The developer behind the Simple Mobile Tools suite of open-source Android apps is now taking pre-orders for its first phone. As promised, the single phone is a phone that emphasizes privacy by coming with a degoogled version of Android called SimpleOS.
It comes with Simple Mobile’s phone dialer, calendar, clock, contacts, music player and other apps instead of Google’s. And instead of the Google Play Store, it comes with the F-Droid app store pre-installed, allowing you to download free and open-source apps. The Simple Phone is available to pre-order now for €399 and it should start shipping to customers in Europe on November 1, 2022.
While that price puts the Simple Phone in solid mid-range smartphone territory, a look at the spec sheet suggests this phone would have been considered mid-range around three or four years ago.
It is powered by a MediaTek MT6771 (Helio P60) processor, which is an octa-core chip launched in 2018 with four ARM Cortex-A73 CPU cores, four Cortex-A53 cores and Mali-G72 graphics.
The phone has 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, a 6.53-inch FHD+ LCD screen, 4G LTE, Bluetooth 4.2, and an unspecified version of WiFi. The Simple Phone comes with a version of Android based on Android 11.
Simple Mobile essentially flashes its own software onto a pre-existing Android phone to create the Simple Phone, although the company hopes to eventually develop its own stock hardware.
There are a few things the phone has going for it. Although there is no headphone jack, the Simple Phone has a microSD card reader, a USB Type-C OTG port and a 45,000 mAh battery. The front camera has a 25MP image sensor and there are three rear cameras (48MP + 8MP + 5MP).
Simple Mobile Tools says the phone comes with a 2-year warranty and will receive at least three years of software updates (it’s not clear if these are security updates or software updates). operating system majors).
The phone is carrier unlocked which means you should be able to use it with any cellular network compatible with the 4G network bands supported by the Simple Phone (it works with (B1/2/3 /5/7/8/12/13/17/20/28)TDD(B38/40/41)bands). While the phone’s bootloader is locked by default, Simple Mobile says it can be unlocked by users.
Since Simple Mobile apps are generally lightweight, they should also run smoothly even on older hardware. And while the phone doesn’t have Google Mobile Services certification, it does come with microG installed, which should allow some apps that rely on Google Play Services to work.
via /r/Android and /r/SimpleMobileTools