Cosmo Communicator Short Review (Written on Cosmo) Thanks to Cosmo for giving me the device.

The Cosmo communicator is an interesting Android device. It features a physical keyboard, a 24 MP camera, and can dual boot into Gnu/Linux. 

  Overview  

    This phone is a cellphone first and foremost. The phone’s call quality is decent in speaker mode, yet when the calls are not in speaker mode the voices sound tiny. Web browsing is fine, but due to the device’s landscape orientation, some pages look better in desktop mode. The clamshell’s GPS capabilities are decent but receive a better signal outside. The cellphone runs Android 9 and includes a suite of Planet applications. The phone has an external screen for making calls, and reading emails and texts. It also has a useful audio recorder. The battery life is not that good, and sometimes the phone randomly restarts. The phone lacks basic Android features such as folders and system-wide search. This can be redeemed by using Nova Launcher coupled with Sesame Shortcuts

   The clamshell features a fingerprint and can support a long 16-digit password.  The phone also can be forced into portrait mode, which is good for applications that do not work well with the unique form factor. Also, the phone’s performance is not up to par with phones like the S22 Ultra and is more of a midrange device. The phone feels like it has more radiation than usual because it may be heavier and more metal than the average Android phone, but this can be fixed by putting it into a pouch.   

    The keyboard takes getting used to. It feels slightly mushy, and sometimes keys are hard to press. I often find the space bar not accepting responses, and Ctrl-C not registering.  The keyboard is backlight. The device has a virtual keyboard that can be forced enabled at the bottom of the screen, but it is pretty basic and does not support swipe type. 

    GNU/Linux support is available on this device to follow the instructions provided by Planet to install it. It is pretty basic and needs to be tweaked to allow real work to be done. 

    This device tries to be many things to for people. It tries to be a business phone and a phone for tinkerers. This handset also showcased the power of Android which allows manufacturers to choose the type of devices they want to make. However, the bad camera, random restarts, coupled with bad optimization of 3rd party applications may make business users mad. However the Linux integration may be perfect for tinkerers who like to play with their phones, and people who would appreciate the unique form factor of the device, and don’t care about social media.  This phone gets a 3.0 out of 5 from TheTechBoy.

Tech Talk To You Later!!

Is this a good social media phone? No 

Is the Cosmo Communicator capable of running GNU/Linux? Yes

What ports does the Cosmo Communicator have? One USB-C port for charring and another of external support a headphone jack and a microSD card Slot.