Exactly! What makes you think they would want to burn their fingers twice?

The problem of starting from an already existing hardware (sorry, didn't remember who wrote this) is you can't find a small phone in the Android world (same for WP, only Apple provides such a small device). Even the Sony X Compact are too wide.

Because it's worth putting more effort into a port if you're going to keep the device for a long time. Why bother if you're just waiting for it to break before you buy a different phone (or 2 years, whichever happens first!).

Plus it should be easier to arrange for a new module to be made for the FP2 than design a whole new device, if you want to upgrade or change something.

I have no intention to start an argument, but it looks like you underestimated the complexity building a piece of hardware.

I'm not working for manufacturers, and may not be 100% accurate, but I think it is worth remind you (and a few others) here the process of building a phone:

- You need to make a solution regarding RF, specs and components. You need to decide how many 3G/4G band to support, and the component such as camera, memory and SoC to make sure they support each other. Depends on the band you choose, you need to leave relevant space on the board.

- You need some good Electronic engineer to draw a good circuit board, considering all components and structures and antennas etc. If it goes all well usually 20 days.

- You need to decide a looking and make a relevant out closure design. You need a good hardware engineer to solve all the problems on moulding. This can go to details as the position of a plastic clip. If all well it tales 40-50 days.

- You need a system engineer to write hardware adaption.

- You need manufacturing preparation, i.e factory gives you production line, components provider willing to sell you pieces with reasonable price etc. (If you are talking about thousands of quantity, nobody cares)

=== Up to this is what we can ask ODM to do ===

Now comes with the difficult part:

- You need to prepare for different certification. For Europe, you need at lease CE, RoHS and WEEE. Maybe a few others. This is time consuming and can cost a lot.

- You need to solve the logistics, how the device ship to each company/warehouse and how/where to store them.

- You need to sort our warranty, each cost, how repair/substitute works. How to handle components etc. This is a long story.

Now, given that you mould works 100% (unlikely on first 3 attempts), your board works fine, provider willing to sell you etc........

- You need to have Sailfish OS engineer to tune the OS.

- You need to have certain quality control at factory.

- You need to test RF with the professional equipment.

- You need to test the whole system and make sure at least it won't break on normal use.

- You need to design the box/manual/warranty info/safety info

- You need to translate relevant info into 10 different languages....

The list goes on and on. I haven't even listed in details.

Finally a big upfront cost and persuade to customer that it's not scam.

Building a phone is not like building a PC or a vehicle.

If you believe you can do all this, please go ahead. Or if you can spare me with 1 or 2M dollars I can also do that for you. I have already know some reliable providers.

Can't all the current 64-bit ARM CPUs still run armv7 32-bit code just fine in backward compatibility mode ? IIRC even the RPi3 still runs 32-bit code on it's 64-bit ARM CPU.

So while it indeed is prudent to aim for running 64-bit Sailfish OS natively, it should be fine for the time being due to the backwards compatibility mode & IMHO should not preclude 64-bit ARM CPUs from consideration.

I think you're over thinking this chenluangchen. There are ODMs that say there'll do all of that except for the Sailfish part of course.

ODM won't do certification, testing, manuals, warranty, logistics.

It's not bake a cake.

Again if you think it is easy, go and do it. I'm not against anyone here implementing your plan...

Exactly that.

Sure they can, but that doesn't mean that Hybris works in 32bit mode on a 64bit processor.

In fact that's one of the things that Ghosalmartin on the #sailfishos-porters channel tried without any luck on his Nexus 5x (MSM8992 Snapdragon 808), much to the surprise of everyone. I'm not sure what the current status of this effort is though.

The point I was making is that it looks like the best 'known good' SoC is the snapdragon 801, and if you want anything newer then its going to be more effort from the porting side.

tbh, 5.0-5.5" is just perfect for me. I only hate the lavk of hwkb on modern phones.
ymmv