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Posts: 3,328 | Thanked: 4,476 times | Joined on May 2011 @ Poland
#1
Seems I'll have to walk the path of evil and buy an Android smartphone.

I'm looking for an Android phone, which fulfils all the following expectations:
  • Can be rooted and the bootloader can be unlocked [may require manual unlocking]
  • at least 5" display [may be a little less but not much]
  • fluidly running Android 5 (may be unofficial but stable) Very likely upgrades to newer Android versions.
And as many as possible from the following ones
  1. Slide-out QWERTY keyboard available. May use BT, NFC, I2C but should be a slide-out. May be be attachable, may be an extra accessory
  2. Drivers decent enough, so as to be able to set up some alternate OS with libhybris. I want to have an open way to migrate to Sailfish/Ubuntu/Plasma when they get mature enough.
  3. Possible to disassemble and replace broken parts DIY, especially the broken screen
  4. A notification LED or an AMOLED display (both appreciated but not required)
  5. At least 16G of built-in space (32G appreciated)
If a phone satisfies both two first requirements (qwerty AND decent drivers), I may even drop the rest of them.

Price is indeed an important factor for me. But I use phones for a very long time, (have used my Nokia N900 for 5 years now) so I may treat the phone as a longer-term investment.

I'll probably spend some time in the terminal, hence I care about the hardware keyboard. I really hate typing on the virtual keyboards.

You know me, I'm a hacker soul - Debian chroot, ssh, vnc. Linux user. I don't really care that much about the looks of the phone

My phones fall a lot on the floor, so I'm not for an ultrafragile phone. I need a decent camera (my current 5MP/720p N900 is ok. I don't count the megapixels, more interested in overall quality). I don't do selfies, don't care about the front camera at all.

I'm a Google-skepticist, so have nothing against it shipping Cyanogen, AOSP, etc as long as the functionality remains the same.

I know about Fairphone2 which fulfils everything but the hardware keyboard (it was mentioned as a possible extension but nothing real appeared yet). And is quite expensive (525€, plus accessories). Is there any chance it gets cheaper during the next year?

Would you suggest anything? Feel free to ask about my attitude to some functionality, which I care about and which not at all.
Thanks!
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Last edited by marmistrz; 2016-07-10 at 17:00.
 

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