Received my Pro¹X - first thoughts (plus minor Pro¹ comparison)

[VaZso 1,998]

Dear Community,

I have just received my Pro¹X yesterday (photoed near a Pro¹):

Its build quality is absolutely perfect, it has no rattling effect, buttons are even and not too loose (similar to Pro¹).
Its colour is good - I like original black colour but this deep blue also looks good.

I see there is some room for improvement at software side (and I have not used it extensively), but so far I don't see its radios are significantly worse than Pro¹'s radios (however, there are some improvements yet to be done).

I feel keyboard's backlight is different - either Pro¹X's LEDs are brighter or keyboard's material is more transparent - I think mostly the former.
I also feel this layout is much better than Pro¹'s shifted keyboard style but is more comparable to Pro¹'s QWERTZ layout:

I also have a feeling they have optimized a bit of the keyboard "font" to be a bit bolder for better backlight experience.
However, caps lock's green light is hardly noticeable at my unit.

It's camera can take reasonably good photos.
It is definitively much better than Pro¹'s camera using its stock software and it is a bit worse than Pro¹'s camera using Google's camera software (which has a lot of optimizations).
If Pro¹X would/will also has a similarly optimized software then it may take much better photos than Pro¹ but it is also not bad in its current state (that was an unofficial, 3rd-party app for Pro¹).

However, I don't really like that Pro¹X's camera has a bump, so a proper case would be very welcome:

Pro¹X's camera button really feels to be a one-stage button (which F(x)tec has confirmed) but Pro¹'s camera button was not felt like a good two-stage button (and also camera softwares did not support it well), so it is not a big difference.

However, I liked Pro¹'s "flash" LED much more than Pro¹X's flash LED as Pro¹ has two LEDs with different colour temperatures (which look to be more natural to eyesight) but Pro¹X only has a cold white (and maybe a bit dimmer) light which may not affect photos as it may be compensated but I have not tested it yet.

My Pro¹'s speakers are a bit louder than my Pro¹X's speaker using Youtube app but it may also happen to be a different setting somewhere.
However, this time the proper speaker is working in handsfree mode unlike with Pro¹ which had the two speakers miswired which was reversed in its kernel driver but it has also caused the handsfree speaker went to the wrong direction (near bottom microphone) causing handsfree problems.

USB-C (USB Type-C) video output is still not working of Pro¹X but I hope it will work in the future.

Here is a video booting Pro¹ and Pro¹X stock systems at once:

 

I just wanted to share my first thoughts - it is a bit short but I hope you may find it useful. 🙂

Edited August 16, 2022 by VaZso

[matf-kabouik 414]

Nice comparison, and good looking Pro1 (I bet it's a spare)! Thanks @VaZso.

Edited August 16, 2022 by matf-kabouik

[Danct12 58]

Nice! I just received my Pro1X (Black/6GB/128GB) yesterday, just unboxed it today and still haven't played with it much yet.

I do have the original Pro1 and used the hell out of the thing. I installed SFOS, an Arch Linux ARM container and some apps, it's one of my favorite Linux PDA.

[mosen 202]

@VaZsogreat to see! Thanks for the longish first impressions! Can confirm, the built quality is excellent imo

Kudos to @Erik btw for designing that awesome animated bootsplash logo.
Care to share what format you used and where you pushed it to 😅 I could try make one for SailfishOS and UB.

[VaZso 1,998]

17 minutes ago, Danct12 said:

Nice! I just received my Pro1X (Black/6GB/128GB) yesterday, just unboxed it today and still haven't played with it much yet.

I do have the original Pro1 and used the hell out of the thing. I installed SFOS, an Arch Linux ARM container and some apps, it's one of my favorite Linux PDA.

I have the 8GB/256GB model of Pro¹X and I am currently using LineageOS on my Pro¹ which I love to use.
Anyway, that is my daily driver and it is in good state - that was the phone I used to take photos / video above. 🙂
Its keyboard is a bit shiny anyway (compared to the matte original looking, however, it is also still in good condition.

