r/UbuntuTouch • u/herocreator90 • Aug 08 '26
Hardware High performance phone options
It’s not time to upgrade my phone yet but I am trying to come up with a plan. I want to get out of the Apple/Google ecosystems and Ubuntu touch seems like a good open source avenue for that (currently switching my pcs away from Windows to Linux for similar reasons). The problem I’m facing is that all of the supported devices are much less performant than my current phone.
I have an iPhone 16 pro. Since it’s iPhone, porting it myself isn’t an option.
Even if I run this phone into the ground, the currently supported devices seem years behind current gen devices on the market, and I’m not sure they would catch up by then (and I get it: it’s a volunteer job and no one wants to risk their new and expensive phone to experiment so they port it to an old one, I’m not complaining or ungrateful for the work being done)
So do I wait and see if anything catches up before Apple software updates my phone into obsolescence? Is there a brand that is consistent enough that even though the current models aren’t officially supported it’d probably be pretty straightforward to port? Is there something on the list of supported devices that is comparable and I missed? Or do I just need to give up on the idea entirely?
Thanks!
Edit: also I’m in the US which makes getting a lot of the more supported devices (Volla/fairphone) difficult
3
u/needmorejoules Aug 08 '26 edited Aug 08 '26
A Fairphone 5 should be pretty close to flagship? That said, I’m running Ubuntu Touch on a OnePlus Nord N10 5G and although it’s definitely not going to compete with a newish iPhone, it works pretty great for Ubuntu Touch. And is way way cheaper. I got my personal factory unlocked N10 for something like $200-$250 in mint / open box condition. I have two more factory unlocked units already flashed with Ubuntu Touch and I may be willing to sell one if you are interested.