Among the 15 million developers, programmers, and hackers who visit XDA Developers every month,
XDA is one of the largest online forumsfor Android enthusiasts, and is often the "first stop on the internet" for users who want to modify their phones in ways the manufacturer never intended. Forum participants constantly wondered, isn’t it easier to make your own phone?
And this week, XDA announced a partnershipwith the startup F (x) TEC. The goal of the collaboration is to create a new smartphone called Pro1 X. It has a built-in physical keyboard and is designed to load Android or Ubuntu Linux software. Nirave Gondia, director of content for XDA, says his editorial team has provided information on the phone's features and will also be promoting it on the site's forums.
“We want to create something that is aimed at the enthusiast community,” explains Gondia.
Pro1 X is technically a variant of the firstphone F (x) tec, Pro1, released at the end of 2019. While both phones have physical keyboards and similar specs, the new phone boasts more internal (128GB) and more RAM (8GB) storage. The phone now supports dual booting, so users can boot two operating systems on the same phone.
For Android Pro1 X will ship with LineageOSfor those who like to tinker with their phones. This OS is more customizable than the Android software that Google puts on its Pixel phones. That being said, it lacks pre-loaded apps and extra features that manufacturers like Samsung install on their phones.
As Gondia notes, developer storiesLineage and XDA are closely related. Developers who create experimental versions of Lineage - either with changed features or with support for additional devices - often post their work on the XDA forums, and the XDA editorial team often highlights these developments in their news section.
“There is a lot of overlap between the XDA community and the Lineage community,” he says.
In return for coverage of the new product, XDA will receivea share of any sales the site helps generate. Gondia also pushed for a discount that XDA readers can get by going to the site. “It will be a real partnership,” he says.
But while using XDA for the needs of developers and hackers seems like an interesting idea, the community is tech-savvy enough to spot the project's flaws.
For example, F(x)tec, as a low-cost phone maker, cannot afford to have access to the latest components that big players like Samsung and OnePlus use.
However, Gondia does not exclude that in the future there will bemore phones, although he says there are no active plans in this regard: "I think this year has taught us all that you never know what to expect."
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