The F(x)tec Pro1-X is a smartphone with a 6 inch display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 662 processor, up to 8GB of RAM and up to 256GB of storage. But it has a few features that make it very unusual for a smartphone in 2022: the phone has a slide-out keyboard, supports both Android and Ubuntu Touch operating systems, has a microSD card reader and headphone jack, and a repairable design – F(x)tec offers spare batteries and screens.

But while a crowdfunding campaign for the Pro1-X wrapped up in late 2020, the phone has yet to ship. F(x)tec said last year that supply chain issues interfered… and they haven’t really gotten much better since then. But now the company says the manufacturing facility has begun trials of the assembly processor, which means that mass production could begin soon (if no further problems are found). And that means the phones could begin shipping to backers soon.

F(x)tec Pro1-X

Crowdfunding has ended, but the phone is up for pre-order from the F(x)tec store for $829 and up, with an estimated ship date of April, 2022. I’d take that estimate with a grain of salt for now though.

In other tech news, Motorola was the third-largest smartphone company in the US last year, Microsoft is making it easier to change the default web browser on Windows 11 (through an optional update that didn’t advertise the change), Vivo is providing a sneak peek at its upcoming foldable phone, the KDE Plasma desktop environment for GNU/Linux distributions will soon support a swipe gesture to access the Overview screen, and now that some reviewers have had their hands on Steam Deck portable game consoles for about a month, there are answers to questions about long(er) term usage.

Here’s a roundup of recent tech news from around the web:

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18 replies on “Lilbits: F(x)tec Pro1-X keyboard phone, Motorola hits #3 in US smartphone sales, Steam Deck answers, and more”

    1. Well that’s disappointing. I’m hoping it’s a caching issue though, since I just implemented the same fix that was working earlier this week.

      If you’re still unable to access the site via RSS tomorrow, can you hit me up via our contact page so we can continue this chat via email without clogging up the comments section of this unrelated article?

      https://liliputing.com/contact

  2. I ordered that phone over two years ago and I still have to double check when writing the full name out, F(x)tec Pro1-X, hopefully it’ll get easier when I finally have it in my hand.
    I’ll make sure to share my opinions on it once I’ve used it for a couple of weeks, got the Lineage OS, looking forward to trying something a little different 🙂

  3. What’s going on with the site’s RSS feed? My feed reader started failing to parse the feed. When I open it in the browser it says “Verifying that you are not a robot…”. That’s not very helpful for an RSS feed.. That only happens with the feed, not the website itself.

    1. What RSS reader are you using? This is the second report I’ve gotten of this behavior today, although it’s not something I’ve been able to replicate. I’ve tried making a tweak to our cache/security settings that might help resolve the issue, but it would be helpful to know if you’re using the same feed reader as the other person experiencing this issue.

        1. Interesting, that’s the same as the other person reporting this behavior was using. Not sure why the feed stopped working with Miniflux all of a sudden, but can you check and see if it’s working now?

          1. It is working fine now! Thanks!
            Interestingly, when I loaded the feed URL in the browser, it was also giving me an error, as I mentioned above. So it wasn’t only that feed reader. Thanks again for fixing it.

          4. Thanks for letting me know. I just made another tweak that might bring it back. Let me know what you see if you have a chance?

  4. There’s a typo in the first paragraph, it says up to 8 GB of Ram and then up to 256 GB of Ram. Is this supposed to say 256 of internal memory?

  6. In regards to the Steam Deck…

    I just watched a video from ETA Primes youtube channel where he shows off the new release of Emulation Station( or EMUDeck) running inside of SteamOS. You can now flip back and forth between Steam Games and your vintage emulation titles with a couple of clicks and no rebooting.

    As far am I’m concerned…this is a must buy.

    Best,
    Steven B.(Liquid Cool)

  7. I am uncertain if this has been answered thoroughly here before, but it is important to say that the Steam Deck is very much able to run most Windows games and applications without installing Windows. Steam users like myself have been able to run Origin, install retro GOG games, and even run Windows only emulators with flying colors!

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