While I'm always looking forward to these kind of projects, I'm quite confused about what this one is trying solve. Wanting a Linux phone is already a niche, but within that the people who'd just want the phone form factor without the usual phone functionalities must be a really tiny minority, but software needs and problems barely get any coverage here.

A lot of aspects are just incredibly odd to me:

• Designing and manufacturing in Europe is pointed out as if it's a selling point, while the place is known for its hostility to tech startups, and (the resulting) tech dependence on foreign nations. Government employees mostly use Windows, citizens are forced to use iOS or Android with mandatory apps, and anyone challenging this stupidity will be crushed with regulations.

• Android compatibility is simply hand waved away with a simple WayDroid mention. If the matter was that simple, then quite likely a significant chunk of the target audience would already stop using phones for mandatory apps anyway.

• The product is expected to be quite DIY initially, yet they decided to go with a DIY-hostile GNOME environment. Yeah, I have my flame-resistant coat on for the incoming responses to this, but starting from GNOME 3 something went really wrong there, and I've seen too much evidence even in the past years of the roots of the problem still being well and alive.

I believe the whole approach is wrong, especially in this project focusing too much on the hardware (especially with the suspiciously highly priced upgrades).

If mandatory apps will still require specific hardware and software environments blessed by Google or Apple, then the usual locked down phone is still required, and the appeal of having this as an additional expensive phone remains low.

If common phone functionalities also hostile to non-blessed environments like VoWIFI, eSIM, RCS, and some communication apps wouldn't reliably work on this, then it cannot even become the primary phone, and the pricing is even more horrifying for what would be just a secondary phone.

The issue is mostly with the lack of regulation where it's needed, allowing anti-competitive practices to flourish. I still find Europe's case incredibly ironic, as there's no (meaningful / properly enforced) regulation against exposing citizens and their sensitive data to foreign tech monopolies, but there's plenty of regulations choking local competition.

A competitive Linux phone is more likely to come from elsewhere, but there's obviously not much interest in serving this niche while in way too many cases a phone is synonymous with a Google/Apple controlled device, and therefore there's simply no opportunity to compete.