alt Hacker NewsNot GP, but Volla phones are cool in that they officially support running proper Linux[1], so you could just use Linux instead of Android if that's enough for your needs. And you can still boot into their de-Googled Android if you need to run Android apps.
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Oh, one vendor supporting multiple OSes! I hadn't clicked through (https://volla.online/en/operating-systems/), that is neat indeed and quite a unique selling point among mobile vendors
This should have gone in my spreadsheet before I chose a new device xD. Ah well, next time
Android similarly supports, and in fact uses, "proper" Linux. Android and its forks are Linux distributions. You can use a mainline kernel in Android just fine.
Ubuntu Touch is drastically less private and secure than AOSP let alone GrapheneOS. Volla's devices don't come anywhere close to meeting the update and security requirements for GrapheneOS. GrapheneOS is a Linux distribution much closely following along with the Linux kernel LTS releases, unlike those devices. It also regularly moves to new Linux kernel LTS branches. Pixels are in the process of moving to the 6.12 LTS branch with Android 17 QPR2. 6.18 is currently in the early stage of stabilization.
Volla just Eurowashes/rebadges other low to midrange phones at a huge markup. E.g., the Volla Phone Quintus is:
https://www.amazon.ae/Android-Smartphone-Storage-Octa-Core-M...
(If you don't believe it from the identical specs and design, you can look at the committers in their kernel trees and it is basically maintained by Daria people.)
Their new Plinius model is just the Gigaset GS6 with a 250 Euro markup:
https://www.gigaset.com/gigaset-gs6/
At least this is made by a German company, though Gigset is Chinese-owned now.
At any rate, these are just rebadged phones and IIRC, but don't hold me to it, in both cases the original phones also support bootloader unlocking.