claude0001

I'm on German O2 (cannot recommend), and mobile communication is horrible. Unfortunately I couldn't get the LTE-Discovery app to work on LineageOS. What is that "No LTE cycle"-mode actually doing? Meanwhile I have found Rx Monitor, which at least allows me to see what radio frequencies the modem is using, though that app (to my knowledge) cannot influence the modem behaviour. Contrary to what others observe, my Pro1-X works when it manages to connect on band 3 or band 1. It seems to fail when forced to use band 20, the "long-range" LTE frequency (800 MHz). Unfortunately, both, my Pro

It is important to understand that there are two F(x)tec phones: the Pro1 from late 2019 and the Pro1-X that is currently shipping (slowly). I own both of them. My original Pro1 has its flaws: its camera is not really good, the LTE and WiFi connectivity are ok-ish but not stellar, and even the keyboard -- the one distinctive feature of the phone -- has never been much fun to use. That being said, the Pro1 has served me reliably for almost three years as my only phone. I use it with a custom LineageOS ROM which I have configured to double as a miniature GNU/Linux palmtop. The latter functi

I've uploaded my latest build of LineageOS 16.0 for (SD835-) Pro1. At https://findus.zwergenschaenke.net/~puma/linux.html#lineagepro1 fetch the ROM dated 20230223. It includes backported ASB fixes up to patchlevel "5 February 2023". As noted above, these backports are no longer receiving upstream code-review. All I can report is that the build runs fine on my own device. This ROM includes a new local patch, disabling the infuriating "double-shift = caps-lock" behaviour of the HW keyboard while preserving the useful "sticky-modifier" and "long-press for special-character" feature

Right now, issues related to mobile network connectivity are reported from practically all over the world (I heard of: USA, Europe, Asia, Australia), though not by all users. There is no really clear picture yet, but, as F(x)tec acknowledged in their latest update, there may be a correlation with specific LTE bands and there may be a firmware fix at some point ...

OK. Indeed, according to the wiki, the RAM requirements seem to be significantly higher for building lineage-18.1 and later. Then again, even for lineage-16, I fall short of the recommended 16 GB by far. Of course the building probably takes longer, as the system might be forced to swap every now and then, but I wonder why it should fail altogether ... Anyway, good luck with your new box! 🙂

Are you sure about that? I am building my lineage-16 ROMs on a VM with 6 GB of RAM and never went out of memory. Could it be that you rather ran out of disk space? You need at least 250 GB, much more if you enable CCACHE.

Unfortunately the long paragraph on cellular connectivity sounds like they have no clue what the problem is, let alone how to solve it. 😞

Yes it is exactly that. The difference being that, unlike originally planned, the Pro1-X does not ship with Lineage preinstalled. It comes with Android and you have to flash Lineage yourself. While several Pro1-X owners (including myself) have installed the Lineage port and use it successfully (as far as the phones binary blobs allow), note that it is still unofficial and that bugs are to be expected. Sooner or later, it should appear in the list of officially supported ports at lineageos.org -- hopefully then also based on more mature closed-source drivers. I can only second that

Yeah, I had seen that one. And I've already picked it up in my lineage-16.0 ROM for Pro1. 🙂 Thanks for coming up with this simple but effective solution! Those two lines of code may have their place with a HW keyboard that has no caps-lock. But with the Pro1/Pro1X, omitting them certainly improves intuitive use! For me this "compromise" is perfect as, apart from the "double-shift = caps lock"-behaviour, I actually like the features of an ALPHA keyboard.

Not sure if I will include it in the end, but as the option of switching between "full" and "alpha" has been requested several times, I would be quite interested in how you would have implemented that. Otherwise, disabling the "double shift = caps" function seems like a very good idea and a good compromise between both worlds. First time I accidentally triggered that mode, it drove me nuts, and I was pretty harsh toward that poor, innocent caps key ... 😳

If it is true that the money paid for pre-ordering the 835 parts was lost to them, then you have a good point, indeed. But, admittedly, I've always wondered whether there was actual evidence for that 'bastards-took-the-money-and-ran' narrative ... They way I read F(x)tec's statements was that they (pre-)ordered the 835 SoCs and related parts in late 2020 and made an advance payment for those things. As @VaZso points out, part of this pre-ordering may have been done by their manufacturer, rather than by themselves. Then, in early 2021, their suppliers informed them they could no

Do you really believe this is anywhere helpful?

