Is PLASMA as good on MOBILE as on the desktop? - KDE Plasma Mobile review
2,780Visit https://www.linode.com/linuxexperiment for a 100$ credit on your new Linode account!
I'm continuing my tour of the state of the various mobile versions of popular desktop environments, and it's time to take a look at Plasma Mobile, the version of KDE tailored for smartphones, and touch screens. Let's see how it's advanced and how it works
Become a channel member to get access to a weekly patroncast and vote on the next topics I'll cover:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5UAwBUum7CPN5buc-_N1Fw/join
Support the channel on Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/thelinuxexperiment
Follow me on Twitter : http://twitter.com/thelinuxEXP
My Gaming on Linux Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaw_Lz7oifDb-PZCAcZ07kw
Follow me on ODYSEE: https://odysee.com/@TheLinuxExperiment:e
Or join ODYSEE: https://odysee.com/$/invite/@TheLinuxExperiment:e
The Linux Experiment merch: get your goodies there! https://teespring.com/en-GB/stores/the-linux-experiment
## Plasma Mobile
Plasma mobile looks very similar to an android experience: you've got your shortcuts, with a favorites bar on the bottom, and wiping up opens the app drawer, with all your installed applications.
You can then long press these app icons to drag them to the main screen, and move them around, creating your own shortcut page. Creating a shortcut doesn't remove the app from the drawer, just like on Android.
The main difference seems to be that you only get one page, and you can't drag apps to the right to create another screen.
If you've used Android in the past, it's going to be a super familiar experience, down the fixed buttons at the bottom of the screen. The central one, with the plasma logo, brings you back to your home screen, hiding all open applications.
The square on the left is the multitasking button, letting you see all your applications as small cards, that you can select, or close.
Finally, the cross, on the right, is only active when you have an app opened. Tapping that will close the app completely, so it won't be in the multitasking menu anymore.
As usual on most phone operating systems, you also get a top bar with the cellar signal strength, the date, and the various connections to wifi, bluetooth, plus the battery life.
If you slide from the top to the bottom from this top bar, you get the usual quick toggles, and the notifications, just like you'd get on any other mobile OS.
You can also long press on the homescreen, to change wallpapers. You get a short list of the ones that are installed, and a the familiar "Get new..." button, that works the same as on the regular desktop version KDE plasma: it opens a library of wallpapers that you can download in one click.
You can also add widgets to your home screen, although the selection is more limited than what you get on the desktop, out of the box. Here again, you can download new ones and stick them where you want.
## Applications
Plasma mobile comes with a bunch of applications preinstalled.
You have your phone dialer, an address book, the usual calculator, a clocks app, a calendar and a beautiful weather app, a pretty nice looking audio player.
The web browser is called Angelfish, and it's alright, if not the fastest thing I've ever used.
Then you get a host of utilities: a file manager called Index, which works fine once you understand how to select items and interact with them, a video player, a PDF and document viewer, which is Okular, the same app you'll find on desktop KDE, a voice recorder, a terminal, and multiple chat apps, like Neochat, which is a matrix client, Spacebar, the SMS client that I couldn't get to start a new conversation, and telegram.
You also have Koko, the image viewer, Megapixels, the camera app, Nota and Buho, 2 note taking applications, and Psensor, a temperature monitor.
## Discover
Now, of course, there is a way to get more apps onto the phone, using Discover, Plasma's app store.
The app itself works really well on mobile, with an adapted user interface. it lets you download updates to your applications and your whole system, and search for new applications, or add-ons.
Unfortunately, the same issue applies here as on Phosh, which is there is no way to know if an app will work well on smartphones, or not.
The app pages on Discover also lack some information: you don't get mobile screenshots, even from apps that support the mobile form factor, and you don't get any version history that I could find.
## Settings
Now, any tour of a KDE Plasma desktop wouldn't be complete without a tour of the settings, and there are a few to look at.
You get the aforementioned online accounts, letting you configure for example a Google or Nextcloud account easily, and the usual audio, bluetooth, cellular and hotspots settings, but you also get tons of personalisation options, including the colors of the interface, the icons, and the plasma style.
You can also extensively configure the keyboard.