I also have a Mobian installed on my Pro¹ (on top of Android) but I still not configured it to an appropriate state. 🙂

Edited August 16, 2022 by VaZso

[Benni 183]

I noticed another small difference the Pro1x is ~10g lighter and way less slippery than the Pro1.

[EskeRahn 5,460]

11 minutes ago, Benni said:

I noticed another small difference the Pro1x is ~10g lighter and way less slippery than the Pro1.

Nice. I wonder why, I could be wrong, but tapping on the backplates, I suspect the Pro1 back to be more massive than the Pro1X?

[VaZso 1,998]

3 hours ago, EskeRahn said:

Nice. I wonder why, I could be wrong, but tapping on the backplates, I suspect the Pro1 back to be more massive than the Pro1X?

I don't have such feeling - maybe the pre-production unit you have has a bit slimmer backplate.

[Doktor Oswaldo 904]

11 hours ago, Benni said:

I noticed another small difference the Pro1x is ~10g lighter and way less slippery than the Pro1.

less slippery? This is huge for me. Fuck.... You are all pushing me into spending too much on a phone again.

[brunoais 334]

12 hours ago, VaZso said:

I have the 8GB/256GB model of Pro¹X and I am currently using LineageOS on my Pro¹ which I love to use.

Where did you get the PRO¹-X-compatible LineageOS build (even if not complete and still buggy)?

Edited August 17, 2022 by brunoais

[aquaz 41]

Pro1 - not pro 1X.

[VaZso 1,998]

7 minutes ago, brunoais said:

Where did you get the PRO¹-X-compatible LineageOS build (even if not complete and still buggy)?

I am using it on Pro¹ and I hope to be available running similarly well for Pro¹X later.

[brunoais 334]

6 minutes ago, aquaz said:

Pro1 - not pro 1X.

 

6 minutes ago, VaZso said:

I am using it on Pro¹ and I hope to be available running similarly well for Pro¹X later.

Pff.... Misread 😖

[Hook 3,020]

6 hours ago, brunoais said:

 

Pff.... Misread 😖

Hope does strange things to perception.  😉

[VaZso 1,998]

If anyone interested - I took a video of my daily driver Pro¹ which is in use since two 2 years and 8 months (since very end of 2019).
I had to replace the screen a few times and its USB board once.

I have used this Pro¹ to take photos of the Pro¹X (and video of it together with my spare Pro¹) above and now I have used my Pro¹X above to take a video of it. 🙂

I have applied a hand-cut protective foil at its back because it seemed Pro¹ has a bit weak paint at its back, so it is there since I have started using it.
My second SIM card is wired on the back of the phone because I wanted to also use an SDCard together with two SIMs.
Also, I have a hand-cut hard-rubber case made for P20 which covers its back including the second SIM and I have applied some additional bumps near SIM holder for the phone to sit on them instead of the SIM card holder...
I am also using this case since I am using this phone.

I had to obscure some parts of the mirroring effect using a video editor (Kdenlive) as I did not want to put my face to Youtube. 🙂

Here is the video:

 

[brunoais 334]

31 minutes ago, VaZso said:

My second SIM card is wired on the back of the phone because I wanted to also use an SDCard together with two SIMs.

😁

What a piece of work there! I wonder if there's better alternatives... I really dislike hybrid slots... If you put a SIM, seems like a waste. If you put an SD card, then you can't use the SIM card... Always feels like a waste in some way or another... When I want the best of both worlds....

Edited August 17, 2022 by brunoais

[VaZso 1,998]

4 minutes ago, brunoais said:

😁

What a piece of work there! I wonder if there's better alternatives... I really dislike hybrid slots... If you put a seem, seems like a waste. If you put an SD card, then you can't use the SIM card... Always feels like a waste in some way or another... When I want the best of both worlds....

I feel the same... when I first saw Pro1 will have a hybrid slot, I was very upset.
However, also founder wanted to have a full slot, simply engineers could not solve it by the time.

However, I still feel my Moto G6 has a much better SIM slot, however, it is also much longer.
...but I also saw other phone which had a relatively small SIM holder but maybe a bit thicker.

Also, F(x)tec wanted to have a SIM slot which is easy to open, that is why the current opening method (it does not need a SIM tool), but I could not open it with my nails so I always have to find some opening tool and I have also caused some marks around it.

