UBports, the creators and maintainers of the Ubuntu Touch mobile operating system, inform us today about an upcoming mobile device called Volla Phone that might be capable of running the Linux-based operating system.

Founded by Dr. Jörg Wurzer, an experienced entrepreneur with more than 20 years of experience in research and development in user experience, machine learning, natural language processing, artificial intelligence, and product management, Volla Phone promises to be a privacy-focused mobile phone powered by a free and open source operating system.

At its heart, the Volla Phone device will use Nemo Mobile, an OS based on the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) promising increased security and privacy features, as well as simplicity for the everyday user. For developers, Volla Phone also promises to support an alternative, free, and open-source operation system like Ubuntu Touch.

"Ubuntu Touch inherits the maturity of the popular Linux distribution and benefits from a large community of developers and the UBports foundation. The FOSS mobile operation has made great progress in recent months. The standard apps in the dark mode fits perfectly to the Volla Phone. Their surface forms an elegant unit with the dark, glossy housing due to the almost rimless display," said the Volla Phone creators.

Only a prototype for now

For now, the Volla Phone is only a prototype, but we have to admit that it's kinda attractive with its €300 price tag for a device boasting modest hardware and supporting most Android apps via an anonymous App Store (doesn't support Google Apps, nor Google Play Service). Volla Phone also comes with a pre-configured VPN and promises to not collect any of your data or track statistics.

If you're interested in supporting the Volla Phone as an alternative to Purism's Librem 5 Linux phone or PINE64's PinePhone open source Linux smartphone, go visit its Kickstarter page and pledge for an early bird pack or any of the available bundles. If the campaign proves to be successful, the Volla Phone should arrive at your door steps in October 2020.