SHIFTphone 8 Preparing Mainline Linux Support Ahead Of Launch

Okay, what's the catch? Doesn't work on North American networks? Touch screen doesn't work so you have to carry around a keyboard, mouse and USB hub? Doesn't send or receive calls?
- Calls and texts are not listed as supported. I wouldn’t be surprised if they do not work. Just have a look a PostmarketOS support. Most phones cannot make phone calls.
  
  PostmarketOS has come a long way. In opposition to proprietary stuff they depend on people contributing which most people dont bother doing (translations, documentation, code).
  That said, if you look here the majority of community supported devices lists calls as working.
  To give this more perspective, I‘m working on a OnePlus6 with PostmarketOS at the moment and trying to make it userfriendly. Its a lot of work and in my case far too advanced for a regular user but contributing in general isnt ans the phones are developing.
  The important part about postmarketOS is that you can finally own your device, unlike with android and ios and even after support ends unlike grapheneOS afaik. Obviously you still have proprietary blobs for modems and such but YOU can be the person that changes this.
  So yes, I‘m a fan. Have a good one. :)
  
  I hate the telephone as much as the next guy my age, but it's still quasi-mandatory to have a functioning telephone to exist in this world. Like...why'd they bother mentioning it in public in this state?
- No headphone jack is one potential catch
- Yeaaah... This has to have some catch because if not, this might finally be the phone I've been waiting for.
  "Unfortunately, WiFi isn't yet functional due to a firmware issue."
  Well, there's one right there I guess, hopefully they can figure out the firmware.
  With 12GB of ram, that's absolutely more than enough to have waydroid running in the background with all the android apps I would need until the Linux app ecosystem catches up, and with mainline support, hopefully the battery life and hardware support won't be absolutely abysmal.
  I've never heard of this company or their previous phone, so I'm a little suspicious that their "13 exchangeable modules for the phone" are gonna have some showstopper catch in there. What are the modules for? Are we talking internal modules like soc and WiFi? Or external modules like what Motorola tried to do with an external camera modules and such?
  
  Yeah okay on the slim chance it makes it to market it will never reach a state of unqualified no asterisk Usable. Ignoring.
- One catch is their website is mostly in German, so support probably as well. Don't expect decent support

This looks really promising, I can't wait for people to put GNU/Linux on it!

Best of luck to the devs, very exiting! Here is the link to pmOS wiki to follow the progress. Caleb is working on it apparently, one of the main people we have to thank for sdm845 (like Oneplus 6) mainlining effort

Wait, alternative to the fair phone in terms of software and reliability? Better performance than the Pine phones? Matching up to the Librems in quality?
If this comes true I'll be the happiest ever
- Don't forget it's the Android-first phone with Android-first SoC. Linux support is a additional porting effort. It even is the exact same SoC as Fairphone 5.
  Shift is even less popular that Fairphone and not as repairable (still they care about repairability), but at least they actively do something towards mainlining Linux unlike Fairphone that just don't interrupt.
  
  Thanks! Never heard of them before. I'll keep themi on my radar now.

This is the best summary I could come up with:
SHIFTphone 8 is the upcoming modular and easy-to-repair smartphone from Germany's SHIFT GmbH.
This is the first major SHIFTphone update in four years and there are pending patches providing mainline Linux kernel support for this forthcoming Qualcomm Snapdragon powered modular/upgradeable smartphone.
The SHIFTphone 8 continues with being modular and upgrade friendly while being the first model having IP-certified waterproof protection.
There are hardware kill switches, 13 exchangeable modules for the phone, recycle-friendly, tempered glass screen, and other improvements over prior smartphones from this Germany company.
These patches from Linaro prepare SHIFTphone 8 kernel support for this device using the Qualcomm QCM6490 with 12GB of RAM, 512GB UFS storage, 1080p display, and hardware kill switches.
The initial Linux kernel support is enough for a frame-buffer display, integrated storage, battery monitoring, Bluetooth, and thermals.
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