The biggest issue is Braxman using android binary blob drivers you have no OS freedom, ubuntu touch and Lineage/Cyanogen derived distros are tied to google-andtroid kernel releases. Once the releases by the hardware manufacturer for given hardware ends your device is EOLed or at least that feature.component is. The good news with android blob drivers is nearly all hardware and the best processors are supported with great power management at the time of release, the bad news is you have little-to no idea what is going on inside those drivers and the EOL issue. The difficulty in getting drivers is a part of why most android devices will never see normal linux installable or all of the hardware supported, Pine64 has chosen components which are fully open documented(no nondisclosure agreements required to read datasheets) allowing writing of FOSS drivers for all components.
Sure Nokia, an industry giant, was able to ask for and receive blob dirvers for their Maemo Linux devices, but even now clean room reverse engineering of drivers for hardware has not fully succeeded and I am not sure you can make a telephone call on a formerly maemo 5 N900 Linux phone running Duvian derived Maemo 7, it is all about the blob vs FOSS drivers.
This BraX3 hardware is bespoke design but off the shelf chipset and components, easy and cheap especially in the tech center of Shenzhen China, you can have a team design a mobile phone from gerber PCB and solidworks design files like assembling Legos and send them to quick adaptable manufacturing, most of the work is skinning the software available on F-droid for a single target device Android/Ubuntu Touch base makes that easy.
I believe Braxman is doing his best to deliver a privacy-centric-ish phone but the privacy and user security of a properly configured pinephone goes far beyond what Braxman could ever hope to deliver into realistic nation-state resistant paranoia level vs anti-hackerbro, because the user control on a Pine goes all of the way to the silicon vs stopping at the kernel drivers and boot process. I am over 90% certain(today vs late 2022) that the FBI, CIA, or KGB could NOT get into a Pinephone with encrypted root unless they could interrogate the password out of you. while I give near certainty that a plug-in Cellebrite box could crack a Braxman phone in a few minutes because it relies on android based bootloader boot chain with known exploits.
It is like comparing a owned scooter to a rented race bike, two devices with vastly different capabilities and drawbacks.
FWIW Pine64 makes fully documented (FOSS compatible by design vs hacked) hardware for an enthusiast community and hopes that the community will write cool software for the things they sell. Braxman is selling a finished commercial product.
Sure Nokia, an industry giant, was able to ask for and receive blob dirvers for their Maemo Linux devices, but even now clean room reverse engineering of drivers for hardware has not fully succeeded and I am not sure you can make a telephone call on a formerly maemo 5 N900 Linux phone running Duvian derived Maemo 7, it is all about the blob vs FOSS drivers.
This BraX3 hardware is bespoke design but off the shelf chipset and components, easy and cheap especially in the tech center of Shenzhen China, you can have a team design a mobile phone from gerber PCB and solidworks design files like assembling Legos and send them to quick adaptable manufacturing, most of the work is skinning the software available on F-droid for a single target device Android/Ubuntu Touch base makes that easy.
I believe Braxman is doing his best to deliver a privacy-centric-ish phone but the privacy and user security of a properly configured pinephone goes far beyond what Braxman could ever hope to deliver into realistic nation-state resistant paranoia level vs anti-hackerbro, because the user control on a Pine goes all of the way to the silicon vs stopping at the kernel drivers and boot process. I am over 90% certain(today vs late 2022) that the FBI, CIA, or KGB could NOT get into a Pinephone with encrypted root unless they could interrogate the password out of you. while I give near certainty that a plug-in Cellebrite box could crack a Braxman phone in a few minutes because it relies on android based bootloader boot chain with known exploits.
It is like comparing a owned scooter to a rented race bike, two devices with vastly different capabilities and drawbacks.
FWIW Pine64 makes fully documented (FOSS compatible by design vs hacked) hardware for an enthusiast community and hopes that the community will write cool software for the things they sell. Braxman is selling a finished commercial product.