I ditched Big Tech and used ONLY the Jolla Phone (2026) for 7 days straight. Here is the good, the bad, and the unexpected about living without Google or App...
Fairphone (repairable and supports fair materials + working conditions, mobile Linux support is growing too!)
Jolla (affordable, SailfishOS)
Shiftphone (repairable, privacy kill switches, not as available or as good value as Fairphone)
HMD (affordable, repairable, Android)
Volla (Ubuntu Touch)
Punkt (closed bootloader, expensive)
edit: Shiftphone moved up. Personally, I think Fairphone is ideal (can run degoogled Android and mobile Linux, repairable, fair production, etc.), Jolla Phone is cheaper than Fairphone and ships with SailfishOS OOTB so is also nice for most people. Those two are probably the easiest recommendation to most people, the others have their own caveats.
Shiftphone is also repairable and has privacy kill switches (unlike Fairphone) but not as good value spec wise, HMD produces cheaper Android devices of questionable quality, and only a few support custom ROMs, Volla is cool if you like Ubuntu Touch but their devices are a bit expensive + not repairable (latter is the main reason why I rank it lower), and Punkt uses a locked bootloader, so custom ROMs are not an option.
Absolute worst phone I ever had (when they were still lying with the Nokia branding). I had to change the USBC port 6 times in 1.5 years of using the phone because they used such garbage components.
Camera was worst I have seen, software was the buggiest I have ever used, headphone jack literally never worked from day 1, unusable bugs lasting months, and the battery was not the worst, but worse than average for sure. Plus it was as expensive as the pixel a series for a much much worse phone. I can’t remember but I think it also had a locked bootloader.
It is good that it is semi-repairable (everything is still glued) because everything breaks constantly. I have never had a phone even in the same class of shit.
“It technically functioned” was really its only positive point. It looked pretty nice too I guess.
Fair enough, I haven’t used one of their devices before, this is just what I’ve seen on the internet. I know that some of their devices are supported by LineageOS too (the Skyline and one other one), so that might fix the poor software problem?
But yeah, they’re not fantastic for sure. I’ve only ranked them higher for repairability (albeit maybe Shiftphone should also be higher if that’s the case, I’ve edited the comment now) and the price compared to the other European brands
European Phone Brands:
Gigaset?
Gigaset is not german any more. They were sadly bought by an Hong Kong enterprise. [1]
Didn’t know that. Thanks.
Is the ordering how you rate them?
Personally, I would rank them:
edit: Shiftphone moved up. Personally, I think Fairphone is ideal (can run degoogled Android and mobile Linux, repairable, fair production, etc.), Jolla Phone is cheaper than Fairphone and ships with SailfishOS OOTB so is also nice for most people. Those two are probably the easiest recommendation to most people, the others have their own caveats.
Shiftphone is also repairable and has privacy kill switches (unlike Fairphone) but not as good value spec wise, HMD produces cheaper Android devices of questionable quality, and only a few support custom ROMs, Volla is cool if you like Ubuntu Touch but their devices are a bit expensive + not repairable (latter is the main reason why I rank it lower), and Punkt uses a locked bootloader, so custom ROMs are not an option.
If I could rate HMD as lower than last, I would.
Absolute worst phone I ever had (when they were still lying with the Nokia branding). I had to change the USBC port 6 times in 1.5 years of using the phone because they used such garbage components.
Camera was worst I have seen, software was the buggiest I have ever used, headphone jack literally never worked from day 1, unusable bugs lasting months, and the battery was not the worst, but worse than average for sure. Plus it was as expensive as the pixel a series for a much much worse phone. I can’t remember but I think it also had a locked bootloader.
It is good that it is semi-repairable (everything is still glued) because everything breaks constantly. I have never had a phone even in the same class of shit.
“It technically functioned” was really its only positive point. It looked pretty nice too I guess.
Fair enough, I haven’t used one of their devices before, this is just what I’ve seen on the internet. I know that some of their devices are supported by LineageOS too (the Skyline and one other one), so that might fix the poor software problem?
But yeah, they’re not fantastic for sure. I’ve only ranked them higher for repairability (albeit maybe Shiftphone should also be higher if that’s the case, I’ve edited the comment now) and the price compared to the other European brands
I believe Punkt builds phones in Germany, shame about the locked bootloader.