Let's not get into a nitpicking fight about this. In my view, "paying" for some good without ever receiving that same good is not "purchasing". I think F(x)tec would agree to that. Do not get me wrong: I do think hat F(x)tec genuinely believed (or were led to believe) they could get another round of Pro1s produced before the SD835 would fade from the market. But does it matter? Retrospectively, we now know that it was a wrong decision to base a late 2020 IGG project on that chip. It explains why the project is such a disaster: Instead of investing the crowdfunding money into alt

I see your point. It is true that -- probably knowing that the SD835 was getting EOL'ed -- they tried to secure a few thousand specimens of that SoC already in December 2020 (let's not forget that, in this business, these chips are usually sold in lots of hundreds of thousands at least!). However, in that very February 2021 update you mention, they wrote that they "were informed last month that it can no longer be purchased from our suppliers". That's the wording I adopted in my post. I do no know what happened to the money they reportedly payed in advance to some reseller. But it is

You basically confirm what I wrote: The IGG campaign -- which ran from October to December 2020 -- was initially meant to produce more Pro1's, not to develop a new phone. Hence their attempt to order the SD835, which is the SoC used in the original Pro1. Only in early 2021, when it became clear that the SD835 could not be delivered, they repurposed the campaign money to redesign the entire hardware.

Nope. The Pro1-X was initially intended to be a trivial variant of the Pro1, using the same SoC (Qualcomm Snapdragon 835). It was only after the start of the campaign that they realised they could no longer purchase the SD835 and hence had to redesign the entire phone. This was not initially planned and explains the very long resulting delays.

Having much experience, they might do a better job than anyone of us. However, also they might break off these grounding contacts bridging the seam between body and keyboard plate if not specifically briefed. The point is that the Pro1(-X)'s battery is not meant to be customer-replaceable. It can be done, yes, but there is a risk of breaking things.

Fully agree. Opening the base of the phones is nowhere a fool-proof operation. I broke-off several of the grounding-spring connectors (contacting the mainboard to the aluminium shell) of my Pro1-X while leveraging the case open. Happens when you slide the prying tool along the seam between body and keyboard plate without knowing in advance where those contacts are ...

To be fair, the Pro1-X was initially quite close to that same idea. At the start of the IGG campaign, the Pro1 not only existed, but had been field-tested by quite a few customers already. The alternative OS's -- then the "big thing" about the Pro1-X -- were already available in either rock-solid (LineageOS) or beta-quality (UBTouch) form. Yes, you could add more memory and get a shiny blue body with custom engraving. But no one really expected any showstoppers there, given that the phone would technically remain a Pro1. In my view, the Pro1-X campaign was initially intended purely

Thanks everyone for trying to shed some light on this severe issue. Unfortunately I cannot provide data until I find a way to report modem usage in (Gapps-free) LineageOS. Discover LTE does not work for me for the reasons discussed. Meanwhile, I have taken my Pro1X on a few trips across Germany. Its LTE/VoLTE reliability is catastrophic all around. Even with a theoretically good connection (> -100 dBm) there is usually no Internet service. I gave up testing GSM (i.e. non-VoLTE) calls as they have never worked for me, even with working LTE (data) connection. Side note: My (835)Pro1, whi

@steff and @EskeRahn: While I agree to all you write, maybe there is one thing that can be said in F(x)tec's defence: From their perspective, everything must have changed at the moment they were forced to "upgrade" all pending orders for the original Pro1 to Pro1X's: As at least some of those were ordered (and paid!) way before the start of the IGG campaign, they essentially had the choice to betray either these original Pro1 customers (by postponing them until after end of the IGG campaign) or the Pro1X campaign-backers (by continuing to serve regular website customers alike, breaking IGG rul

Yep. Unfortunately, I couldn't get LTE discovery to work. I have LineageOS without Gapps. Even giving the app root access did not help ...

Re-reading this thread, I found that in one of their posts, @Rasva suggested an app named "LTE Discovery" that seems to do exactly that. I'll try it once I'm back with the prawn-X.

The 1.8 GHz band is certainly important in Germany. According to this Wikipedia page, my carrier (O2) is using it for LTE and GSM. Interestingly, up to now I've never been able to initiate or receive a GSM call (i.e. with VoLTE disabled), even in one of those lucky spots where LTE (and VoLTE) works. Is there any app that can display what frequency bands are being used by the modem in real time?

I'm in the EU (Germany), no 3G here anymore, just GSM and LTE. Pro1-X connects only in some specific "islands", cannot be regarded as a portable device, really.