago
$500 price point is a lot for an open source enthusiast phone, especially one unknown. The Pine64 PinePhone is $150-$200, with similar hardware provenance, but various open source projects that might at least give better software longevity and software trustworthiness. https://pine64.com/product-category/pinephone/ https://pine64.com/product-category/pinephone/ An additional consideration: as much as we like and respect our global colleagues, unfortunately I could see both hardware brands getting banned in some locales and by some organizations, like some other telecom brands have been banned. A phone that can't be used as a phone has little value, no matter how open it is. For somewhat different provenance, the Purism Librem 5 is coming in at $800+, which is too high a high price point for most open source enthusiast contributors. https://shop.puri.sm/shop/librem-5/ https://shop.puri.sm/shop/librem-5/ And Purism's made-in-USA version, the Liberty Phone, is at $2K+. I guess maybe government or enterprise sales? https://shop.puri.sm/shop/liberty-phone/ https://shop.puri.sm/shop/liberty-phone/ I'm thinking that better for the Western open source developers and non-wealthy enthusiasts would be something more palatable to Western governments, and usable as a daily driver, like Librem 5, but priced somewhere in (guessing) $200-$400.
- NewJazz 2y ago
  The original pinephone was an allwinner soc that had like 4x a53 cores, a weak GPU, and pretty meh ram. This phone has a fairly modern mediatek soc with a78 cores, a fairly modern Mali GPU, ufs storage, and lpddrx5 ram.
- dathinab 2y ago
  > with similar hardware provenance no not at all Pine64 hardware is pretty crap (performance wise, very normal independent of the OS at that price point) Like you are comparing things like 3GB LPDDR3 SDRAM (Pine64) to 6GB LPDDR4X which is world apart (not only does it move from a "very tight on memory" to "somewhat acceptable memory" (very big deal) it also is much faster (~2x). Similar on the Pine64 you have 4 old little cores here you have 2 big + 6 little cores and all more modern (end even just the little cores are faster when comparing one core with another, ignoring that you have 2 more little cores and 2 big cores). Storage moves from a quite tight 32 GiB (through I guess if you only do stuff like mail it might be enough) to a likely more then enough 128GiB (also faster). Noticeable faster GPU too, I guess. And way better camera, at least by by numbers. So not comparable at all. But what matters most is not the absolute differences but moving it from a "so tight on RAM,CPU,GPU,Storage that you run all times into problems" to a "enough for all common tasks". I.e. from you need micro optimized apps for it to work nice to yes it works if your app is imperfect territory. And that is a pretty big deal. But also lets be realistic. Atm. _any_ Linux Phone is a pure enthusiast product balancing various problems (price, small production lines, only android diver problems, proprietary blob problems etc.). And many of the enthusiast earn enough money to afford a 500$ toy, through maybe just rarely and with thinking twice about it.
mmh0000 2y ago
I want to like it... But, I've been bitten too many times by expensive Linux phones (Oh Nokia N900, how I wanted to love you. but you couldn't even make phone calls without threatening to crash). It's a little weird that there are very few details on this thing. Notably, one of my #1 concerns when looking for a new phone today is a good camera. And all I can find on the camera is "it's 50MP!!! " But how do actual, non-photoshopped pictures look? Does it do okay in low-light? Does it support any sort of optical zoom? Their website is currently as slow as a frozen snail (which, if they can't run a basic web server, leads to a lot of doubt they can maintain a long-term Linux distro). So I couldn't click around much, but I didn't find anything really informative. I tried looking at YouTube videos and only found some weird official videos of a person's hand putting the phone in a sink. Like... Yes, it has been expected for the last 8ish years that my phone will be waterproof, that's not an amazing achievement. It also seems to be "weird" Linux, like Maemo was for the N900. I don't want weird, custom-built stuff that will be forgotten about in 12 months. Just give me a standard Debain/Fedora/Whatever and an unlocked bootloader to reinstall with what I want. IMHO they should really look at what Valve did with the steamdeck and SteamOS, It's a custom Linux that works well, but, it's also standard hardware with an open bootloader. There are dozens of SteamOS alternatives.
- freedomben 2y ago
  > It also seems to be "weird" Linux, like Maemo was for the N900. I don't want weird, custom-built stuff that will be forgotten about in 12 months. Just give me a standard Debain/Fedora/Whatever and an unlocked bootloader to reinstall with what I want. I wouldn't say it's a "weird Linux as it's mostly Debian and it's fully rebuildable by the user from the open source scripts[1]. I would likewise love a phone that was just mainline Fedora, but given many of the current challenges around ARM devices with linux, I fully understand why a "custom-built" OS is needed. As long as it's as light-weight as possible and is open source/rebuildable by the user, I think it's a good compromise given the realities around the platform. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41840036 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41840036
  - mmh0000 2y ago
    To be fair (insert meme here) Maemo was "mostly Debian" as well, it was one of the big selling points. Except Maemo was quickly abandoned by Nokia and left unmaintained. To further complicate matters Maemo required arcane tools to build it and install it to a device. Custom community kernels quickly became standard for enabling basic functionality which Nokia should have provided, but, didn't. However, the custom kernels were also frequently left unpatched and abandoned because they were being built and maintained by random internet users who found other hobbies. I think the idea is awesome and I am excited if not skeptical. I hope Furi manages to build a healthy community around this. And doesn't go the path of so many previous Linux phones.
ninetyninenine 2y ago
What I want is quality to the level of flagship android phones or the iphone with the ability to plug it in to a keyboard, mouse and screen and have it function as my laptop as well. One single integrated experience. I think everyone wants this. We have the technology we have the demand, it's just companies who make the high quality phones want to completely lock down the market. You would think the free market would produce a company that would tackle this issue but barrier to entry is waay to high so essentially we have small companies trying to get into this space but they are only creating sub-par products because they can't make something as good as an iphone. It's basically a legal monopoly. Companies can't get into it because the technology and capital required are way to high and only super mega corps like samsung and apple can pull it off... Closest thing I've seen to this product I'm looking for is the steam deck. I would buy a steam deck phone if it had the quality of a pixel/iphone device.
- freedomben 2y ago
