I had the shiftphone6 back in 2018 and I believe it had an alternative OS installed, in any case I can’t remember the google play store pre-installed (correct me if I’m wrong).
Can not recommend from personal experience. Their phones break easily, including electronic malfunctions. And their customer support sucks. According to them, they do not even like to have the phones to be taken outside.
On the upside: they are usually easily repairable. Do always make backups of important data, photos etc. from day one though.
I have been calling them Shitphone since. Feels more appropriate.
to add another (german) brand: https://www.shift.eco/
I had the shiftphone6 back in 2018 and I believe it had an alternative OS installed, in any case I can’t remember the google play store pre-installed (correct me if I’m wrong).
Like Fairphone they have a cooperation with the open source android fork project eOs/murena
https://e.foundation/e-os/
Can not recommend from personal experience. Their phones break easily, including electronic malfunctions. And their customer support sucks. According to them, they do not even like to have the phones to be taken outside.
On the upside: they are usually easily repairable. Do always make backups of important data, photos etc. from day one though.
I have been calling them Shitphone since. Feels more appropriate.
I was quite interested about a year ago, but seeing that they are now branching out to like 5 other “shift” products concerns me.
Many of these are likely just rebranded products, not their own development.
Not really helping the good feels
Several of the products are actively being “crowd funded”…
Granted I didn’t read the fine print, but that gives me the impression that they are more involved.
I suppose they could just be preorders and gauging interest to determine how many to order with their branding. It still makes me feel a bit unsure.