[lukifer]

I've been pretty unimpressed with the build quality and general aesthetic of the majority of Android smartphones. (I'm not anticipating Ubuntu on iPhone will ever be a viable option.) The Edge looks good, and (hopefully) will feel good in hand.

The buttonless interface is also significant: every other phone has physical and/or touch buttons below, which would be superfluous. Ubuntu phones are meant to be oriented around edge swipes as virtual "buttons", with the few actual buttons being only on the top and sides.

The project is most certainly a gamble, both for buyers and Canonical. But I think it's a worthwhile one for both parties. Note that their goal is to release a new "concept phone" once per year; they clearly want to turn mobile hardware into a core competency, even if they're bound to have a hard time keeping up with Samsung and Apple.

[eterm]

Touch volume buttons are very very useful, the ability to control volume just by feel is something that should not be dismissed for the sake of a misguided minimalism.

A physical "home" button is also useful for when a phone starts to hang/go slow. If pressing the physical button has no effect then you press the physical on/off button, if that has no effect you power cycle the phone.

If those first steps are software interrupts you cannot trust them when software starts to hang, so the only satisfactory option is to powercycle, which is less useful than being able to just get back to a home screen where the phone can better recover from whatever was causing the hanging.

[lukifer]

The Edge has physical volume buttons on the side. We'll see if the lack of a Home button ends up affecting the UX or not; it depends on the responsiveness and resiliency of the OS.

[ErrantX]

I've been a die hard iPhone fan for many years, but recently switched to the HTC One. Blown away by the build quality and feel - it is a major step up from the iPhone 5.

Ubuntu on the HTC One would be very interesting!

[kayoone]

They are getting better though. HTC One, Moto X, Xperia Z all are very well built and on par with the iphone. I love the aesthetics of my HTC One and many people i show it too (including iphone users) think the same.

[TheLegace]

I love the HTC One, but sadly it's not available for my network(T-mobile equivalent of Canada). So I am really pissed of at these companies for making identical phones and two versions.

I mean the phone costs upwards of $600 and they are going to make two almost identical versions of the same fucking phone. Doesn't that have anything to do with how much it costs.

I am settling with Nexus 4 primarily because I will be able to at least run Ubuntu on it and leave Android just because everything about the platform is garbage. From the development environment, to the UX, to involvement in community, to all the shady things vendors are pulling(I'm looking at you Qualcomm), and especially now it's got backdoors in it for sure.

I swear if there is one thing I want to do with the rest of my life it's start developing tech to tear down the Berlin wall of technology that these vendors have.

They have been holding back innovation since their inception. Restricting our choices because supposedly they know better.