Can dumbphones revive Europe’s mobile industry? (thenextweb.com)

submitted 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) by BenchpressMuyDebil@szmer.info to c/buyeuropean@feddit.uk

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I post this knowing the article naively hopeful but it's also food for thought. With the recent drama where Google stopped publishing device-specific AOSP code - thus making maintaining custom ROMs more difficult - what will more tech-knowledgeable people do if Android is enshittified further?

Will "phone ludditism" - switching to dumbphone with a simple OS like Mocor RTOS, S30+, ThreadX etc. be the answer for some of them? They're deGoogled out of the factory. I switched to a dumbphone as my main phone, but I still keep an Android smartphone at home for online banking. I also take the smartphone with me if I know I'll need a hotspot or a map. I use the smartphone like a PDA, or a terminal to the Android ecosystem.

It's also questionable whether "Europe is leading in the dumbphone sector". Sure we have HMD, Doro, Crosscall, Gigaset (sold to South Koreans), MaxKom or myPhone but there are so many other potentially bigger companies like TCL or Itel. One thing is for sure - in the dumbphone sector and considering how simple those devices are, Europe at least stands a fighting chance. Whether somebody will become a dumbphone martyr in order to exist in this Europe-friendly sector is another thing.

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[-] BenchpressMuyDebil@szmer.info 3 points 5 days ago

Also see Fairphone 6 leaked specs, and the phone itself releasing in 2 days. Fairphone 5 is fully supported by Ubuntu Touch no? Or do you mean that Ubuntu Touch as an ecosystem is in general "behind" Android?

[-] neblem@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago

I'm glad to be wrong.

I hadn't tracked that Ubuntu Touch had bumped up the Fairphone 4s and 5s to advanced support, that's really cool, glad to see how far that's improved (it had been awhile since Iast checked). PMOS still lists the 4 and 5 as community & test levels not main level, still listing only partial support for camera and phone calls. That being said, looks like they're further along too than I thought too.

I hadn't heard of the fp6 leaks either, those are definitely better stats, thanks for the heads up!

this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2025

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