For having used a PinePhone for a year as a main phone, I would say that the biggest limiting factor for me is the hardware. I want something reliable that has good autonomy and good and reliable call quality. I would not want the phone to leave me behind in an emergency for instance.
But the PinePhone is none of this: terrible phone quality, the modem on my device is unreliable, the autonomy is okayish. I also had a PinePhone Pro that died: big improvement except the autonomy was much worse and it would strongly eat. I believe that's what killed it, actually.
With good hardware, I would be happy with a Linux mobile OS. But I don't use WhatsApp, I don't have a banking app, I don't pay with my phone, and have no proprietary app in general.
Things like Wi-Fi calling would probably not work neither, but I don't have this with my old Android phone neither.
You will have to hope mobile alternatives to Signal will work well enough for you too (and I guess that requires liking some adventure, but if that works, you also win on not being limited to one phone per Signal account).
> With good hardware, I would be happy with a Linux mobile OS.
You mention autonomy a lot, and I agree. I don't think it's a question of hardware: I can install Android on my PinePhone and see that it uses much less battery than a Linux system.
Android was built for that: it is extremely optimized for battery usage. I think it will be very hard to beat that with Linux.
It is also hardware: the 2800mAh battery is limited and the modem is a separate SoC wired on USB. And everything is heavy for the limited main SoC, so takes more time and more power and so the phone is not sleeping for longer for the same tasks.
But I'm willing to believe that Linux mobile can improve a lot.
> I can install Android on my PinePhone and see that it uses much less battery than a Linux system
Did you and what did you manage to achieve? I could reach 1.5-2 days of light use with mobian.
Your last paragraph reminded me that I had to set up Waydroid so I could install Telegram(Android). Just so I could create an account, so I could then use the already installed Telegram desktop that came by default with like any mobile distribution I tried.
But the PinePhone is none of this: terrible phone quality, the modem on my device is unreliable, the autonomy is okayish. I also had a PinePhone Pro that died: big improvement except the autonomy was much worse and it would strongly eat. I believe that's what killed it, actually.
With good hardware, I would be happy with a Linux mobile OS. But I don't use WhatsApp, I don't have a banking app, I don't pay with my phone, and have no proprietary app in general.
Things like Wi-Fi calling would probably not work neither, but I don't have this with my old Android phone neither.
You will have to hope mobile alternatives to Signal will work well enough for you too (and I guess that requires liking some adventure, but if that works, you also win on not being limited to one phone per Signal account).