I'm afraid I'm in the same boat. None of the devices I have "pre-ordered" have ever ended up in my hands. Here's the sad truth: a group of friends cannot raise some money and make a decent cell phone on their own. The way forward, in my opinion, is to get a full GNU/linux userland running atop Android. Think of Android as a fancy BIOS.

full GNU/linux userland running atop Android...

"if" it ever happens...
"if" it ever becomes truly viable...
"if" it doesn't end up being a "one-off" due to Android liking to change things ...making any possible working model ...useless...(more likely a scenario)

then sure... I would definitely consider an Android phone ...purely for the ability to subvert it...and use linux.

but as you have mentioned x11 being a presiding issue...
I doubt it will materialize..
perhaps in the future ...something will come about.

the 4 biggies are that
Android uses a hard modified version of the Linux Kernel
Android uses BIONIC as it's Standard C Library instead of GlibC
Android doesn't include the GNU coreutils
android-eabi is different from the gnu-eabi

conquering these issues is very unlikely..
wiggling around these issues (more likely) would have to happen.

currently ..just having a bare bones terminal to tinker in...on an android phone..
isn't enough for me to even consider it as a daily use alternative.

A single device that is both linux comp and phone is ultimately what I desire..
I can tolerate for the time being needing an android phone purely for calls and telegram and translate..
(shortly when she arrives ..haven't seen her in a year now...and she is due to arrive on the 3rd of October.. I will be edifying my girl on the use of irc ...and it's inherent translating abilities...then will be introducing her to a N.I.T. ...and that then negates for a time...staves off the need... to use a damn android phone...)
and use my N.I.T.'s for proper usage...

2 devices isn't my preference...
especially one of them being android.
that will shortly be temporarily remedied...concerning android.
then it will be using my n900's until the zerophone is out.

For me ...
If it must be 2 devices I carry ..
supported and current is the only option for the investment of time effort and money...
Switching to the pi phone and migrating to a franken-pi for my mobile work, puttering and fun is a better alternative for me...
than now ...just tolerable..aging ...n900 and lugging about a laptop for convenient browsing..
or the intolerable android and a laptop...

eventually (and not too far off... I would imagine) I will only need 1 pi device for my needs ...the headway the pi has made over the years is impressive...and I expect it to only improve..

That's basically what libhybris does!

Slightly offtopic: Does anyone here have contact to the guys from 51nb?

Im looking for a ips mod kit for a Thinkpad t420, to have a handheld-ish device with a non crappy screen...

I realize that "f*ck google" is one of the tags for this thread, but I'm going to risk having my head bitten off, and being drummed out of this community. I am going to claim that the best handheld gnu/linux machine for 2017 and the foreseeable future is an Android phone running Termux. Termux allows you to run gnu/linux applications, on an unrooted Android phone, compiled for 64 bit arm. Termux is open source, with an active community. I can run Python 3.6, iPython, sympy, numpy, scipy and astropy. I run it on recent hardware (a Pixel XL), and when that machine is obsolete, it'll be trivial to get newer hardware. If I cared about Google's collection of my data (which I don't), I could just create a throw-away gmail account for it under a phony (no pun intended!) name, and leave it in airplane mode all the time. If I cared about a hardware keyboard, I could run it on a Blackberry phone, or some other Android phone with a keyboard. What currently available handheld gnu/linux machine is better than this?

Agreed.

termux is good.
definitely a step in the right direction.
I would like a bit more than terminal though..
even a primitive gui would be nice.
that is the only thing stopping me from using termux all the time.

I completely agree about the gui. But maybe folks like us should join the group maintaining Termux, and try to put together a gui for it.

good idea.
personally I don't know where to start with android ...
I use a POS for basics...
but frankly have avoided at all cost doing any development or study of anything past linux or maemo....
so I am not sure what exact needed droid knowledge would be necessary...

Is TMO dead?

No, not dead, yet....

But in it's twilight years, most certainly. It's Darwinian. Sadly.

HA