  I agree I would love this option, but how much would you be willing to pay for such a device? Would you pay $800? $1,000? $1,400? That's where I have a hard time. I would pay that kind of money, but I would need something well polished and fully capable of being a "daily driver." I think many people are in the same place I am, and thus we have a real chicken and egg problem here.
  - ninetyninenine 2y ago
    I'd pay up to 3k if it was quality delivered the experience of a top quality phone and a top quality laptop. I mean the technology to do this is already here. If apple or samsung wanted to do this... they can. Right now I use an iphone, but if samsung made a phone that felt like say linux, windows or macos when in laptop mode... I would switch off iphone in a heartbeat. And i mean it has to feel like macOS. None of that bloat is acceptable. SteamOS actually pulls this off but in a gaming form factor.
    - michaelmior 2y ago
      > and a top quality laptop. > I mean the technology to do this is already here. I think it really depends on what precisely you mean here. I don't think it's currently possible to get the same performance of my M3 Max MacBook Pro in the form factor of a phone.
INTPenis 2y ago
Why not use the open source Android? I just feel like it would be more mature. And yes I like many others here have been trying Linux phones for 10+ years, since N900. Your phone just has to work, it can't crash because you get a call, or hide buttons because the UI is confused by orientation. IT MUST WORK. So that's why I wonder why people don't just use Android.
- freedomben 2y ago
  Open source Android has been increasingly neglected by Google, and is (essentially) unusable at this point unless you are ok with the look and feel of very early Android. It also isn't likely to improve as Google's strategy seems to be to move toward more and more proprietaryness. I think a much more sustainable approach is to focus on existing Linux distros and get them more usable on phones.
  - KetoManx64 2y ago
    You are wrong about AOSP. I'm running LineageOS (Android 14) on both my phone and tablet without Gapps and it is a fully functional system. (NewPipe for youtube, Aurora/Fdroid for for App Stores) I don't know what you mean by "look and feel of early android" either, as AOSP based ROMs look just like Google Pixel in the settings, quick dropdowns and dialogue popups.
    - onli 2y ago
      LineageOS is not the raw open source Android though that the parent probably referred to. Afaik there are quite some changes needed by now to make it really usable. But sure, LOS proves it can be done.
    - freedomben 2y ago
      LineageOS != AOSP. They've put quite a bit of work on top of it too make it usable. To be clear I have nothing against lineage, and I'm a Graphene OS user myself, but these projects add a lot of value on top of raw AOSP.
CommanderData 2y ago
What control does it have over the baseband / modem or lack thereof?
avazhi 2y ago
Unfortunate name.
- mcflubbins 2y ago
  yeah, went looking for this comment...
robertlagrant 2y ago
> Fast, performant and cheap. You wanted all 3? Now you got it! What's the difference between fast and "performant"?
- whytevuhuni 2y ago
  Maybe one is latency (how optimized the software is) and the other is throughput (how many cores it has). Although more likely just weird marketing.
- nzgrover 2y ago
  It's marketing drivel, and marketing loves the "rule of three".
bsimpson 2y ago
It's surprising to me that there aren't any details about the software stack. Whenever I've tried to find a touch-optimized Linux shell, I've come up short. As has been discussed on this forum in the past, most of the attempts are understaffed side projects that have thousands of manhours of work ahead of them. I'd like to know what shell FuriOS is based on, and what they're doing to make it usable. Even a demo video would go a long way!
- GranPC 2y ago
  I'll write something in the dev blog, thanks. We use Phosh, with some minor patches. Upstream Phosh is pretty good as it is!
  - bsimpson 2y ago
    I haven't been able to try Phosh because it's badly packaged on NixOS. Maybe one day I'll take a stab at fixing their package. https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/278204 https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/278204
    - mixmastamyk 2y ago
      Recent phosh is packaged on Fedora. I’m critical but also pretty happy with it. Biggest disappointment is that many gnome apps are not as touchscreen friendly as was promised.
  - bsimpson 2y ago
    Glad to see you engaging the community! As someone unfamiliar with Furilabs, it wouldn't occur to me to go looking for a dev blog to see if you've written anything about the shell. I feel like that's information you'd want to link from the marketing page (even if the details are on your blog).
    - GranPC 2y ago
      Community is what got me here in the first place. :) Fair enough! Noted.
maufl 2y ago
Can anyone estimate what it would cost to develop a new phone that's like the N900 with updated hardware (slide out keyboard, camera cover, maybe drop the input stylus, a bit flatter and larger) and mainline Linux support for all components? I'm sometimes wondering if this is something I could have Pine64 do if I accidentally get rich enough. I think I would spent the rest of my days just writing the software for this.
- asimovfan 2y ago
  I believe everyone has similar fantasies. Your best bet is a custom made mini laptop with a x86_64 SoC with perhaps 18650 batteries or thin easily replaceable battery packs.. I believe the GPD Pocket is also x86_64.
- mpol 2y ago
  First question is; which SOC would you want to use? Is there any SOC with full mainline support that you would agree to? There is a reason Pine64 and Purism went with SOCs out of the ordinary path.
- tmtvl 2y ago
  Considering there's a bunch of stuff you'd have to manufacture from scratch I'm gonna say... 500 million USD? If you're okay with outsourcing a bunch of stuff to China and treading on gray areas where patents are concerned. Unfortunately it's gonna take a few more years before various mobile phone patents start expiring.
g-b-r 2y ago
Chinese, unfortunately
- fsflover 2y ago
  There is AFAIK only one non-Chinese Linux phone, and it's Liberty Phone.
  - anonzzzies 2y ago
    ... which is $2k... We already know that almost everyone likes the idea of not being Chinese stuff, but no one is willing to pay 4x premium. The Liberty specs are dismal for a 2k phone; as I said (I think response to you as well); I would pay basically anything for descent modern specs (so s24 or so) but running linux, but not 2k for something that will just annoy me in not being practical besides for a bit of lisp (nothing wrong with that though!!!).
ferociouskite56 2y ago
OLED or nothing
butz 2y ago
Finally, a phone without camera bump and with an audio jack. Screen is way to large for my pockets, though.
johnea 2y ago
I've been waiting for a viable linux phone for years. Ever since the M$ destruction of the Nokia offering. This one looks pretty good! It even has a feature that should make it a great migration away from android: https://furilabs.com/android-app-containers/ https://furilabs.com/android-app-containers/
nhggfu 2y ago
the linkedin profile linked to in footer doesn't exist. #redflag
- gradientsrneat 2y ago
  Weird. A possibly matching profile shows up in search for me, but upon clicking the link LinkedIn says they can't find a matching page.
m463 2y ago
"privacy centric" then uses google services as part of web page. easy fix - quit referencing gstatic.com That said, it is awesome they are making this phone, and even if you don't use it, more choices are better for everyone.
