You're exactly right. NSA/CIA arbitration is nasty, and Jolla would never put their limited weight behind it.

I use it as my only phone, and I manage about a week of battery on it in good coverage areas. The English keyboard works great, symbols and input are as expected. Text prediction works as expected, I haven't had any issues with it trying to use British predictions instead of American. Maps are just fine (especially if you still use the old maps rpm from the Jolla 1), GPS lock is near-instant, weather updates accordingly. Only major cities listed for timezones, but shouldn't matter as long as you know your GMT offset. OS updates don't need a VPN - though they do seem to be ratelimited or throttled when using a US connection. I often fire up a Finland VPN before pulling updates because it just goes so much faster. Let me know if there are any other use cases you're concerned with, and I'll be glad to check them out and report back.

Thanks for all the replies! Yes, I guess the keyboard question was dumb. Must have been thinking of physical keyboards that choose between the US dollar, pound, euro, etc. Thanks for the VPN tip. It's an odd arrangement, but when downloading hundreds of MB's every little bit helps.

I have a few other questions, but not related to locale, so will consider starting another thread.

I'm a long time Anglophile, so no need to translate.

Does anyone have more recent experience with flashing sailfish to a sony? I want to do so, probably with a Xperia xa2. Has anyone built one with the X beta version. Are there instructions as straightforward as they claim? I am looking for any help or advice on how to get a clean build. Thanks

I noticed a few people in this thread are in the Chicago area. I am also near Chicago, Northwest burbs. And I am looking for help or getting together with someone to flash Sailfish on to my Moto Z Play.
I know nothing about flashing firmware on to a phone, but in the past I have installed custom Linux firmware on to Linksys wireless routers.
If interested for a possible meetup please private message me.
Thank you and I am sorry for going off topic.

Would like to know this as well! I thought about buying a Xperia X on eBay, but I heard that you have to pay Jolla for the Sailfish OS. I do not know if that is true or not.

You only need to pay Jolla if you want the official version, the main benefits of which are the android compatibility, the predictive text input, and (I think) some MS exchange stuff.