this old but not totally abandoned physical medium.

Damn...

It’s probably a floating roof.

Sure is.

Nope. You need root access to use sudo. It just runs a shell natively under Android. But you can run QEMU inside Termux.

Without root, you get this:

No 'su' binary found
SU_SEARCH_PATHS: /system/bin/su /debug_ramdisk/su /system/xbin/su /sbin/su /sbin/bin/su /system/sbin/su /su/xbin/su /su/bin/su /magisk/.core/bin/su
sudo requires a 'su' binary that supports the '-c', '--shell', '--preserve-environment' and '--mount-master' options

Yeah...
This time I specifically went with MediaTek to have access to band selection, but MediaTek is basically all of the nails in the coffin when it comes to custom ROMs.
Other option for this would be a closed-source app like NSG with root access (meh).
Or a full-fledged Linux phone so I could just use mmcli like a normal person. That seems to exist at least on PostmarketOS: https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Modem (unless it's limited in function somehow). I did test it with DWM-222 modem.

MTK Engineer Mode usually gets removed, which isn't surprising as it includes tools like TX-test (for both WiFi and cellular modem) and someone on XDA posted a screenshot of it having IMEI change option. Both of those are likely illegal (probably not for WiFi as that's in license-free band).

Eeeeh, some of these are far from cheap. For example, the Armor 34 Pro that I was interested in is EUR 750.
Unique hardware, that's why. Otherwise I'd have gotten Moto G54 5G. Actually, I tested both, I just liked the Armor 24 more hardware-wise.

Lots of modern electronics feels too boring as it's all the same. Phones, laptops, TVs, they especially feel like copied homework.

Yeah.
It sucks as usual manufacturers don't make such crazy devices. This thing has a 22,000mAh battery and quite strong light at the back. And yes, it's a quite heavy brick (647g or 1.43lbs).

I didn't find anything better to compare the thickness to, so here it is next to a 1RU switch and a dumphone:

They have even larger phones, but this is already a second time they've had malware, so I don't know about that...

Is there a reason you went with ulefone?

Unique hardware, and manual band selection (within MTK Engineer Mode).
For the band selection my only options are basically some manufacturer who didn't bother to remove factory test tools (rare) or a Linux phone (e.g. PostmarketOS).

There is if you use Termux (on a rooted device).

Termux has been the most important app on my phone. I just get the familiar CLI for everything. For example, MTP has been unreliable in my experience, there's probably lots of apps in Play Store to send/receive files of questionable quality.
And then with Termux I can just rsync over SSH as usual.
Or browse files with SSHFS.

This is inside the official ROM (from factory), and there's no custom ROMs.
Not their first time: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/...

There's quite a few devices like this (from other brands as wall). On a full charge with heavy use it lasts me 5 days. The capacity also checked out with a USB tester, although I only tested it during charging from something like 5%.

I could also try a discharge test, but that's going to take around 8 hours (10W max output). If you trust whoever did this test, they got 57 hours of screen on time for video streaming: https://www.devicespecifications.com/...
That has to fit somewhere.

Anyway, I got it on Alza. I wouldn't trust shops like that with anything above, say, EUR 50. Especially not Temu, though I haven't used them personally. The most expensive stuff I got on Aliexpress was around that sum. Two Heltec ESP32 boards with LoRa and RTL-SDR v3 (with the antenna kit).

I didn't say I consider either trustworthy/untrustworthy.
It's just that I don't trust the devices enough to keep working (or even do so well) to basically waive my warranty (by purchasing it from wherever they sell it).

Otherwise, it seems Unihertz has a better record (I didn't find mentions of embedded malware) than Ulefone.

If I can buy it here, I have 14 days to return it and 2 years of warranty. When I was choosing a phone, an employee of the store just told me to buy all of which I am interested in, test them, keep 1, return the rest. So I bought 3 phones and returned 2.
Not something I could do if importing a device.

option to root and/or bootloader unlock

This one wouldn't be a problem. Ulefone apparently doesn't lock it down. From unlock wall of shame: https://github.com/...

Enable OEM unlocking in settings, reboot to bootloader, fastboot flashing unlock, and that's it.
But they don't release any source code and use MediaTek, so there's no use of it. 😐

What's CDDA? I thought you were talking about listening to music (Compact Disc Digital Audio).

I don't think so. It's also responsible for system navigation. (If I force stop it 3-button nav and gestures stop working)

I daily drive the Armor 24 which is just a bit thinner. I am a man, so it does fit into most of my pockets (I hear women's clothing has chronic lack of pockets).

I am just that tiny bit of market who likes very unusual things. Unihertz also has some Blackberry-style phones (Titan series), but they don't sell around here, and it's not a brand trustworthy enough for me to import it with basically no warranty.
By the way, Unihertz seems to fund new models via Kickstarter, which I find a bit funny.

I can try to update to the latest updates and see if it's still there. Problem with these devices is the updates tend to break more things than fix. This phone got Android 15 update like half a year back and there was bunch of people reporting that the power button doesn't work to lock the phone anymore...
If yes, or should I say, me being able to detect it, I'll try to do a warranty claim.

I hate these locked down devices. I want to be able to run whatever I want like on desktops. It's a computer, dammit.

No, sorry for the confusion, I was speaking about the Motorola. I can't find anything for Ulefone.

Ah, OK.
"Full control"... nothing else than PinePhone comes to mind.
I am really looking forward to Motorola with GrapheneOS though. May there be a GrapheneOS phone with headphone jack and SD card slot.
Ultimately, this seems like a choice between hardware and software.

I really wish smartphones worked more like desktop computers. Linux will just run on most hardware, as will Windows. Whatever the manufacturer put on there, with however much bloatware (like McAfee) doesn't even matter. Just a universal installer for almost everything.
Imagine if every model of laptop and pre-built depended on the manufacturer for software support. Actually, at that point you probably wouldn't even be able to build your own PC.

In this specific case, throwing /system_ext/priv-app/PriLauncher3QuickStep/PriLauncher3QuickStep.apk at VirusTotal would light it up.
But as I found, ESET won't care about system files.
Sophos' Intercept X did find it, but I had to enable scanning of system files in settings. Though I am not sure how reliable they are for AV.
Oh, and if it finds something, it will block you from opening that app. In this case, that being main part of the UI, I couldn't access recent apps and homescreen. So for the chance it flags Settings, it would probably be good to enable ADB in advance (and trust your computer).

Edit: Sophos also mentions PriLauncher.apk. Also if it's in the firmware, you're out of luck. (And you won't know)

Yeah, DuraSpeed. That even kills alarms if you try to use them.
To be fair, so did my previous Xiaomi Poco. And my Motorola also had a ton of bugs after its very last update (which almost feels intentional).

When did I not have issues? Custom ROM. Upgrading that phone from Android 8 to Android 11 (PixelExperience) even made it miles faster. Oh, and whoever ported it to that phone also made sure to include Moto actions.
There was just one problem. Due to some incompatibility, they couldn't get encryption to work. Trying to enable it would brick the phone.

But I guess it makes sense that someone who is fueled by passion rather than money does a better job.