It can browse the web and make calls, what more do you need?!

Thousands of folks snapped up a PinePhone Brave Heart edition when it went on sale last year — now with the handsets now arriving many early-adopters will be scouting for a mobile operating systems to use on it.

Pine64, the company behind the PinePhone, shared a video of 4 different operating systems running on the PinePhone just before Christmas. A month on from that and many of the systems showcased have improved greatly.

Including Ubuntu Touch, the mobile OS created by Canonical but continued by the community-based Ubports.

In a short video posted on YouTube, Ubports developer Marius Gripsgård showcases the current state of Ubuntu Touch on the fledgling FOSS-friendly handset:

Looks pretty good, doesn’t it? 😌

The Unity 8 interface is fairly responsive (despite the GPU driver for the graphics chipset in the PinePhone being pretty basic) and it’s great to see that wifi, browsing the web, and installing apps all “just works” without any hiccups.

Do remember that Ubuntu Touch is, like other Linux OSes being actively developed for the PinePhone, so not in “daily driver” ready state.

But it’s getting there.

Ubuntu Touch and postmarketOS both seem, to my outsider eyes at least, to the two systems in the best shape right now. Not without issues, but broadly functional.

The progress made by the Linux community to support a device that isn’t even widely “available” yet is pretty impressive.

A real community is gathering around the PinePhone (as well as many other Pine products) and it leaves me feeling very hyped and rather optimistic about where things can go next for this particular company.

My PinePhone is currently in customs waiting clearance. But once it’s here I’ll be testing a few systems out first hand and will, I’m sure, share my early thoughts on how things are shaping up.