- GranPC 2y ago
  Good catch. We'll fix that. Thanks!
anonzzzies 2y ago
No video on usb c? Maybe I missed it but don't see it in the specs?
kiririn 2y ago
>Mediatek If in any doubt about whether to buy this, look at Planet Computers offerings and the quality of their Linux build. They have been offering Mediatek-based Linux phones for several years. Spoiler: garbage with ancient proprietary kernel, thanks to Mediatek
lproven 2y ago
FWIW I wrote about this a few months ago, after trying the actual device at devconf.cz in July. It's on HN here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40805156 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40805156
- throwaway1681 2y ago
  Are you referring to the one line comment you wrote, or do you write for The Register and that was your story submitted?
  - Reviving1514 2y ago
    They seem to have written the original article going off the articles author name and the name in their bio.
    - lproven 2y ago
      That is correct. I have also stated in my bio that I work for the Reg.
  - lproven 2y ago
    I wrote the Register article.
wiz21c 2y ago
$499 is not cheap. At all.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
999900000999 2y ago
No word on HDMI out ? That's the only thing stopping this from being a full computer.
- woodrowbarlow 2y ago
  i assume it would do video over the usb-c port like the pinephone and librem.
  - 999900000999 2y ago
    I don't like to assume anything when spending 500$. I have a One Plus 12, which has HDMI out, but it's like they didn't feel like finishing it. It's not really usable, it doesn't have any controls like Dex does.
    - forgotacc240419 2y ago
      Dex is an outlier, other than Huawei's Easy Projection I'm not sure anyone does more than mirroring the screen
      - 999900000999 2y ago
        Motorola has a limited version of Dex as well.
  - linmob 2y ago
    The FLX1 hardware does not support this, sadly (as very many phones do).
not_your_vase 2y ago
This website is just infuriating[0] to use with the randomly disappearing elements (FF 131 on Fedora 39, even with disabled uBlock). $500 sounds kind of funny when PinePhonePro is $400, but of course on the other hand Librem5 is $1000+, so whatever. Still, (2-gen-old) iPhone price-range. Couldn't find too many datasheets nor other documentation unfortunately, though it might because of the unusable piece of crap website, which made me rage-close it. [0]: just noticed: inFURIating, as in Furi labs, haha
- tmtvl 2y ago
  From their FAQ: > Furi is pronounced “Fury”. FuriOS is pronounced “Furious”. We simply couldn’t afford the Fury part of the domain names.
- neilsimp1 2y ago
  > on the other hand Librem5 is $1000+ $800 now: https://shop.puri.sm/shop/librem-5/ https://shop.puri.sm/shop/librem-5/ But yes the "nice" one aka Liberty Phone is still $2000, unfortunately.
tmtvl 2y ago
I'm currently using a Volla 22 with Ubuntu Touch and I'm happy with it. However if Furi is using Plasma Mobile (they're mum about what interface they're using, but if it's really a 'lightning fast user interface' then I don't know what else it could be) then it's unfortunate that I discovered this too late to get it instead.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- Vinnl 2y ago
  I think I've seen multiple references to Phosh.
  - GranPC 2y ago
    It is Phosh. It can run Plasma Mobile too, but I'm told it's still a bit early in development.
    - LtWorf 2y ago
      I've used phosh and plasma mobile and honestly I can't understand why would anyone put phosh by default. It's much much slower (and ugly, which doesn't help)
      - chainingsolid 2y ago
        On my pinephone Phosh feels faster than Plasma Mobile.
justmarc 2y ago
Just make sure all the critical components as well as baseband are implemented in Rust, and you can count me as a customer ;) Let's not forget to also get it all audited, too.
thatguy288 2y ago
I might be interested once there's videos of it doing daily stuff, and especially of how its autofocus (speed and functionality) compares to, let's say even an old Samsung Galaxy S7.
- GranPC 2y ago
  What kind of scenarios would you like to see the autofocus working in?
sylware 2y ago
What is their GFX toolkit? Because there debian, android? What is the bottom of it?
aidenn0 2y ago
I'm guessing one of the engineers was born on October 15, 1982?
zokier 2y ago
is this actually their own HW design, or is it just some random alibaba HW with their software on it? edit: looks like same HW as "Gigaset GX6" https://www.gigaset.com/hq_en/gigaset-gx6/ https://www.gigaset.com/hq_en/gigaset-gx6/
- GranPC 2y ago
  We work with the same ODM that supplied the hardware for the Gigaset GX6. We do not resell Gigaset phones directly, but we do use the same reference design.
- mendelmaleh 2y ago
  review for the android version: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Gigaset-GX6-smartphone-review-Stable-fast-and-with-replaceable-battery.673880.0.html https://www.notebookcheck.net/Gigaset-GX6-smartphone-review-... seems pretty favorable, keep in mind that it's already two years old. it's also a brick at 280g, almost double a pixel 5, otherwise pretty similar
pjmlp 2y ago
A great thing about Android and iDevices is their departure from yet another UNIX clone using C and C++ as the main application languages. As such, most of these attempts aren't that attractive to me as OS nerd, always recycling the same ideas.
- mixmastamyk 2y ago
  Still haven’t achieved a workable floss device with old ideas.
tgtaptarget 2y ago
[dead]
barbequeer 2y ago
> Fast, performant and cheap. You wanted all 3? Now you got it! Fast, Good, and Cheap. Performant is just a synonym for fast. Is it any good? Also call me a miser, but $499 is not "cheap". I recently bought a new Nokia G42 with the same camera and storage for <€150
- psd1 2y ago
  Agree that it's not cheap for a mobile phone, but it is cheap for a low-volume custom phone. To get under €150, you need volume and bundling.
mixmastamyk 2y ago
Finally! (Fingers crossed.) So tired of decade-old unimproved hardware with no drivers from Pine or $800+ handsets from purism—quite old as well. The starlite tablet from star labs is quite good. Wish all these tiny companies could work together somehow.
748993 2y ago
[dead]
transistor-man 2y ago
I'm interested, is there a hands on video or review somewhere? I can't get their timeline page to load correctly: https://furilabs.com/timeline/ https://furilabs.com/timeline/
ranguna 2y ago
Does the usb c support displayport alt mode? How's the performance compared to a Linux vm running on a pixel 9 with kvm? Android 15 recently released, which brought support for graphical acceleration inside the vm, so that's one competitor for the Linux phone.
- psd1 2y ago
  The reg article suggests not: > ...then the next planned feature is wireless display support. At present, you can't dock the phone and use it as a PC with a keyboard and mouse, which is a shame. Apparently, the IO lines needed for a wired dock were used for the macro camera. https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/26/furi_phone_flx1_debian_smartphone/ https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/26/furi_phone_flx1_debia...
  - chainingsolid 2y ago
    Ouch, My first thought on seeing the hardware specs was it would be better than my Pinephone with my lapdock... This is a deal breaker for me.
    - ranguna 2y ago
      Yep same
ahaseeb 2y ago
Is it a solution searching for problem ? What's the use case ?

