Debian doesn't care, but the programs are generally developed for a laptop or desktop sized screen. Let's say 10" and above. My guess is UI and UX will not be smooth or really all that usable. Touchscreen for a PC-like UI on a screen that small? Can't imagine it would be nice.

I'd honestly love it to be fantastic, it would be great to see. But I think it being a "Just Works" device is unlikely.

And on Sailfish, length of development time is slightly irrelevant. If there's not many people using it then it's unlikely to progress and improve. I realise mass market OSes are dumbed down somewhat, but I doubt a no market OS will be so great.

It feels like you're inventing problems based on misconceptions about what you think I want.

I would get one of these devices even without touchscreen functionality.

Anything that doesn't work close enough to the way I want, I'll replace and/or fix.

You'll replace and/or fix hardware issues?

Fair enough, I'm probably making up my own use scenario here.
What would be your use scenario for it? Genuinely curious as to what you'd use it for and how much use you'd get out of it. Especially when primarily using a full OS.

I really liked my past keyboard smartphones, I think I've owned 3. With one probably still being the favourite phone I've ever owned - Sony Ericsson Xperia X1.

When I had my G1, I would easily jot down things when they occurred to me, and could admin servers without half the screen being obscured - I can't do those with current devices.

What I've never been able to do is quickly prototype ideas to check their feasibility, or simply run scripts and applications written in any language I wanted.

I noticed that Planet Computers (the company behind the Gemini/Cosmo) are planning a 5G slider device for next year - likely to be popular amongst people who don't like clamshell but still want a keyboard...

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/astro-slide-5g-transformer

 :-|

Another with 5 rows

https://linuxgizmos.com/privacy-focused-smartphone-runs-lineageos-or-ubuntu-touch/

Indiegogo. Hmmm.

Got one of those dumb arse curved edge screens though. :&

Still nice to see the successful proliferation of these devices, proving there is a market for them.