So, I've hand this device with the weirdly complicated name spelling for a while now. But I haven't used it as my main phone since recently because I first wanted to flash a different OS onto it. I didn't have the capacity/time to take care of that among other reasons because it's something that I've rarely done, and never before successfully. After several failed attempts to get /e/OS to run on it, I've now settled fore LineageOS. Since I want to use it as my main phone from now on I don't think I'll experiment with any other systems on it for now, even though it would be the perfect phone to get some experience with Ubuntu Touch, Sailfish or some other Linux Distro.
Battery
The last time I've written about this device it looked like the battery was affected too much by having been empty for years, notz even allowing the phone to charge its own battery. Android suddenly shut down seemingly randomly and had 3 to 20 % battery when turning it back on minutes later evewn though it displayed 30 to 50 % when it turned off. Sometimes it displayed a higher battery charge after turning back on than when it turned itself off. Sometimes it would last less than five hours usage before it went down. This became better over time. It seems that Android became better at guessing the current battery charge. Now on LineageOS the battery doesn't last a whole day when it's used a lot, but so far it didn't do any surprise jumps or shutdowns. Technically, it lasts a bit over 24 hours with moderate usage. But that is with the last couple of hours under a warning LED (if I hadn't turned that off). According to the LineageOS settings, the battery is healthy and has 100% of its original capacity of 3313 mAh. That would be 113 mAh more than advertised. Maybe I'm just too spoiled by my previous 4000+ mAh devices with smaller and low-rews displays. I didn't do any independent measurement yet. (Edit: More on that in the last part of this entry.)
Keyboard
Probably the most important thing of this phone is the keyboard that makes it unique on today's marked. It is very similar to those of the later Nokia smartphones that still had keyboards. I sort of see it as an N900 with more room for a larger keyboard. It is crammed, but none of the keys are too hard too reach. Not even the number row, that has smaller keys very close to the screen. And every key on this board has a good reason to be there. As somebody coming from a Unihertz Titan Pocket with a Blackberry-style keyboard with a very reduced layout, I'm glad not only punctuatioin and number keys but also for proper arrow keys and four modifier keys of which the ones that are used as lot appear twice. I chose a German keyboard layourt because I'm used to it and can find every symbol I need on it, and it's useful to have the extra letters when I write in German. The Android it came with had only one German QUERTZ layout to select and it didn't match the labeling exactly. Some special characters were switched or missing, and it couldn't produce an apostrophe (') by any means. With LineageOS there is a 'F(x)tec QUERTZ' and that works perfectly now. After the first getting used to they keyboard is a delight to type on compared to any other phone I held in my hands in the last 5 years. I think I still like the Nokia N9300 and N9500 keyboard better. But the more layout closer to PCs does make more sense with a phone where apps aren't developed for that keyboard specifically. And I am enjoying the extra keys, especially on the command line. The backlight also works as one would expect, which is not a given in keyboard smartphones.
Camera
Let's not get into it too much. The camera isn't good. 48 MP doesn't mean anything when every picture that it produces is automatically heavily mushed by noise reductin. It's better than my last phone camera. It's able to produce photos with room light that aren't blurred to the point where you can't read anything. That's enough for me right now. It does have the bug where the camera app gets rotated when you open the phone (which forces all apps into landscape mode), but the image isn't rotated, but its dimensions are. The viewfinder isn't really usable with the keyboard open. But it's not as bad as it is with the Planet Computer phones/PDAs.
Display
Once a smartphone display has reached a certain quality, I don't have much to say about it. And that quality point has been matched even in cheap phones for years. It's bright enough, resolution is high enough, I don't know or care about the maximum frame rate, colours seem fine, viewing angle isn't an issue (very good actually), touch resolution is fine enough that it isn't a problem. It does have black spots in some corners. Apparently that is something that can happen when you bend a panel that maybe isn't advanced enough to be bent that much. The rounded edges are nice though and I don't mind the black spots as long as they aren't growing. I've never accidentally activaterd the touch screen while typing.
Fingerprint Sensor
It's located below the power button on the right. I haven't found a comfortable way of using it to unlock the phone, yet. Maybe I won't use it. It's irritating how often it thinks it's been used when I handle the phone and vibrated he phone. Sometimes it's locked for too many failed attempts once I actually want to use it.
Exterior
As for ports, there are two: USB-C and a headset jack. No more or less than necessary. There's one fingerprint sensor. There are four buttons: Power, volume up, volume down and camera. And then there's a SIM and SD card tray.
Sound
It has stereo speakers, which are actually placed on opposite sides, facing left and right when in landscape mode. They are loud enough and sound like phone speakers sound nowadays: clear, without any surprises and enough bass to not miss it during any sort of speech recording. The position of the speakers could be worse. They arent covered when the phone rests on somthing and they can't be accidentally covered both at the same time. But they aren't facing you directly and can't possibly both face you at the same time. So the sound will always be roomy if both speakers are on. Their distance also creates a problem that I've rarely heard in a phone: If both ar producing the same or almost the same sound waves, parts of them will cancel each other out before the reach your ears, especially if the phone isn't exactly in the middle between your ears and exactly horizontal and straight. At 50 cm distance, if you want to watch a video with sound, in order to understand ecerything, you have to turn up the volume so much that others in the room are wondering why you're watching at that volume. At least I have to and I would wonder. My solution is to turn one of the speakers off almost completely. One is still loud enough usually. In Google's Android the audio settings are hidden in advanced accessibility settings. On LineageOS audio adjustments are directly on the accessibility settings screen. Set to mono you'll still hear everything. The setting does not influence bluetooth earphones.
Practical Usage
Whether the screen is activated by opening the keyboard or by pressing the power button, it takes a second until the screen comes on. That's annoying, but I'm going to get used to it. It's the case with both stock Android and LineageOS.
For daily usage so far it has been great, except for the battery life. Once I've stopped downloading and installing lots of stuff every day and trying things out it has become better. Also I think the battery charge indication has been caribrated. Because it doens't turn off with two digits of battery charge left. I'be decided to go with the battery enabled all the time. This way it lasts well over one day, even when I use it a bit more than usual. According to both the phones own and my measurement the capacity is almost exactly as advertised. (4 to 13 mAh more. I didn't factor in the voltage.) But the fact that it's runtime is at least a third shorter than that of by previous phone (with a smaller battery) makes me think it that the screen and other parts are probably not as energy efficient. I glady charge it more often for the experience with the better keyboard.