So a full SIM + SDCard slot would be much better than this 2 SIMs OR 1 SIM + SDCARD method.

[brunoais 334]

7 minutes ago, VaZso said:

I feel the same... [...]
However, also founder wanted to have a full slot, simply engineers could not solve it by the time.

Ah ok... It's excused then...

1 minute ago, VaZso said:

but I could not open it with my nails

I barely have nails and I can open the tray on my PRO¹-X, though... I just tested, a clip also works. I so much prefer no injector tool to use and lose.

4 minutes ago, VaZso said:

So a full SIM + SDCard slot would be much better than this 2 SIMs OR 1 SIM + SDCARD method.

I disagree... I still prefer the 2SIM/1SIM+SDCard. I just would prefer 2SIM+1SDCard... I see there's space for it but I wonder it would hurt in the structural integrity... Otherwise, the solution for that would be a deeper tray which would take more internal space. However, with 256GB storage... Hopefully, I won't need SD card... Time will tell...

[VaZso 1,998]

2 minutes ago, brunoais said:

I barely have nails and I can open the tray on my PRO¹-X, though... I just tested, a clip also works. I so much prefer no injector tool to use and lose.

I could not open it of my Pro¹X using my nails but it may happen the reason was the very first two openings - also it is harder to open if both SIM slots are in use.

3 minutes ago, brunoais said:

I disagree... I still prefer the 2SIM/1SIM+SDCard. I just would prefer 2SIM+1SDCard... I see there's space for it but I wonder it would hurt in the structural integrity... Otherwise, the solution for that would be a deeper tray which would take more internal space. However, with 256GB storage... Hopefully, I won't need SD card... Time will tell...

Once I saw a very well-built (not too long) 2SIM + SDCARD holder.
Otherwise, I feel more confident also having an alternative data storage in my phone - I understand there are "clouds" but also phone hardware may have problems.

My friend's Pro¹ has developed an internal UFS flash storage problem (completely dead flash IC) and also two of my Nokia N900s developed faulty eMMC flashes - however, N900 had a 256MB flash near SoC which it has used for booting and also for root filesystem, plus a 32GB eMMC flash contained the rest of the OS and user data... as the 32GB flash became faulty, it could still work using its internal 256MB flash and an SDCard.

So I prefer to try to worn Pro¹'s flash more slowly by also using a replaceable SDCard and I am more happy if I may still use some of my data if the phone may has a faulty flash later in time...

[EskeRahn 5,460]

9 hours ago, brunoais said:

I disagree... I still prefer the 2SIM/1SIM+SDCard. I just would prefer 2SIM+1SDCard... I see there's space for it but I wonder it would hurt in the structural integrity... Otherwise, the solution for that would be a deeper tray which would take more internal space. However, with 256GB storage... Hopefully, I won't need SD card... Time will tell...

Personally I had hoped that when they redesigned the main board, they had added an eSim. But might have been too expensive, or might not be supported by the SoC?

[brunoais 334]

For me, that doesn't solve anything. I have eSIM. It's one step towards locking the user to the hardware and to chain hardware issues.

In other words, eSIM causes more problems than it solves. All good when it works and then screws you when it fails.

Edited August 18, 2022 by brunoais

[EskeRahn 5,460]

57 minutes ago, brunoais said:

For me, that doesn't solve anything. I hare eSIM. It's one step towards locking the user to the hardware and to chain hardware issues.

In other words, eSIM causes more problems than it solves. All good when it works and then screws you when it fails.

Sad to hear, I was unaware of that it could be bound to a specific device, I thought it was info that could be moved even easier than a physical SIM.
(Though contacts would obviously have to be handled also - but I believe it is rare to have the contacts on the sim today)

[brunoais 334]

5 hours ago, EskeRahn said:

Sad to hear, I was unaware of that it could be bound to a specific device, I thought it was info that could be moved even easier than a physical SIM.

Only if the phone company feels inclined to it. It's even worse than the IMEI locks and blocks that did big news on social media some years ago but now seem to have been mostly forgotten. Unfortunately, it didn't do TV news.