So starting this morning, I’m trying out /e/ on my Google Nexus 5 phone. Haven’t tried much so far, but set up a few contacts, email – the provided mail program is a fork of k9 which is nice, and I took some screenshots:
Of course the battery of my older phone isn’t as good as a new one, still have to see how long that will last between recharges. And the geolocation – see weather widget – is also not very precise, but that isn’t the phone’s fault, every other machine here which uses IP based geolocation based on the router’s address would show the same. The weather by the way is drawn from OpenWeatherMap, same as the weather widget in Gnome on Linux – very nice.
And yes, it looks like an iPhone, doesn’t it? But it’s an ePhone instead, with only free and open source software. So far I like it, even if it hasn’t (yet) all the bells & whistles of a modern Android, but let me explore more about it first…
As always, thanks for reading.
Update, from 13:49:
Not missing much so far… I’ve downloaded my own albums into the /Music folder on the phone, and the app shows them nicely:
So far, this all looks like a fully functional mobile phone. Have to interrupt for now, so more later…
Update2, from 16:11:
Just sent Mitchie to work, taking only the Nexus instead of my Pixel phone. And I had installed OsmAnd for offline navigation:
And what shall I say? That older phone with /e/OS connected to our Yaris Hybrid with Bluetooth, it played my music over the car stereo system and told me the route via OsmAnd, warning me about every pedestrian crossing (you can silence that if they’re too many). Perfect, and all of that without even inserting a SIM card into the device! Wonderful.
Again, thanks for reading – and more later.