The IndieGoGo marketing campaign for the F(x)Tec Pro1-X smartphone has obtained over $1 million in funding and the primary models have been shipped out to “tremendous early chicken” backers on the finish of January. However now the crew has run into provide points.
Particularly, the Snapdragon 835 on the coronary heart of the cellphone has reached the end-of-life stage and is not out there, that means no extra telephones may be constructed. This impacts each the unique Pro1 mannequin (extra on that in a minute) in addition to the Pro1-X, which was designed for XDA-Developers (each are fairly comparable and use the 835 chipset).
The crew has chosen the Snapdragon 662 as a substitute. It’s a mid-range chipset so some efficiency degradation is anticipated, although there are literally a number of upsides to going with a newer chip (it was introduced in January 2020). Some disadvantages as nicely, thoughts you, moreover the efficiency drop.
The F(x)Tec Pro1-X
The 662 is anticipated to make use of much less energy, prolonging battery life. And it’ll run Android 11 out of the field with safety updates lasting past 2023. The F(x)Tec Pro1-X may also run Ubuntu Contact and Lineage OS, although these ROMs will have to be reworked.
Additionally, the brand new chip helps greater decision digicam sensors so the cellphone might be upgraded to the 48MP Sony IMX586. The unique model (with Snapdragon 835) got here with a 12MP IMX363 sensor as a substitute.
Connectivity is improved as nicely with help for Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.1. The crew briefly mentioned why it didn’t select a better finish 5G chipset. There are two causes: 1) the worth of these chips, in fact, and a pair of) 5G requires completely different antennas and the redesign would have taken too lengthy.
The cellphone’s PCB meeting already must be redesigned, so the estimated transport date has been pushed from March to August 2021. The pandemic just isn’t serving to the state of affairs both.
You may read the announcement on IndieGoGo for extra particulars. As you possibly can think about, backers are not happy concerning the state of affairs.
As for the unique Pro1 cellphone, latest patrons ready on their unit have reportedly obtained messages that they are going to be getting the Pro1-X as a substitute (it’s not all unhealthy, the X has extra reminiscence – 8/256 GB, up from 6/128 GB).