223 points by nikodunk 2y ago

Narishma 2y ago

> Fast, performant and cheap. What's the difference between fast and performant?

VyseofArcadia 2y ago
Hasty guess: fast is responsiveness, performant is performance per watt?
- polotics 2y ago
  fast is latency, performant is bandwidth
  - VyseofArcadia 2y ago
    I doubt they're using those words to mean that specifically when they are trying to sell a phone to consumers. No one sells phones on "bandwidth".
chrisoconnell 2y ago
Something can be fast, but lack efficiency or the ability to utilize the speed. For example, a car can have 1,000hp, but utilizes a large turbo which takes a long time to spool up, leading to poor performance. It may also have poor handling characteristics. On the other hand, let's use a car like a Mazda Miata, which only has 181hp. It is not fast, but it is an incredibly performant car, with exceptional handling and driving dynamics. Speed and performance are not directly correlated, and are independent metrics. Performance is more of an indication of the overall dynamics of action, intention and results.
- psd1 2y ago
  Alternate explanation: the copy was bashed out late at night by an engineer in crunch mode. Don't parse "covfefe", discard it.

siddhartpai 2y ago

https://archive.is/WSQ9G https://archive.is/WSQ9G

georgyo 2y ago
It's sad that basically a static page is getting hugged to death.

kak3a 2y ago

Who will be buying these? Developers?

vngzs 2y ago
It's a Linux phone that runs Android apps, so they ostensibly don't have the problem of building the ecosystem.
- freedomben 2y ago
  Importantly though, it won't have Google Play and the increasingly mandatory GMS, so a lot of Android apps won't work properly. Definitely cool though and worthy of some attention.
  - GranPC 2y ago
    We do however ship with microG. I have heard of people using Uber, Spotify, Lyft, Signal, etc. So Android app support isn't that bad despite no GMS.
    - freedomben 2y ago
      Amazing, thank you! You just sold a phone :-)

DaveChurchill 2y ago

"I love the new furry phone"... Just like DuckDuckGo I think the name will hamper adoption of this.

vngzs 2y ago
It's "fury phone": > Furious Support from the FuriOS team
- rendaw 2y ago
  They could say it's pronounced "Wendigo" and people would still read it "Furry".
  - krunck 2y ago
    If people read "fury" as "furry" then that's a literacy problem.
    - prophesi 2y ago
      As someone who reads/watches a lot of Japanese media, "fury" isn't how I would first read "furi". I do like "FuriOS" and think it avoids this issue, but other portmanteaus might be better avoided.
    - avazhi 2y ago
      You’re right. And if you can’t understand why almost everyone will read ‘furi’ as furry and not ‘fury’, then you’ve got a phonics problem.
FrustratedMonky 2y ago
Have to say, main reason for clicking to check it out was I thought it was a Phone for Furries. Curiosity got me to look. Maybe it will drive traffic.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

pmontra 2y ago

> Phone: 171mm x 82mm x 12mm : 280g 280 grams is a lot even for today's phones. 12 mm is half a inch. Very thick. The other dimensions are 6.7 x 3.2 inches. Ok, this might be a phone for people that want to prove a point but it's too cumbersome. How about starting with something reasonable and fit it with only what fits within those bounds? An example: 160 x 80 x 9 and 200 g. That would be a big phone but not bigger than many phones on sale.

porphyra 2y ago
It takes lots of engineering effort to make things svelte. That makes it incredibly hard for "indie" phone makers to come up with something competitive in this regard. Likewise with price --- Android phones with similar specs can be found for only $200.
- wmf 2y ago
  Why bother when you could pay HMD (aka "Nokia"), Foxconn, ASUS, etc to make a dramatically better phone with your logo and your OS on it?
  - HumblyTossed 2y ago
    Can you actually do this with the numbers Furilabs probably expects to hit? Surely there's a minimum number to order before the companies you mentioned will even take you serious.
    - wmf 2y ago
      The Linux phones all fail anyway so if you don't have the volume just don't bother.
      - psd1 2y ago
        Are you suffering from burnout? There's an undercurrent of despair in your comment. Don't do it to yourself, you only get one brain. Help us available. DM me if you want.

sandreas 2y ago

I'm so desperately looking for a DIY portable device that does not suck to build my portable audio player, best case supporting android with any of the following custom roms: LineageOS CalyxOS GrapheneOS /e/OS I even considered making a player myself using the T113-S3 SoC, unfortunately not having the required skills. There are so many people trying to build prototypes, but this seems to be a space that is not easy to manage. Here is my personal favorite Audio Player base device, best I found so far: https://github.com/yuansco/TinyEmbedded-Dual https://github.com/yuansco/TinyEmbedded-Dual

gitaarik 2y ago
Not Android, but it's an open-source music player: https://www.crowdsupply.com/cool-tech-zone/tangara https://www.crowdsupply.com/cool-tech-zone/tangara
- sandreas 2y ago
  Thank you. Yeah I did know that. For my use case it unfortunately is too clunky and it does not have headphone remote (afaik), but I really considered buying one, just in case it gets added. In Android, headphone remote works out of the box... that's why I would like to use one. There is the HiBy M300, which in my opinion would be worth having a custom rom :-) Indeed there seems to be efforts. https://github.com/reindex-ot/hiby_digital_m300 https://github.com/reindex-ot/hiby_digital_m300 https://www.head-fi.org/threads/hiby-digital-m300-android-digital-audio-player-the-gen-z-music-player-discussion-thread.970428/page-39 https://www.head-fi.org/threads/hiby-digital-m300-android-di... https://store.hiby.com/products/hiby-digital-m300 https://store.hiby.com/products/hiby-digital-m300
heavyset_go 2y ago
Check out Rockbox if you haven't already.

jchw 2y ago

Apparently it is based on Halium, so it's probably not going to run mainline Linux any time soon. On the other hand, I'm less happy with Android than I pretty much ever have been, so having some more options outside of relatively unusable Linux phones and being stuck with modified Android firmware certainly does not hurt. I am definitely interested, especially if the team working on it is as active as it seems they are. Definitely one of the biggest bummers with PinePhone and PinePhone Pro was realizing that the community was largely on its own; that could work well, but in practice progress has been slow and painful and I stopped paying attention. I would really like to see more projects doing cellular Linux devices in general. It doesn't need to be a candybar smartphone, if someone can jam a cellular modem into a MicroPC I'm sold at any price I can afford.

