Comment by tmtvl

I have a Volla X22 (or whatever) with Ubuntu Touch. I can send SMS messages, I can call people, and I can listen to music. That's about 80% of what I want a smartphone for taken care of (and the music wouldn't be necessary if there were decent MP3/OGG players which support OPUS, but alas, smartphones killed portable music players).

I did jump through some hoops to install Firefox and get it working with the phone's touchscreen keyboard so I can use digital bus tickets rather than physical ones. I also went and installed Waydroid so I can use WhatsApp for my kung fu club when it's needed.

There are a couple of bike rental companies in Belgium which require one to install an Android/iPhone app to use their services, but I have decided not to give them the time of day.