That was fast
- 5 days delivered from Europe to Asia to my hands.

The good folks at BQ do have linux handphone marketing nailed:
advertise-take payment- ship just do it. Done.

Meizu is unfriendly to say the least - they refuse to sell one here.
Jolla is not somewhere I know about, so is uncompared here.

continuing:
Read my clarification after my main points:
=========================================
Hardware:
It is nice to see a phone which has Linux capability.
Unlike the most of the Android rubbish garden,
where finding a unit with linux-compatible hardware is rare..

Having device drivers and a screen which actually works is great.
GPS needs some special tweaks to get it running,
and I have not checked compass and other things,
but WIFI/Cellular/bluetooth all function.
Compared to some other platforms I tried, this is refreshing.
[Acer Iconia, nexus 7- utterly pointless rubbish from Android land.
I also tried some other (Intel n2600~) tablets which worked well
but are simply too big and battery hungry.]

The battery works, and when the device is working hard
it can get quite warm, cooking just like the n900 did on occasion.

I have not gotten under the hood with this thing yet,
that comes later, maybe.

The screen is quite nice,
and having something bigger than the n900 feels good

I have not tried the audio out yet, but I will soon enough.
I will edit this when I get a chance.

Bluetooth seems to work okay, more on that later maybe.

Wifi is quite okay,

and the GSM (I am using one SIM, not two) seems good enough.

Hardware-wise this machine is good enough to run linux on.

That brings me to the unpleasant portion of this post....
------------------------------------------------------------------

I wish I could just wipe Ubuntu off and flash it with Maemo:
Fremantle would do just fine.
Having Fremantle on hardware this nice would be a market-killer
(the market for devs/hackers/and all the other alpha crowd)

Ubuntu is looking more like an Android-imitating-Apple thing
and less like Linux in every way.
I am not referring to CLI linux,
I am referring to the kind of linux where the user
is wide-open free-handed to adjust almost anything
without needing developer mode to do so.

An hideous example from askubuntu:
In Ubuntu GNOME (or any Linux distro with a recent version of GNOME 3), there's no option now to choose between 12-hour and 24-hour time in the settings
you need sudo just to change your clock ? Holy chits batman !
Now I remember why I have not tried Ubuntu in about 5 years.

I would try to describe it:
the foul stench of Ubuntu's heavy-handed 'Nanny-ware'
mindset is overwhelming, akin to athlete's foot after a long hike.
Like a lot of things I would rather not think about.

Ubuntu on a handphone 5vcks

Give me Debian, or Gentoo, or Arch, or even Fedora.

I have a tablet running Sabayon - it can do SMS and phone calls,
and it is simply out of this world for getting things done.
It has touchscreen and using XFCE is good enough with Xvkbd

I have SolydX on another two tablets - excellent productivity,
runs libreoffice without even breaking a sweat.
20 or 30 tabs of firefox, no problem
Xfce on a touchscreen is a bit of a trick but mostly zero problems.


None of them would be as nice as Fremantle with all the cool
things we can do on the n900.

But my Linux tablet collection rocks.

Ubuntu is simply that unpleasant.

No multitasking: None, nothing, Zilch Nada Nyet.
- He's Dead, Jim

No email - (seriously, fr@kk!ng truth is unbelievable)
I will try to add Claws after I get past the development zone.
(No -Dekko is not a serious email client for _anyone_ who uses linux.
It has no handles anywhere.
Give me the headaches of Claws or something else anytime)

As someone else noticed,
calendar is missing. just weird, but hey !


It is linux - we can fix all that...

..except for one minor detail....


it is Ubuntu, and because the whole thing is running on
the Hyper-Ideology of Integration it all comes to a screeching
halt whenever one little bit steps out of line.
Without multitasking, a bad code can brick the device momentarily.
That does happen - I have seen it in various scenarios.


Unlike debian, or some of the other distros where
misbehaving software can be simply ignored or kill -9'ed

Fixing Ubuntu requires reflashing your device
on a regular basis.
We did do some of that with the n900,
but in general it was always the idea we were adding
bits like -extras and knowing that -extras-devil earned its name.


maemo fremantle was always and still is
an order of magnitude better than
Ubuntu Phone


I thought this would be the moment I finally retired my last n900.
I was so wrong about that.
=========================================
Better Reviews17.5:
You can read a good review by someone else who is not as distracted as I am

maybe
https://svij.org/blog/2015/07/11/rev...buntu-edition/

or maybe:
http://weboo.co/bq-aquaris-e5-hd-ubu...view-hands-on/

or there exist others who have more patience than me.
For me to replicate their efforts seems pointless.

I am here for a device to use for managing corporate iron
while on the go,
not some Google-x-Facebook-centric vision of a Ubuntu universe.