GranPC 2y ago
I work on this device. We are currently QAing the latest update with our community, which contains a lot of goodies and improvements shaped directly from community feedback. You can see previous changelogs at https://furilabs.com/changelog https://furilabs.com/changelog I am obviously a little biased, but this is probably the first Linux phone that people can actually use. Someone in our community switched from iPhone to this without much of an issue.
- rendaw 2y ago
  I don't care about running stuff out of the box, but NixOs support would be awesome!
  - yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
    Does anyone have NixOS+Halium working?
    - forgotacc240419 2y ago
      Possibly the OnePlus 6? This isn't an area I'm too well versed on though

imzadi 2y ago

I think we have different definitions of cheap

rw_panic0_0 2y ago

design is kinda ugly + 500 dollars is not cheap

onli 2y ago
I honestly think it looks fine. Nice texture at the back, pretty metal accents around the camera and at the side button, good logo. The uneven bezels (the one at the bottom is larger) are less nice, but that's just a reality of the budget this probably moves in, not even the Fairphone 5 did solve that yet.

caiusdurling 2y ago

Took me ages to connect the fact the phone was flipping around at hyper-speed on the webpage because I had the cursor over it whilst scrolling down. Had to move to the right side of the page to then scroll down.

2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago

Furry-labs or Fury-labs?

anoncow 2y ago

Furi OS was what turned me away. Never heard of it and that makes me realise we don't have an android alternative OS which is permanent. Do we have any OS which is permanent? Shouldn't we have one?

GranPC 2y ago
FuriOS is a derivate of Droidian, which in turn is basically Debian with Halium support. So it's pretty much Debian + some custom patches for usability, hardware support, performance, so on. We intend to upstream as many of our changes as possible as time permits, but right now we are laser focused on improving the experience day in and day out.
- deng 2y ago
  Hi, thanks for answering questions here. How do you handle device encryption?
  - GranPC 2y ago
    Once you turn on full disk encryption, the phone will reboot once and begin to encrypt the entire filesystem in the background. Further reboots will require that you input your FDE password (which can be different from your lock screen password/PIN) in a minimal rootfs-based UI.
- freedomben 2y ago
  Are all of your patches open source? Given enough time, could a user build a "factory image" of FuriOS from source?
  - GranPC 2y ago
    Yes. It doesn't even require a lot of time, all the build scripts are on our GitHub.
- anoncow 2y ago
  Thanks for the answer. All the best!

deng 2y ago

Given the open issues at https://github.com/FuriLabs/issue-tracker/issues https://github.com/FuriLabs/issue-tracker/issues I think it's fair to say that whoever buys this is in for a bumpy ride. I mean, that is to be expected, however, I think they should be more honest about the current state, like for instance PostmarketOS does at https://postmarketos.org/state/ https://postmarketos.org/state/

HL33tibCe7 2y ago
> https://github.com/FuriLabs/issue-tracker/issues/78 https://github.com/FuriLabs/issue-tracker/issues/78 If SMS doesn't work, I have serious concerns about everything else...

rendaw 2y ago

It says "Wired/Wireless and NFC combo" under battery charging, but there's no mention of NFC under "Connectivity". Is it charging only? I'd like a linux phone but the Purism phone eschewed NFC too.

GranPC 2y ago
There's NFC, although the Linux stack support for NFC is a little limiting. However the NFC hardware is passed through to the Android container, so if, for example, your bank doesn't demand that you pass SafetyNet, you can pay with the phone. (I have done this)
- Neikius 2y ago
  How would you check what the banking app you are using requires?
  - GranPC 2y ago
    That's a good question, sorry I missed your comment. I honestly don't know of an "easy" way to do that. If you have enough time on your hands you could decompile it and take a look. You could also try running it on a spare phone with a ROM that doesn't contain Google Play Services (or where it's been disabled). However, SafetyNet isn't the only line of defense. These apps often have their own root checks, which doesn't pose a problem for us because the Android image isn't rooted. (But it runs inside LXC, and you can attach a root shell into it.) Another thing they don't like sometimes is the system build fingerprint not being recognized. We have an overlay(fs) system that allows users to customize everything inside the Android container without the hassle of rebuilding the system images or having to stay on the ball when we update things. It's not hard then to pick up the build fingerprint line from a "trusted" device and just drop it in build.prop. All of this is a bit of a hassle, to put it mildly. But if we try to talk to any bank or contactless payment provider right now, they'll tell us to kick rocks. I guess it's a matter of time until we grow or a very smart person figures out a very clever hack. :)
- rendaw 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

zamalek 2y ago

Very tempting. What is the deal with play store integrity, i.e. is wallet (and some banking apps) supported?

GranPC 2y ago
Afraid not. These things usually require hardware attestation to ensure you're running the exact software Google wants you to run. Now, if someone figured out a way to bypass it, that would probably work for a bit. But it's a cat and mouse game.
- numpad0 2y ago
  It's not just what Google wants you to run, it's what Google promises to some of its customers through a face it has on one of numerous facets(facing banks in this case) as what they let users do with phones, and a humanware chain of trust that allows the server and the phone to be viewed as sort-of secure computing environment. From an idealist standpoint, it shouldn't be done that way by taking away rights from users, but trivializing it as how specifically Google wants you to do it isn't accurate either.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
freedomben 2y ago
It says "F-Droid, Aurora Store, and other sources'" so I'm guessing there's no Play store and probably no GMS and other increasingly mandatory proprietary dependencies. Open source Android is in rough shape as a result of Google's tightening the ratchet. Edit: In a different comment one of the devs clarified that it does have microG, so quite a few apps will actually work.[1] [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41840021 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41840021
numpad0 2y ago
Why does this question always come up? There's zero technical reasons you can't electronically pay with all-open software stack e.g. Ethereum on GNU/Linux, it's pure matter of trust. With currently available payment standards, it's like asking for a live credit card with someone else's private key and an open debug port, all at the same time. Things don't work that way.

neilv 2y ago

$500 price point is a lot for an open source enthusiast phone, especially one unknown. The Pine64 PinePhone is $150-$200, with similar hardware provenance, but various open source projects that might at least give better software longevity and software trustworthiness. https://pine64.com/product-category/pinephone/ https://pine64.com/product-category/pinephone/ An additional consideration: as much as we like and respect our global colleagues, unfortunately I could see both hardware brands getting banned in some locales and by some organizations, like some other telecom brands have been banned. A phone that can't be used as a phone has little value, no matter how open it is. For somewhat different provenance, the Purism Librem 5 is coming in at $800+, which is too high a high price point for most open source enthusiast contributors. https://shop.puri.sm/shop/librem-5/ https://shop.puri.sm/shop/librem-5/ And Purism's made-in-USA version, the Liberty Phone, is at $2K+. I guess maybe government or enterprise sales? https://shop.puri.sm/shop/liberty-phone/ https://shop.puri.sm/shop/liberty-phone/ I'm thinking that better for the Western open source developers and non-wealthy enthusiasts would be something more palatable to Western governments, and usable as a daily driver, like Librem 5, but priced somewhere in (guessing) $200-$400.

