> Hardware is less exciting to me than the Software, and the Operating systems. Competition there would be nice

Thank you, I'm glad someone is saying it. Smartphone hardware matured several years ago, where even a $10 Walmart prepaid phone is good enough for everything except mobile gaming. It's long past time we had more than iOS and Android to choose from as a first class citizen. I realize there will likely never be a competitive third party OS on mobile (even a behemoth like Microsoft gave up just when their mobile OS was getting really, really good), but I'd settle for just the ability to buy an affordable device that can run whatever I want to put on it.

With this device, the PinePhone, and (holding my nose) the Librem 5, we now have enough choices on the hardware side to give the OS devs incentive to make their offerings polished enough to be daily drivers.

If the 10$ smartphone you mentioned actually exists, I'd like to know how I (as a German in Germany) could buy a couple. At that price point I'd feel comfortable degrading them to a wall-mounted light switch or doorbell repeater. Generic IoT stuff.

They exist and you can get them at Walmart, Family Dollar, and other bargain-basement stores. They are at that price point because the prepaid carrier (usually TracFone or similar) expects the buyer to purchase blocks of "minutes" and "megabytes" to use with the phone. It's basically a loss leader.

Just use old phones from eBay :). More like 50 Euros, but still rather cheap and powerful enough for any IoT use.

Reminds me of that guy who used an iPad for a wall mounted information panel (weather, transport time, traffic conditions, some other stuff). Pretty cool.

Volla doesn't help much in the OS market - it's just another Android phone with unlocked bootloader, relying on Android driver infastructure.

If you're interested in alternative software better invest in Librem 5, or if it's too expensive for you get a PinePhone and start hacking.