I have ordered a phone with an eSim this week and I have been reading a bit into it.
As far as I know so far, you just have to download an app and you can just book some extra data as needed - it seems especially cool because you can just book a local plan when you're abroad instead of getting a local sim card. Which can be more or less a hassle - 2019 I went to South Africa where it was pretty easy to get a sim card at the airport, 2018 I went to India, where it was a hassle.
I guess for people in the US this is not a problem? Some of my friends have global contracts, and I had that too when I was there via googles project fi. We don't really have an equivalent in Germany

I found the following pages in case anyone also wants to look into it
https://esimdb.com/ - this is an overview page about different esims
https://www.airalo.com/ - this is one specific offer that seems to be the cheapest for Germany, which is where I would try it, since I live here haha

Some more info about the PinePhone

Pre-order page on the Pine Store

The early adopter edition of the PinePhone is now available for pre-order. This batch is 3000 units, from what I know ~1000 are already sold. These units are currently being produced, and are planned to ship in December/January. Mass production of the consumer edition of the phone is planned to begin in March 2020.

I just pre-ordered mine, is anyone else getting one? Any thoughts on the state of Linux smartphones, whether it's the PinePhone, Librem 5, or something else?

Currently I have the Moto G5 Plus that I purchased a little over two years ago for $200. For the most part, it has been a good phone as the gestures to turn the flash light on, turn the camera on, and use the finger print sensor as a swipeable button, has had me pretty satisfied. This was a lower middle range phone when I purchased it so it has lately started chugging even doing basic tasks like internet browsing. Couple that with the battery dying pretty quickly, and battery saver making the phone even slower, and now I am in the market to buy a new phone. Right now I am looking at the OnePlus 7t but the price looks pretty hefty to me at $599. I could make payments but in general I don't like going into debt for small purchases. I'm curious if anyone went from low-tier phone to mid-tier or higher and if you felt the purchase was worth it?

Some other general questions:

• What is your phone?
• Did you finance it?
• Are you looking to upgrade?
• What features are the most important to you?

So I kind of want to try the Nokia 8110, it's a feature phone with an app store that contains it's own version of Google Maps and Assistant. I use my phone an awful lot, and I'm thinking that a less capable phone would be helpful in using my phone less for browsing the internet, news, and discourse and using it more for what I would want to do with it, calls, texts, navigation, music and podcasts.

Unfortunately, the Nokia 8110 is only available on AT&T in the States, and they stink, so I was wondering if anyone had any picks for devices that would scratch that itch, specialized apps, or other tools that could be used. I like the idea of another device that I could use as a daily driver so I can put some physical distance between myself and my current phone, but if you have an app or a system that you swear by, I'm down for it.

Also kind of interested in maybe combining the ZeroPhone Raspberry Pi with support for Alexa or Google Assistant, but that seems like a time waster and a half.

I'm gonna have to buy a new smartphone soon, but I want to be able to keep that as long as possible. From my viewpoint, there are mainly three aspects to that: performance, software and battery lifespan/replaceability.
Do you have any recommendations (what I was originally hoping for - but didn't find - is a mid to high range phone with a maintained lineageos build and a replaceable battery)? And what are your ways to handle the problem of the user experience on smartphones degrading so quickly?

For the past five or so years I've been using prepaid mvno carriers (in the us btw) and buying my own phone. It's somewhat of a frustrating experience trying to figure out which phones will actually work with which carrier. There's a lot of very attractivly priced phones from Chinese companies that unfortunately just don't support the u.s. LTE bands that i need. Im not really the kind of person who wants to buy a $600+ flagship and carrier offerings are generally abysmal and overpriced.
I also don't feel like I have very many options for carriers as I Live in a fairly rural area where t-mobile gets fairly spotty coverage. I have seen compelling options for Verizon if I wanted 4+ lines (it's only me and the wife right now, so that doesn't help us much) .
I'm definitely jealous of people in Europe and parts of Asia when it comes to cellphone and internet options.