NewJazz 2y ago
The original pinephone was an allwinner soc that had like 4x a53 cores, a weak GPU, and pretty meh ram. This phone has a fairly modern mediatek soc with a78 cores, a fairly modern Mali GPU, ufs storage, and lpddrx5 ram.
dathinab 2y ago
> with similar hardware provenance no not at all Pine64 hardware is pretty crap (performance wise, very normal independent of the OS at that price point) Like you are comparing things like 3GB LPDDR3 SDRAM (Pine64) to 6GB LPDDR4X which is world apart (not only does it move from a "very tight on memory" to "somewhat acceptable memory" (very big deal) it also is much faster (~2x). Similar on the Pine64 you have 4 old little cores here you have 2 big + 6 little cores and all more modern (end even just the little cores are faster when comparing one core with another, ignoring that you have 2 more little cores and 2 big cores). Storage moves from a quite tight 32 GiB (through I guess if you only do stuff like mail it might be enough) to a likely more then enough 128GiB (also faster). Noticeable faster GPU too, I guess. And way better camera, at least by by numbers. So not comparable at all. But what matters most is not the absolute differences but moving it from a "so tight on RAM,CPU,GPU,Storage that you run all times into problems" to a "enough for all common tasks". I.e. from you need micro optimized apps for it to work nice to yes it works if your app is imperfect territory. And that is a pretty big deal. But also lets be realistic. Atm. _any_ Linux Phone is a pure enthusiast product balancing various problems (price, small production lines, only android diver problems, proprietary blob problems etc.). And many of the enthusiast earn enough money to afford a 500$ toy, through maybe just rarely and with thinking twice about it.

mmh0000 2y ago

I want to like it... But, I've been bitten too many times by expensive Linux phones (Oh Nokia N900, how I wanted to love you. but you couldn't even make phone calls without threatening to crash). It's a little weird that there are very few details on this thing. Notably, one of my #1 concerns when looking for a new phone today is a good camera. And all I can find on the camera is "it's 50MP!!! " But how do actual, non-photoshopped pictures look? Does it do okay in low-light? Does it support any sort of optical zoom? Their website is currently as slow as a frozen snail (which, if they can't run a basic web server, leads to a lot of doubt they can maintain a long-term Linux distro). So I couldn't click around much, but I didn't find anything really informative. I tried looking at YouTube videos and only found some weird official videos of a person's hand putting the phone in a sink. Like... Yes, it has been expected for the last 8ish years that my phone will be waterproof, that's not an amazing achievement. It also seems to be "weird" Linux, like Maemo was for the N900. I don't want weird, custom-built stuff that will be forgotten about in 12 months. Just give me a standard Debain/Fedora/Whatever and an unlocked bootloader to reinstall with what I want. IMHO they should really look at what Valve did with the steamdeck and SteamOS, It's a custom Linux that works well, but, it's also standard hardware with an open bootloader. There are dozens of SteamOS alternatives.

freedomben 2y ago
> It also seems to be "weird" Linux, like Maemo was for the N900. I don't want weird, custom-built stuff that will be forgotten about in 12 months. Just give me a standard Debain/Fedora/Whatever and an unlocked bootloader to reinstall with what I want. I wouldn't say it's a "weird Linux as it's mostly Debian and it's fully rebuildable by the user from the open source scripts[1]. I would likewise love a phone that was just mainline Fedora, but given many of the current challenges around ARM devices with linux, I fully understand why a "custom-built" OS is needed. As long as it's as light-weight as possible and is open source/rebuildable by the user, I think it's a good compromise given the realities around the platform. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41840036 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41840036
- mmh0000 2y ago
  To be fair (insert meme here) Maemo was "mostly Debian" as well, it was one of the big selling points. Except Maemo was quickly abandoned by Nokia and left unmaintained. To further complicate matters Maemo required arcane tools to build it and install it to a device. Custom community kernels quickly became standard for enabling basic functionality which Nokia should have provided, but, didn't. However, the custom kernels were also frequently left unpatched and abandoned because they were being built and maintained by random internet users who found other hobbies. I think the idea is awesome and I am excited if not skeptical. I hope Furi manages to build a healthy community around this. And doesn't go the path of so many previous Linux phones.

ninetyninenine 2y ago

What I want is quality to the level of flagship android phones or the iphone with the ability to plug it in to a keyboard, mouse and screen and have it function as my laptop as well. One single integrated experience. I think everyone wants this. We have the technology we have the demand, it's just companies who make the high quality phones want to completely lock down the market. You would think the free market would produce a company that would tackle this issue but barrier to entry is waay to high so essentially we have small companies trying to get into this space but they are only creating sub-par products because they can't make something as good as an iphone. It's basically a legal monopoly. Companies can't get into it because the technology and capital required are way to high and only super mega corps like samsung and apple can pull it off... Closest thing I've seen to this product I'm looking for is the steam deck. I would buy a steam deck phone if it had the quality of a pixel/iphone device.

freedomben 2y ago
I agree I would love this option, but how much would you be willing to pay for such a device? Would you pay $800? $1,000? $1,400? That's where I have a hard time. I would pay that kind of money, but I would need something well polished and fully capable of being a "daily driver." I think many people are in the same place I am, and thus we have a real chicken and egg problem here.
- ninetyninenine 2y ago
  I'd pay up to 3k if it was quality delivered the experience of a top quality phone and a top quality laptop. I mean the technology to do this is already here. If apple or samsung wanted to do this... they can. Right now I use an iphone, but if samsung made a phone that felt like say linux, windows or macos when in laptop mode... I would switch off iphone in a heartbeat. And i mean it has to feel like macOS. None of that bloat is acceptable. SteamOS actually pulls this off but in a gaming form factor.
  - michaelmior 2y ago
    > and a top quality laptop. > I mean the technology to do this is already here. I think it really depends on what precisely you mean here. I don't think it's currently possible to get the same performance of my M3 Max MacBook Pro in the form factor of a phone.

