Phosh for me and it entirely comes down to the onscreen keyboard. GNOME Mobile’s OSK is utter garbage as it has no control/modifier/arrow keys, not even Tab, which makes using terminal an absolute pain. Chances are if you’re the kind of person who wants a Linux phone at this point, you probably use the terminal at least semi-regularly. Phosh’s UI has some design choices I don’t love, but squeekboard (Phosh’s OSK component) is one of the best on-screen phone keyboards I’ve ever used, second only to Hacker’s Keyboard on Android and in some ways superior to it. The reason comes down to key layouts being defined by simple .yaml files that you can edit to make custom layouts. I have all my control and modifier keys available and using terminal is easy now. I’m typing this on my custom layout.
Phosh’s window management is also pretty good for adapting desktop applications to a touchscreen. The only complaint I have is the large bottom bar that can’t be turned off or replaced with a gesture. Waste of screen space, especially in landscape mode which is how I prefer to browse the web and use a lot of desktop-focused apps. I created a program to turn the touchscreen into a laptop-style touchpad for mouse control that pairs well with Phosh for using applications that aren’t particularly good at touch control.
The challenge is that these days a phone is rarely used for calls or texts, but used with apps like WhatsApp or Teams or Slack or your mobile banking app, or things like that. And so there would need to be a critical mass of these apps to get me to switch.
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