Where to Buy Linux Phones in Canada
17d 21h ago by lemmy.ca/u/dudesss in buycanadian@lemmy.ca
Hope you guys don't mind me posting this in this community. Upvote or downvote if you like or dislike it.
Particularly would love a Fairphone. Have considered buying from https://clove.co.uk/and have considered asking if friends in Europe would be willing to ship.
But before I do, I want your opinions. Does anyone have any good options?
I'm not looking to buy a Pixel nor a Samsung of some cracked convenient store version of a smartphone.
I have Fairphone 6, which I imported to Canada thru Clove. It came with standard android rom, but I was able to flash it with e/os. I've had no issues using it in Canada with Telus (even banking apps work fine).
There will be an import or duty fee you will have to pay to bring this into Canada, which I think Clove full explains.
You can get a rough estimate of this using the canadian govt website below: https://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/travel-voyage/dte-acl/est-cal-eng.html
Nice website! I see there is no duty fees on it.
You are pretty much limited to the USA for a fairphone or pinephone, or Europe.
There are alternatives, though. I keep a oneplus 6t for testing because it's supported by almost every Linux and android rom.
I'm suggesting the second option because you will want to try Linux on a phone before you commit to daily driving it.
I would look into one of these. I do not strictly need Linux on my phone, but again following with my avoidance of a cracked convenient store version of a smartphone, Apple being hard included.
Options I would consider buying in Canada:
- Murena (France) with /e/OS (France) on:
- Fairphone (Netherlands)
- Hiroh (USA)
- SHIFTphone (Germany)
- Teracube (USA)
- Punkt MC03 (Switzerland)
- Volla (Germany) with Volla OS or Ubuntu Touch (Germany)
- Jolla (Finland) with Sailfish OS (Finland)
- Purism Librem (USA, manufactured in the USA)
Judging by your choices here, I would strongly suggest you dig into what these phones can actually do.
The punkt phones, for example, have an extremely cut down set of features and are more like a dumb phone.
Volla phones are not certified for north america, so you will not get volte or half the LTE bands.
There are a lot of nuances to getting off the big brands and changing devices isnt just about leaving google and apple.
This has me realize we need more phone stores in Canada. All I can think of is https://openbox.ca/