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.
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.
I run postmarketos on my old pixel 3a, and it works great as a linux device, but I haven’t used it for calls/sms. The wiki says sms should work but calls are only partially supported.
If yours is just sitting unused, postmarketos is definitely worth a try.
edit: apparently postmarketos changed its name to nura three days ago, and that link redirects to their rebranded wiki
postmarketOS Just letting you know that they renamed to Nura
Me too. Works fine as a very power efficient server.
I’m using a pixel3a with postmarketOS (now Nura) and sxmo as my daily driver (but I hardly ever call).
Calling and SMS works but there is indeed no echo cancellation so people complain they hear themselves if the volume is not low. I have a more reliable calling experience on the pixel3a than I had on the more powerful oneplus 6 where call audio was often broken.
Web browsing and podcasts should be no problem. The battery also holds well and suspend works. Wifi and mobile data work fine.
Echo cancellation is a deal breaker then. Thanks for laying me know. Saved me time and money.
I’ve ported Mobian to it and use that. Runs well on it.
But the battery is hard to replace on those and it might be cheaper to get another used one, sadly.
I was planning on just using one of those cellphone repair places. Yeah, the process of doing it myself seems out of the question.
I replaced the screen on mine a couple of years ago. It took an evening, there were a couple of fiddly parts, but it went fine. I imagine replacing the battery would be simpler. I have it still, maybe I’ll install Nura on it
Be aware that not all screens work with Linux. Not sure about batteries.
I’ve used it on a few things and maybe I’m being a brat but it’s pretty anemic when it comes to power and it showed for me at least on droidian and ubports
