A British phone you're not embarrassed to carry? You heard that right

Re: last step of the journey

Like Sendo?

I think that for the most part those days have gone. WileyFox aren't big enough to be that much of a threat or an opportunity, the brand is very niche (and loses its "crafty British challenger" appeal as soon as acquired by a bumbling incumbent), and what are WFx doing that the majors could do but choose not to?

Surely the only people this would make sense for would be Cyanogenmod themselves, since they're making no money from their software at the moment, and they might see WileyFox either as their main route to market, or as their "reference" design in the manner of the Nexus devices. But as a US company I'd have thought there's a range of US-based Shenzen-vetters who are doing the same sort of thing as WFx, and CM would culturally be a better fit with another US business.

The other thing is that whilst we often bemoan the sale of UK start ups, what those sales actually reflect is the sense of proportion of UK entrepreneurs. Why put the years of extra work in, and take the risks to build a half-a-billion pound corporate business, if you can sell out much earlier for £15m, and either retire somewhere pleasant, or start again in the rule-free world of the start-up? Building a big corporate enterprise (successfully) would make them very rich indeed, but it means moving from anarchic energy and innovation to a world of process, compliance, policies, board meetings, corporate finance, suits and PHBs. And to get the benefits, you've still got to go through a hair-raising trade sale, or worse still an IPO, where you'll initially be a key man, but then be squeezed out of "your own" company by the suits.

What is this vanilla android

you speak of?

Not as if you can just copy AOSP onto it.

Re: Cyanogen OS

Cyanogen OS was the commercial version of CyanogenMod. They could flip to the community version which is essentially the same without the QA. I'm sure they could do QA in-house or pay some devs to do the same.

It is incredible that Cyanogen's commercial efforts flopped so badly. They were a shoe-in for producing firmware, QA and after-market support for phone makers who didn't want to do it themselves.

Re: Cyanogen OS

What's to stop them just using CyanogenMod instead of Cyanogen OS?

First thing I did when I bought the original Swift was replace the latter with the former after discovering a rooted Cyanogen OS won't accept OTA updates.

Re: Cyanogen OS

I spoke to them recently and brought up the issue of Cyanogen's doubtful future

They: "We have no news on this issue and our phone are not going to be affected as far as i'm aware"

Rooting their phones?

They: "i would certainly would advise against it as we don't support it"

Re: Looks decent

"I'd be quite interested in one for my eldest lad who burns almost all of his saved pocket money for screens for his current one"

Let him burn all of it. But point out that the screen he buys with the last of it has to be taken care of, otherwise he's phoneless until he's saved up for a new phone.

Re: Looks decent

If he's old enough to have a smartphone he's old enough to get a Saturday job and save up for his own damn screen replacements. (Or buy the part for a tenner and look up how to do it himself on YT, like the rest of us.)

Re: Great phone - but dodgy support

Fast forward 11 months and (1) I am still being spammed by Wileyfox and (2) I am still waiting for the free screen protector I was supposed to get when I registered.

I know this sounds like a silly question, but are you sure you don't already have the screen protector? I bought a Storm and was wondering where it was in the box, then noticed that it was actually pre-fitted!

Re: Great phone - but dodgy support

Fast forward 11 months and (1) I am still being spammed by Wileyfox and (2) I am still waiting for the free screen protector I was supposed to get when I registered.

I am still waiting for the rebate on the phones I bought back way-when. In fact, I am waiting for them to respond to the emails that I have been sending them.

The chances of me getting new WileyFox handsets for BongoJoe Villas is, excuse pun, swiftly diminishing.

Re: Redmi 3S

Have an upvote from a fellow Xiaomi user; my Hongmi Note gets many admiring looks; then looks of disbelief when I tell them the specs and the price.

Had a multi-millionaire fawning over it last weekend, he kept asking me to confirm what it was and how much it cost; I thought he was going to try and buy it off of me, especially when I showed him the spare Li-ON battery & charger (cost £2.50 inc p&p)

I seem to remember a Spanish firm getting panned in here a few weeks ago, for doing almost exactly what WileyFox do.