I’ve owned a Pinephone Pro since launch, and have tried to daily drive it on and off for years with limited success. It’s sitting in a drawer at the moment because echo cancellation doesn’t work on phone calls regularly.

Anyways, I have a Pixel 3a sitting around that needs a battery replacement, but I wanted to ask here if anyone else is running Linux on it? And if so, how is the experience? I’ve been using Linux for decades, so I have no problem working around quirks, but I just want a Linux phone I can text and make phone calls on. I really don’t have too many advanced app needs other than podcasts and web browsing.

Thanks in advance to anyone that replies.

  • wittyusername@lemmy.ml
    2·
    2 days ago

    I am the same - was using PinePhone Pro (though I was daily driving it), and after the screen cracked, I tried Pixel 3A and now daily drive it.

    TLDR; I think it’s worth giving it a go. No regrets here.

    While it still has Android, you need to update to the latest version (from ~June 2022), as that enables VoLTE. VoLTE is required where I live, and the wiki page shows some complicated extra 81voltd process for using VoLTE, but none of that was required for me.

    Calls, SMS, MMS work (though need to switch the APN like on Pinephone).

    Both cameras work.

    GPS works.

    Battery is quite good compared to Pinephone Pro. A call does not wake from suspend, so I don’t suspend the phone, and it definitely lasts the day and more, no problems. (I thought I did have my Pinephone Pro waking from suspend with a call a while ago, but then I upgraded Mobian and that disappeared…)

    Processor is snappier to load things, and the phone runs cooler.

    Mobian release wouldn’t boot for me. PostmarketOS/Nura works.

    Audio is a bit funny, in that there are no separate phone call vs normal profiles. There is only one profile, which has a weird setup of the main speaker as the L channel and ear speaker as the R channel. This would likely be a Postmarket quirk, and I am curious how Mobian does it (I hadn’t tried the weekly builds, but that have hope). So you do need to manually lower the volume to ~15% during a call, and the phone call quality is reasonably good then (probably will be better when the audio output is only on the ear speaker).

    Bluetooth audio works great for podcasts, more reliably than Pinephone Pro.

    Haven’t tried NFC.

    The notification LED doesn’t work, so you need to turn the screen on to see if you missed a call.

    We were spoilt with the USB-C, but Pixel 3A’s only works for charging and using as a fake ethernet device - not plugging in any devices or a monitor.

    It’s a lot more effort to flash an OS to play around with, since there’s no SD card. It was nice being able to play around with a Plasma Mobile release to see how it is, then reboot and go back to normal.