INTPenis 2y ago

Why not use the open source Android? I just feel like it would be more mature. And yes I like many others here have been trying Linux phones for 10+ years, since N900. Your phone just has to work, it can't crash because you get a call, or hide buttons because the UI is confused by orientation. IT MUST WORK. So that's why I wonder why people don't just use Android.

freedomben 2y ago
Open source Android has been increasingly neglected by Google, and is (essentially) unusable at this point unless you are ok with the look and feel of very early Android. It also isn't likely to improve as Google's strategy seems to be to move toward more and more proprietaryness. I think a much more sustainable approach is to focus on existing Linux distros and get them more usable on phones.
- KetoManx64 2y ago
  You are wrong about AOSP. I'm running LineageOS (Android 14) on both my phone and tablet without Gapps and it is a fully functional system. (NewPipe for youtube, Aurora/Fdroid for for App Stores) I don't know what you mean by "look and feel of early android" either, as AOSP based ROMs look just like Google Pixel in the settings, quick dropdowns and dialogue popups.
  - onli 2y ago
    LineageOS is not the raw open source Android though that the parent probably referred to. Afaik there are quite some changes needed by now to make it really usable. But sure, LOS proves it can be done.
  - freedomben 2y ago
    LineageOS != AOSP. They've put quite a bit of work on top of it too make it usable. To be clear I have nothing against lineage, and I'm a Graphene OS user myself, but these projects add a lot of value on top of raw AOSP.

CommanderData 2y ago

What control does it have over the baseband / modem or lack thereof?

avazhi 2y ago

Unfortunate name.

mcflubbins 2y ago
yeah, went looking for this comment...

robertlagrant 2y ago

> Fast, performant and cheap. You wanted all 3? Now you got it! What's the difference between fast and "performant"?

whytevuhuni 2y ago
Maybe one is latency (how optimized the software is) and the other is throughput (how many cores it has). Although more likely just weird marketing.
nzgrover 2y ago
It's marketing drivel, and marketing loves the "rule of three".

bsimpson 2y ago

It's surprising to me that there aren't any details about the software stack. Whenever I've tried to find a touch-optimized Linux shell, I've come up short. As has been discussed on this forum in the past, most of the attempts are understaffed side projects that have thousands of manhours of work ahead of them. I'd like to know what shell FuriOS is based on, and what they're doing to make it usable. Even a demo video would go a long way!

GranPC 2y ago
I'll write something in the dev blog, thanks. We use Phosh, with some minor patches. Upstream Phosh is pretty good as it is!
- bsimpson 2y ago
  I haven't been able to try Phosh because it's badly packaged on NixOS. Maybe one day I'll take a stab at fixing their package. https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/278204 https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/278204
  - mixmastamyk 2y ago
    Recent phosh is packaged on Fedora. I’m critical but also pretty happy with it. Biggest disappointment is that many gnome apps are not as touchscreen friendly as was promised.
- bsimpson 2y ago
  Glad to see you engaging the community! As someone unfamiliar with Furilabs, it wouldn't occur to me to go looking for a dev blog to see if you've written anything about the shell. I feel like that's information you'd want to link from the marketing page (even if the details are on your blog).
  - GranPC 2y ago
    Community is what got me here in the first place. :) Fair enough! Noted.

maufl 2y ago

Can anyone estimate what it would cost to develop a new phone that's like the N900 with updated hardware (slide out keyboard, camera cover, maybe drop the input stylus, a bit flatter and larger) and mainline Linux support for all components? I'm sometimes wondering if this is something I could have Pine64 do if I accidentally get rich enough. I think I would spent the rest of my days just writing the software for this.

asimovfan 2y ago
I believe everyone has similar fantasies. Your best bet is a custom made mini laptop with a x86_64 SoC with perhaps 18650 batteries or thin easily replaceable battery packs.. I believe the GPD Pocket is also x86_64.
mpol 2y ago
First question is; which SOC would you want to use? Is there any SOC with full mainline support that you would agree to? There is a reason Pine64 and Purism went with SOCs out of the ordinary path.
tmtvl 2y ago
Considering there's a bunch of stuff you'd have to manufacture from scratch I'm gonna say... 500 million USD? If you're okay with outsourcing a bunch of stuff to China and treading on gray areas where patents are concerned. Unfortunately it's gonna take a few more years before various mobile phone patents start expiring.

g-b-r 2y ago

Chinese, unfortunately

fsflover 2y ago
There is AFAIK only one non-Chinese Linux phone, and it's Liberty Phone.
- anonzzzies 2y ago
  ... which is $2k... We already know that almost everyone likes the idea of not being Chinese stuff, but no one is willing to pay 4x premium. The Liberty specs are dismal for a 2k phone; as I said (I think response to you as well); I would pay basically anything for descent modern specs (so s24 or so) but running linux, but not 2k for something that will just annoy me in not being practical besides for a bit of lisp (nothing wrong with that though!!!).

ferociouskite56 2y ago

OLED or nothing

butz 2y ago

Finally, a phone without camera bump and with an audio jack. Screen is way to large for my pockets, though.

johnea 2y ago

I've been waiting for a viable linux phone for years. Ever since the M$ destruction of the Nokia offering. This one looks pretty good! It even has a feature that should make it a great migration away from android: https://furilabs.com/android-app-containers/ https://furilabs.com/android-app-containers/

nhggfu 2y ago

the linkedin profile linked to in footer doesn't exist. #redflag

gradientsrneat 2y ago
Weird. A possibly matching profile shows up in search for me, but upon clicking the link LinkedIn says they can't find a matching page.

m463 2y ago

"privacy centric" then uses google services as part of web page. easy fix - quit referencing gstatic.com That said, it is awesome they are making this phone, and even if you don't use it, more choices are better for everyone.

