I got my hands on a #Librem5 #LinuxPhone and here are my first impressions. (Thanks @stu!)
blakes.dev/posts/2024-06-03-librem-5-first-impressions/
@blake
I actually use Duo lingo all the time. Use Epiphany and install it as a web app.
As for firefox, there is a mobile config for it. Look up, user0's mobile config for firefox.
I have played both Rumble and YouTube videos through firefox and they play like on any other phone. But when I play a video from Mastodon through Tuba, sometimes it is normal, other times the video doesn't play well.
Heat is definitely an issue.Though believe it or not, it is better than a year and a half ago.
@blake
I am not sure about RCS, but I have friends with both iphones and android phones and I receive texts from both. There is a weird bug where, very occasionally, a text from an iphone will be randomly concatonated with a previous text from another person. The text will look like it came from whoever sent the previous text and the date they sent it. It doesn't happen often though. I have yet to figure out what is different about the text that it happens to vs other texts.
@blake
I don't use banking apps on my phone, I have always just logged into the website from my computer.
However, you might try saving the website as a web app through epiphany and see if that makes it more usable for you.
@blake
You are not wrong about the battery. If your battery is good and fully charged, it will last about 20-22 hours.
I keep a charger with me everywhere I go.
@jlcrawf I had thought about leaving my normal phone, a Pixel 6, here at home when I go on vacation, but the battery seems to go quickly, it's slow and runs at like 5fps especially when scrolling or trying to play a video, and it doesn't support RCS so I'd be unavailable to a few people for the week (and that's not what I want to do).
For regular usage, there's no native Duolingo app, for instance, and the web UI is uncomfortable to use on it. There's no mobile banking, so it would all have to be done by web too. And both Epiphany and Firefox are a pain in the ass to try to use on such a small screen, with touch; scrolling and videos are the biggest pain points here, but Firefox being weird with its popups is also a big contributor.
It doesn't take a lot to make it warm up, either. Using any browser for more than ten minutes does the trick; the LED starts blinking a few minutes after that. And of course that's necessary to do anything at all with it; half of the apps that are supposed to work with it don't, often because of popups that stretch off screen or don't close correctly.
Mostly my complaints boil down to hardware and software mismatch (you're trying to run desktop software on mobile hardware; that's never worked well) and lack of app or feature availability.