Well I was hoping to join the Linux Phone gang…but…
3 years ago I ordered the Pro1x after this review:
Now normally I wouldn’t do crowdfunding, but given that fxtec had successfully produced the previous model and proven they could deliver. This was supposed to be an iteration of the previous model, plus it had backing from XDA with official support.
So I figured why not take a leap of faith…
Well, first they downgraded the SOC from SD835 to the SD662, because the SD835 hit EOL:
How they didn’t know this ~3 months before production makes no sense… but fine manufacturing is difficult. I’ll take the performance hit because the rest of the phone still looks solid. However the SD662 doesn’t support HDMI out. This was a key selling feature for me. So that’s gone too…cool. Fine maybe the phone will still be usable (foreshadow).
What is not OK to me tho, is that they STILL list HDMI support on their website where they are selling it, which is pretty blatant false advertising of a key feature.
Fxtec is a UK company, I believe this to be in violation according to gov.uk:
I have called them out for this on their own forums and on IGG, no response. what ever i guess…
Also their performance graphs on the IGG would be for the 835, not the 662. They have not updated them. More falsehoods.
Then 2 years pass, and these devices show up on a site called Expansys.
Expansys seems to no longer exist, but luckily the wayback machine has my back:
proof they sold at least one on here by this review:
I paid $719USD and have not received the device, yet here they are selling the SAME DEVICE for LESS THAN HALF WHAT I PAID!?!?!? (HK$2249 = ~289USD)
This is really the icing on the cake, a slap in the face. I don’t know how that happened, I’m no laywer but it smells like fraud at this point. They sold backers phones before delivering to backers…
Note also how they continued to falsely advertise HDMI out in the specs on expansys too, well after the SOC change.
And all this while they have been not great with communication, and by indie gogos own terms of service they have to update at least once a month. They didn’t do that for almost 3 months before their most recent update, and that wasn’t until multiple people in the IGG comments section started contacting IGG and IGG forced them to update (according to the comment section). There are also mentions of legal action in some threads on fxtecs forum but I don’t know if we can do anything really given the nature of crowdfunding we accepted that risk. Oh well.
It appears that devices are FINALLY starting to roll out (terribly slowly of course) as confirmed by some of the IGG comments and fxtec forums. …and of course they have issues.
Reports of fingerprint sensor not working, poor wifi and cellular, and completely depleted batteries out of the box bricks.
Apparently the battery charge controller or something is missing that is supposed to prevent the battery from draining completely. People are receiving bricks that wont charge because the battery got too low. There is a work around to manually charge the battery with a powersupply: On charging a depleted battery - Support - F(x)tec Community
XDA seems to have washed their hands of it, absolute silence from them. granted its not XDA’s fault but they could at least acknowledge the situation.
Here is a recent review that covers some of the issues:
That’s a $719 USD lesson to never crowd fund. Not impressed fxtec…
If mine ever shows up I’ll be sure to drop a review here. I do still want to experiment with Ubuntu Touch and SailfishOS.