GranPC 2y ago
Good catch. We'll fix that. Thanks!

anonzzzies 2y ago

No video on usb c? Maybe I missed it but don't see it in the specs?

kiririn 2y ago

>Mediatek If in any doubt about whether to buy this, look at Planet Computers offerings and the quality of their Linux build. They have been offering Mediatek-based Linux phones for several years. Spoiler: garbage with ancient proprietary kernel, thanks to Mediatek

lproven 2y ago

FWIW I wrote about this a few months ago, after trying the actual device at devconf.cz in July. It's on HN here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40805156 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40805156

throwaway1681 2y ago
Are you referring to the one line comment you wrote, or do you write for The Register and that was your story submitted?
- Reviving1514 2y ago
  They seem to have written the original article going off the articles author name and the name in their bio.
  - lproven 2y ago
    That is correct. I have also stated in my bio that I work for the Reg.
- lproven 2y ago
  I wrote the Register article.

wiz21c 2y ago

$499 is not cheap. At all.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

999900000999 2y ago

No word on HDMI out ? That's the only thing stopping this from being a full computer.

woodrowbarlow 2y ago
i assume it would do video over the usb-c port like the pinephone and librem.
- 999900000999 2y ago
  I don't like to assume anything when spending 500$. I have a One Plus 12, which has HDMI out, but it's like they didn't feel like finishing it. It's not really usable, it doesn't have any controls like Dex does.
  - forgotacc240419 2y ago
    Dex is an outlier, other than Huawei's Easy Projection I'm not sure anyone does more than mirroring the screen
    - 999900000999 2y ago
      Motorola has a limited version of Dex as well.
- linmob 2y ago
  The FLX1 hardware does not support this, sadly (as very many phones do).

not_your_vase 2y ago

This website is just infuriating[0] to use with the randomly disappearing elements (FF 131 on Fedora 39, even with disabled uBlock). $500 sounds kind of funny when PinePhonePro is $400, but of course on the other hand Librem5 is $1000+, so whatever. Still, (2-gen-old) iPhone price-range. Couldn't find too many datasheets nor other documentation unfortunately, though it might because of the unusable piece of crap website, which made me rage-close it. [0]: just noticed: inFURIating, as in Furi labs, haha

tmtvl 2y ago
From their FAQ: > Furi is pronounced “Fury”. FuriOS is pronounced “Furious”. We simply couldn’t afford the Fury part of the domain names.
neilsimp1 2y ago
> on the other hand Librem5 is $1000+ $800 now: https://shop.puri.sm/shop/librem-5/ https://shop.puri.sm/shop/librem-5/ But yes the "nice" one aka Liberty Phone is still $2000, unfortunately.

tmtvl 2y ago

I'm currently using a Volla 22 with Ubuntu Touch and I'm happy with it. However if Furi is using Plasma Mobile (they're mum about what interface they're using, but if it's really a 'lightning fast user interface' then I don't know what else it could be) then it's unfortunate that I discovered this too late to get it instead.

deleted 2y ago
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Vinnl 2y ago
I think I've seen multiple references to Phosh.
- GranPC 2y ago
  It is Phosh. It can run Plasma Mobile too, but I'm told it's still a bit early in development.
  - LtWorf 2y ago
    I've used phosh and plasma mobile and honestly I can't understand why would anyone put phosh by default. It's much much slower (and ugly, which doesn't help)
    - chainingsolid 2y ago
      On my pinephone Phosh feels faster than Plasma Mobile.

justmarc 2y ago

Just make sure all the critical components as well as baseband are implemented in Rust, and you can count me as a customer ;) Let's not forget to also get it all audited, too.

thatguy288 2y ago

I might be interested once there's videos of it doing daily stuff, and especially of how its autofocus (speed and functionality) compares to, let's say even an old Samsung Galaxy S7.

GranPC 2y ago
What kind of scenarios would you like to see the autofocus working in?

sylware 2y ago

What is their GFX toolkit? Because there debian, android? What is the bottom of it?

aidenn0 2y ago

I'm guessing one of the engineers was born on October 15, 1982?

zokier 2y ago

is this actually their own HW design, or is it just some random alibaba HW with their software on it? edit: looks like same HW as "Gigaset GX6" https://www.gigaset.com/hq_en/gigaset-gx6/ https://www.gigaset.com/hq_en/gigaset-gx6/

GranPC 2y ago
We work with the same ODM that supplied the hardware for the Gigaset GX6. We do not resell Gigaset phones directly, but we do use the same reference design.
mendelmaleh 2y ago
review for the android version: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Gigaset-GX6-smartphone-review-Stable-fast-and-with-replaceable-battery.673880.0.html https://www.notebookcheck.net/Gigaset-GX6-smartphone-review-... seems pretty favorable, keep in mind that it's already two years old. it's also a brick at 280g, almost double a pixel 5, otherwise pretty similar

pjmlp 2y ago

A great thing about Android and iDevices is their departure from yet another UNIX clone using C and C++ as the main application languages. As such, most of these attempts aren't that attractive to me as OS nerd, always recycling the same ideas.

mixmastamyk 2y ago
Still haven’t achieved a workable floss device with old ideas.

tgtaptarget 2y ago

[dead]

barbequeer 2y ago

> Fast, performant and cheap. You wanted all 3? Now you got it! Fast, Good, and Cheap. Performant is just a synonym for fast. Is it any good? Also call me a miser, but $499 is not "cheap". I recently bought a new Nokia G42 with the same camera and storage for <€150

psd1 2y ago
Agree that it's not cheap for a mobile phone, but it is cheap for a low-volume custom phone. To get under €150, you need volume and bundling.

mixmastamyk 2y ago

Finally! (Fingers crossed.) So tired of decade-old unimproved hardware with no drivers from Pine or $800+ handsets from purism—quite old as well. The starlite tablet from star labs is quite good. Wish all these tiny companies could work together somehow.

748993 2y ago

[dead]

transistor-man 2y ago

I'm interested, is there a hands on video or review somewhere? I can't get their timeline page to load correctly: https://furilabs.com/timeline/ https://furilabs.com/timeline/

ranguna 2y ago

Does the usb c support displayport alt mode? How's the performance compared to a Linux vm running on a pixel 9 with kvm? Android 15 recently released, which brought support for graphical acceleration inside the vm, so that's one competitor for the Linux phone.

psd1 2y ago
The reg article suggests not: > ...then the next planned feature is wireless display support. At present, you can't dock the phone and use it as a PC with a keyboard and mouse, which is a shame. Apparently, the IO lines needed for a wired dock were used for the macro camera. https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/26/furi_phone_flx1_debian_smartphone/ https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/26/furi_phone_flx1_debia...
- chainingsolid 2y ago
  Ouch, My first thought on seeing the hardware specs was it would be better than my Pinephone with my lapdock... This is a deal breaker for me.
  - ranguna 2y ago
    Yep same

ahaseeb 2y ago

Is it a solution searching for problem ? What's the use case ?