Newly Joined from Hong Kong

Community Events & Activities
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Anyone is living here? I want to create a community for e.foundation

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Hi, I’m from Hong Kong, teaching in CUHK.
I use /e/ since last summer.
I’m quite busy with life, but always willing to support open source initiatives.

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I’m in Hong Kong. I’m planning on getting a refurbished Galaxy S9+ as my next phone.
Do all the phone carriers in Hong Kong work with /e?

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csl does, both on normal plan and on prepaid card.

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Two years with /e/ and SmarTone HK (Nexus 5X inherited from my wife - I try to use phones until they die… ;-)).
No problem.

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Thanks for the reply.
What’s the criteria for whether phone carriers will work with /e?

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Generally speaking if a phone works with local carriers before installing /e/, it will also work with /e/. Here are two links for your reference: Carrier acceptance?
https://community.e.foundation/search?q=carrier

Further adding my own experience, I seem to remember that I started to use /e/ for my main phone when I was still with China Mobile HK. So, even anecdotally, at least CSL, SmartTone, and China Mobile are fine with /e/.

To sum-up my overall experience with /e/, I would say that, for my usage of a smartphone, with /e/ practically everything works as well or better than with Google Android. However, this will not be the case for everyone, at least at the current stage of development.
I mostly use open source alternatives to proprietary apps, and they all work as they should. So far, when I needed a non open source app, it worked without problems, except for e-banking apps. Many e-banking apps only accept the original Google Android as a security policy (notice, it’s mostly a policy…). As far as I understand, the /e/ team and various users are making a lot of progress in this area and perhaps, in a not distant future, most of such apps too will work.
For me this problem has been a blessing in disguise. I did not want to install e-banking apps on my phone, but I was under “family pressure”… As a solution, I took a good used phone (a Samsung J5), that had been retired by a family member, I clean it up of the installed garbage as much as possible (but leaving the original Google Android) and I made it my dedicated e-banking device. I use it without a SIM card (almost exclusively home WIFI), it does not have contacts, social apps, etc…

OK, the above is to give you an idea of how /e/ can be used with satisfaction and what not to expect.

Yuksing (Klaus)

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Thank you for an informative response!
I do use e-banking apps but they won’t be missed (I will miss PayMe!).
The future of /e does look promising. My brother is also interested in privacy and we both mainly use Foss apps from F-Droid.
I know /e works on my current Sony Xperia XA2 Plus but the installation is far beyond my understanding.
Thanks again. Hopefully this community can grow and we can support each other when needed.

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I started from zero six months ago. It’s a steep learning curve, but not all that hard in the end. I gave it a try on an old phone lying in a drawer at home, and was shocked when it worked (mostly). The key is taking the instructions step by step. Members of this community are also amazing in helping you sort out difficulties.

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